Selsey Avenue, Martello Bay - 6.3% return

Omega have listed this purpose built double bedroom ground floor apartment situated within a seafront block on the popular Martello Bay development. Benefits include partial sea views, allocated parking and security intercom entry system. 

A popular location, properties like this achieve a rental in the region of £525 PCM, therefore based at £99,995 purchase price this property would return 6.3%!

For further information, click the following link!

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-56518661.html

Melton Close - 7.6 - 7.9% Return!

This two bedroom apartment has been listed in Melton Close with Stoneridge Estate Agents for £89,995 and with a potential yield return of 7.6 - 7.9%, this property shouldn't be missed!

Situated on the outskirts of Clacton on Sea, the property benefits from a modern fitted kitchen, gas heating, private rear garden and is being offered with no onward chain!

Properties like this offered in good order, generally achieve a rental of £575 - £595 PCM, therefore based at £89,995 purchase price this property would return 7.6 - 7.9% yield!

For further information, click the following link!

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-40211694.html

Clacton Buy to Let sees returns of 14.61% in 2015

Well as 2016 is well into full swing, I remember a few days before Christmas, I got chatting with one of my out of town landlords who was back in Clacton visiting his family. Brought up in Clacton, he went to Colchester School for Boys back in the 1970's and is now a university Lecturer in central London. To enhance his retirement, he has a small portfolio of four properties in the town and wanted my advice on where to buy the next property in Clacton.

Before I could advise him, I reminded him that the most important thing when considering investing in property is finding a Clacton property with decent rental yields for income returns, yet at the same time, it must have the potential for capital growth from rising house prices over time. Going into 2016, Clacton landlords will be under more pressure to find the best permutation of yields and capital growth, as extra stamp duty charges for buying properties and squeeze on mortgage interest relief will raise their costs.

However, (you knew there would be a however) before we look at yield and capital growth, one important consideration that often many landlords tend to overlook, is the propensity of how likely the rent will increase. Interestingly, the average rent of a Clacton property currently stands at £657 per month, which is a rise of 1.4% compared to twelve months ago (although it must be noted this rise in rents is for new tenancies and not existing tenants).

Anyway, back to yield and capital growth, the average value of a Clacton property currently stands at £193,800, meaning the average yield stands at 4.07% per annum, which on the face of it, many landlords would find disappointing. That is the problem with averages, so if I were to look at say 2 bed houses in Clacton which are the sort of properties a lot of landlords buy, in Clacton, the average value of a 2 bed house is £133,800, whilst the average rent for a 2 bed house is £692 per month, giving a yield o 6.21%. However, if that wasn't high enough, there are landlords in Clacton who own some specialist properties with specialist tenancies, that are achieving nearly double that yield - again it comes down to your attitude and risk and reward (give me a call if you wanted a chat about those sorts of properties - although they can be fun and games!)

Ultimately investors want to be making gains from both rent and house price growth. When combined, the rental yield and capital growth give you the return on investment, and that is what I told our University friend. Return on investment is everything. So, looking at property values in Clacton have risen in the last year by 8.4% ... which means the currently annual return on investment in Clacton for a typical 2 bed house is 14.61% a year.... not bad!

Whether you are a soon to be new landlord or existing seasoned landlord in Clacton, you might be interested in a blog about the Clacton Property Market... the web address is www.clactonproperty,blogspot.co.uk and to answer the question on what he should buy, well on the same blog once or twice a week, I post what I consider to be the best buy to let deals in Clacton, irrespective of which agent it is being marketed with. Maybe you should visit the blog as well? 

Two bedroom apartment located on Cann Hall

This two bedroom apartment have come to market in Merstham Drive for £99,995 and would make a perfect investment!

Located on the popular development of Cann Hall, which is located to the outskirts of Clacton, this property is in a prime position for A133 access to Colchester and beyond but still within close reach of Clacton town centre and railway station, being only located 1.3 miles away.

The property offers lounge, kitchen, bathroom, two bedrooms, use of communal gardens to the rear and a garage!

This property would achieve a rental of £575 PCM, therefore based on full asking price this property would return 6.9%!

For further information, click the following link.

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-57887132.html

Clacton Landlords count the cost of a Tory Election win

Can you remember 10.05pm on Thursday, 7^th May 2015 ... with the shock news that BBC Exit Polls suggested the Conservatives would be returned with majority? The middle classes in First Avenue exhaled a huge sigh of relief, as Clacton landlords, faced with rent controls from Red Ed and the Labour Party, now had something to cheer about as the Tory’s were always considered to be a political party that accepted the importance of the rental market, supported its development while properly targeting the lawbreaker landlords renting out below standard rental accommodation.

Since May though, George Osborne announced future rises in stamp duty for buy to let landlords and a change in the interest relief on buy to let mortgages, some people have started to question that loyalty. However, things could have been a lot worse for Clacton landlords as previous ideas of making landlord’s pay more tax was the idea (which was seriously considered) of increasing Capital Gains Tax rates to the landlord’s own income tax levels. If Landlords would have had to pay capital gains tax of 40% to 45% on any uplift in value, I can tell you here and now, that would have made investing in property a non starter for almost everyone.

However, I will admit the loss of mortgage higher rate tax relief will make a number of properties not stack up financially. The new rules are likely to slow demand in the Clacton housing market, which is in fact good news for the other landlords, as there is less competition from 'amateur' landlords offering too much.

Just a thought, but making Clacton landlords think twice and

run their numbers more cautiously is not such a bad thing.

So looking at the numbers, the November figures have just been released and they show a growth of property values in Clacton of 0.6% over the month of November. That figure doesn’t surprise me due to the time of year. It’s quite dangerous to look at one month in isolation, so looking at a more medium term view, over the last 12 months, property values in Clacton have risen by 8.4%, not bad when you consider inflation is running at -0.1%.

However, regular readers of the Clacton Property Blog know my passion for looking deeper into the stats. The really interesting information is the value growth, but what types of property are actually selling in Clacton?  Looking at all the properties sold, as recorded by the Land Registry, within 3 miles of the centre of Clacton in September 2015 (this data always runs a couple of months behind the house price data) compared to September 2007 (a couple of months before the credit crunch started to bite and the subsequent property crash).

	Sept 2007	Sept 2015	Difference
Detached in Clacton	60	47	-22%
Semis in Clacton	51	31	-39%
Terraced Houses in Clacton	12	15	+25%
Apartments / Flats in Clacton	35	24	-31%

Now I have mentioned in previous articles that the numbers of properties selling in the town has certainly dropped post 2008, but what amazed me were the drop in the number of detached, semis and apartments selling in Clacton compared to the sales terraced properties.

Less properties are selling than last decade in Clacton

and the types of properties selling have changed ...

interesting times ahead for the Clacton Property market!

Therefore, all I can say to the landlords of Clacton is do your homework, make sure the numbers do stack up, take advice and opinion from professionals and above all, for those of you planning to add to your portfolio, buy the right property at the right price. One place for such advice and opinion on the Clacton Property market is the Clacton Property Blog www.clactonproperty.blogspot.co.uk

Family home in Salvia Close

We have just added this three bedroom terraced house has come to market for £150,000 in Salvia Close, Clacton.

Located on the popular 'Ruaton Gardens' development, this property is situated within 0.3 miles for St Clare's primary school and Clacton Coastal Academy. This property would make an ideal family home.

This property would achieve a rental in the region of £750 PCM, therefore based on full asking price this property would return 6%!

For further information, click the following link.

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-57866195.html

Where will Clacton Property Prices be by 2021?

I was having lunch the other day at Armstrong’s Restaurant, Marine Parade East, in Clacton, with a local Clacton solicitor friend of mine, when the subject of property came up. He asked me my thoughts on the Clacton property market for the next five years. Property prices are both a British national obsession and a key driver of the British consumer economy. So what will happen next in the property market? So here is what I told him, and now wish, my blog reading friends, to share with you.

Before I can predict what will happen over the next five years to Clacton house prices, firstly I need to look at what has happen over the last five years.  One of the key drivers of the housing market and property values is unemployment (or lack of it), as that drives confidence and wage growth – key factors to whether people buy their first house, existing homeowners move up the property ladder and even buy to let landlords have an appetite to continue purchasing buy to let property.

When the Tory’s came to power in May 2010, the total number of people who were unemployed in City stood at 2,373 (or 7.3% of the working age population in Clacton parliamentary constituency). Last month, this had dropped to 1,406 people (or 4.4% of the working age population).

As the Clacton job market has improved with better job prospects, salaries are rising too, growing at their highest level since 2009, at 3.4% per year in the private sector (as recently reported by the ONS).  That is why, even with the turbulence of the last few years, property values in the Clacton area are 20.62% higher today than they were five years ago.

Many home occupiers have held back moving house over the past seven to eight years following the Credit Crunch but with the outlook more optimistic, I expect at least some to seize the opportunity to move home, releasing pent up demand as well as putting more stock onto the market. With a more stable economy in the City, this will, I believe, drive a slow but clearly defined five year wave of activity in home sales and continued house price growth in Clacton.

I forecast that the value of the average home

in Clacton will increase by 19.8% by 2021

19.8% might sound optimistic to some, but according to Land Registry, values are currently rising in Clacton at 7.9% year on year, I believe my forecast to be fair, reasonable and a reflection of both positive (and negative) aspects of the local property market and wider UK economy as whole.

However, it wouldn’t be correct not to mention those potential negative issues as I do have some slight concerns about the future of Clacton housing market.  The number of properties for sale in Clacton is lower than it was five years ago, restricting choice for buyers (yet the other side of the coin is that that keeps prices higher). Interest rates were being predicted to rise around Easter 2016, but now I think it will be nearer Christmas 2016 and finally the new buy to let taxation rules which are being introduced between 2017 and 2021 (although choosing the right sort of property / portfolio mix in Clacton will, I believe, mitigate those issues with the next taxation rules).

I am telling the landlords I speak to, that with interest rates at their current level 0.5%, the cash in your Building Society Passbook is going to grow so slowly that it might as well be kept under their bed. Property prices, by contrast, have rocketed over the years, even after the property crashes, far outstripping bank accounts and inflation.

So my final thought ...  property is a long term investment, it has its’ up and downs, but it has always outperformed, in the long term, most investments. Those in their 40’s and 50’s in Clacton would be mad not to include property in their long term financial calculations. Just make sure you buy the right property, at the price in the right location. One source of information on such matters would be the Clacton Property Blog www.clactonproperty.blogspot.co.uk

Clacton Landlords could be fined £57,000 per year

“Who would want to move to Clacton in weather like this?”, was what one landlord said to me as we shook hands outside his property, the other afternoon. It was windy, cold, it had been raining most of the day and it was the last appointment of the day at 4.45pm. I will admit, as I had been out of the office all day, I was looking forward to getting home, putting the fire on, and watching telly with a big mug of tea.. but this landlord lived in neighbouring Colchester and this was the earliest he could do. 

It turned out he had been self-managing the property himself over the last few years, but was worried with all the new legislation that had been introduced recently. He was particularly concerned about the up and coming ‘Right to Rent’ legislation, so as his tenant had handed in their notice recently, on this new tenancy he called us for our opinion.

For those Clacton landlords that don’t know, landlords will need to check the immigration status of any new tenants moving into properties from February 2016 or face a £3,000 fine. It is called the 'Right to Rent' rules. However, tenants should also be aware that as well as traditional landlords, tenants who sub let rooms and homeowners who take in lodgers, must also check the right of prospective tenants to reside in the UK.

Our landlord from Colchester wanted to know how much of a real issue was ‘Right to Rent’ in Clacton. I was able to tell him, the last available figures (from a couple of years ago) show that 19 people (whom were registered as Non-UK Born Short-term Residents) moved into private rented accommodation in the Tendring District Council area in one year alone. If all of those people weren't supposed to be in the UK, that would be a fine of £57,000 to the landlords of the town.

It doesn't sound a lot when you think there are 50,548 residents in Clacton, and of those, 48,245 people (or 95.44%) were born in the UK. But Clacton is a cosmopolitan town as the country of birth of the residents in Clacton can be split down as follows:

• UK                                          95.44%
• Ireland                                    0.91%
• Europe                                    1.81%
• Africa                                      0.53%
• Middle East and Asia                0.91%
• Americas and Caribbean          0.28%
• Australia and Pacific region     0.09%

However, it must also be recognised that landlords, by checking up on tenants, could potentially be accused of discrimination under the Equality Act. This is a real minefield for landlords, especially when you consider that not all of the 914 Europeans in the area necessarily have the right to live in the UK either.

In a nutshell, Clacton landlords will need to check and retain copies of certain documents that show a potential tenant has the right to live in the UK. These include...

• UK Passport
• EEA Passport/Identity card
• Travel document or Permanent Residence Card showing indefinite leave to remain
• Paperwork from Home Office stating their Immigration status
• Certificate of registration or naturalisation as a British citizen.

I hope the new law will target dishonest landlords who repeatedly fail to carry out Right to Rent checks by making it a criminal offence. This means they could face imprisonment for failing to check on their tenants. That is why more and more landlords are asking agents to manage their properties, so they can stay the right side of the law.

So what did our landlord do?

Well after our chat, he asked us to find a tenant and manage the property for him - he had been reading the Clacton Property Blog for a while and because of the knowledge we impart to the landlords of Clacton, we obviously know what we are talking about.  Even better news for him, even though this would cost him agency fees, I was able to get him an additional £55 per month for his property (when we found him a tenant one week later). Now, together with the peace of mind we will keep him the right side of the law and put a stop to midnight phone calls complaining about dripping taps, it was a win-win situation for everyone.

Holland Road - One Bedroom apartment

John V Story have added this one bedroom ground floor apartment located in Holland Road, Holland on Sea for £85,000. 

Located in this small block is situated just off the main Holland road being in close proximity to local general store and bus service that connects into Clacton and Holland on Sea both giving a wider choice of shops and facilities. Within a mile Clacton's seafront and open beaches can be found for a good walk.

A popular location, this property would achieve a rental income of £500 PCM, therefore would return 7% yield!

For further information and images, click the following link.

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-57582545.html