London Buy-to-let

chuan

Need help, I want to buy my first property to Let.

Is this a good time (when is a good time?), a good idea and good way to invest?
Should I pay cash or get a mortgage?
Is London the best place to buy at the moment?
If so which part of London?

:rotfl:

mostlycheerful

Is this a good time
Yes, any time is a good time, despite the current difficulties and pitfalls. There are always loads of people needing to rent, currently 32% of the population in UK, so any time is a good time, whatever’s happening to the property market and the economy.

(when is a good time?)
Now, or later, or yesterday. It’s always a very doable thing.

a good idea and good way to invest?
Yes, unless you understand the market or fancy a punt in shares, gold, other precious metals, diamonds and gems, futures, commodities, consumables, wine, art, antiques, classic cars, coins, stamps, rare books, rare records, memorabilia, land, farming, manufacturing, breweries, time share, start up hi tech companies, science, pharmaceuticals, race horses, yachts, and any of the myriad things that people invest in that consistently show good returns and can often out perform property.

Should I pay cash or get a mortgage?
Depends. If your cash is already in high yield investments then no. If it’s not doing anything at the moment and you don’t fancy a punt in any of the other thousands of investment fields available then property and rental’s not necessarily any worse than the others. You’re implying that you’ve got cash (unless this is just a flippant question or you’re a journalist writing a piece etc) so you could get a mortgage and then you’ve got a bigger portfolio to play with. As you probably know, mortgages are currently 1-7% and landlords generally aim to get 8-10-12-15% yield if possible so if you get it right and don’t come a cropper then it’s free money for little or no effort and you can make a fortune. Beats working!

Is London the best place to buy at the moment?
Yes and no. Best cos it’s the top city in the top country of the world and will be the last one standing when all the others collapse and turn to dust. No, cos as it’s so popular it’s therefore the most expensive and so the hardest to afford and make a go of so you might well do better in Essex or Manchester or Glasgow or even Blackpool or Burnley if you have a limited budget. Don’t bother with villages and the countryside, aka the wasteland between cities as my dear dad used to call it, and places with no train or bus or just one bus a day as these are all pretty dead at the moment and even at the best of times they’re generally a lot slower and harder than cities and towns. Another thing to consider is that whereas 3 beds in London are mostly £150-300k and rents for single rooms are £60-90 interestingly although property is a lot cheaper elsewhere the rents are still about the same so for BTL oop norf where the property is cheap to buy probably makes a lot more sense than in the expensive south.

If so which part of London?
The most expensive that you can afford. Cheapest is Dagenham and areas around that, the best, of course, are Mayfair, Kensington, Notting Hill, Belsize Park etc if you’ve got a mil or two in your bins to play with. The more expensive it is the more the desirable the area and so the higher the quality everything is, particularly the rents and the tenants. If you do it in the la la locations with la la property and la la people then expect la la results.

Three and four bed family houses in good areas are the best as they are relatively speaking always saleable and hold their value the best. One bed flats are pretty much dead at the moment in a lot of parts of the country.

Hope this helps, good luck, let us know if you are actually doing anything about this or whether your questions are for other reasons (eg having a larf?).

cashbackproblems

Completely agree with most of what it said above!!

If your planning to rent it out long term you wont be affected by short term price movements and in London with so mcuh demand there will never be any major crash in prices, plus with so many ppl moving here for work the rental market is very sought after and competitive so you will never struggle to find tenants. Also with rates rock bottom, try and fix it for 3/4yrs and u'll be laughing Trust me i recently looked for a rental room and know how hard it was!!

Main thing is to try buying somewhere withint 30-40minutes to central, walking distance to a tube station and a safe area.

Affordable/decent areas i would look at are Harrow, Hendon, Stanmore and zone 3/4/5 around North London, also South London is cheap but i dont know this area tht well.