50 k for a 2 bed room terraced house ?

nzhang6666

Came across this:
54 k for a 2 bed terraced house in Lancaster area, category 1 (free hold or 999 years). Seems a lot lower than UK average? Guaranteed 7% rent for 2 years. Too good to be true?
I can't post link as a new user, the company is findukproperty, you can easily google it.
I am based in London and that sort of money can only pay for initial payment for a buy to let in London. I am no business man but happen to have that money on hand and looking for an opportunity to not to keep the money in the bloody saving account. Anything I should be aware of?

Guest101

I live in Lancaster, which area or street is it, I can give you some hints and tips.


Edit: For a nice 2 bed house, where you can rent to a young couple or a pair of young professionals, you should be looking to purchase at the 100-120k mark (or more for centrally located flats).


So I suspect the house will be in the ryelands area (the rough part of town)


Or towards Morecambe - which is run down.

lisa110rry

Should think you have a reasonable chance of keeping a house like that let in future, there being a university in Lancaster and, if my experience of working for it from 1992-1997 still holds true, there is less uni housing than student need for same. As Guest says, which road is it on?

Guest101

lisa110rry wrote: »

Should think you have a reasonable chance of keeping a house like that let in future, there being a university in Lancaster and, if my experience of working for it from 1992-1997 still holds true, there is less uni housing than student need for same. As Guest says, which road is it on?

Hello old Lancastrian!


Unfortunately these days student housing is very much in surplus.


There's now 2 universities, but Lancaster Uni has developed (and continues annually) much more on campus accommodation.


Combined with a number of housing developments which offer FTBs more choice, LLs have turned their nest eggs into student housing. It's common now for LLs to be advertising full properties (not just the odd room as can be expected sometimes) even this late into the academic year.


A lot are forced to accept benefits tenants, and then struggle to evict in time for the fresh intake in Sept/Oct.

Doozergirl

I have a house like this, not far away.

Cheap housing is in run down areas and the quality of tenant isn't generally high.

7% isn't acheivable when tenants don't pay the rent, trash the house and steal your appliances

I had a crap tenant, then lovely tenant for around four years, then an even more crap tenant, now a lovely one again, but the last crap one has cost me the equivalent of year's worth of rent and gets to pay me £10 a month.

I saved up last year's £10 cheques and cashed them all at the beginning of January.

Overall, it's okay if you have spare cash to subsidise when necessary, but don't expect an easy ride, especially from a four and ahalf hour drive away. Maintenance is important and a letting agent will not cut it when it comes to caring properly for it

AlexMac

So-
- an 'investment company' which no-one's ever heard of, with a website which looks to have been knocked up in someone's bedroom, http://www.findukproperty.com/about-us.php

-based in the Russian federation... http://www.scamadviser.com/is-findukproperty.com-a-fake-site.html

-which rambles on about how good they are but lists hardly any property for sale, and

- no sign of the Lancaster property you mention on the usual sites such as Rightmove or Zoopla...?

What's not to like? (PS- if you have a spare £50k burning a hole in your pocket I'm sure there are lots of people out there who will help you look after it!)

Guest101

AlexMac wrote: »

So-
- an 'investment company' which no-one's ever heard of, with a website which looks to have been knocked up in someone's bedroom, http://www.findukproperty.com/about-us.php

-based in the Russian federation... http://www.scamadviser.com/is-findukproperty.com-a-fake-site.html

-which rambles on about how good they are but lists hardly any property for sale, and

- no sign of the Lancaster property you mention on the usual sites such as Rightmove or Zoopla...?

What's not to like? (PS- if you have a spare £50k burning a hole in your pocket I'm sure there are lots of people out there who will help you look after it!)

You're not suggesting my countrymen might be wanting to scam the great british public are you?!...

Doozergirl

Oh, lol. Didn't even read the scammy company bit. If you want a £50k house, go and buy one through a normal estate agent, there are plenty!!

sgun

There are many, many areas in the UK where you can get a 2 bed terrace for £54k or less. And your tenants may well reflect the area that it will be situated in. A friend in Ipswich recently had £4000 of repairs to make and had to evict (a long process with no rent being paid as tenants wanted to be made homeless).


Another friend up here in the NE has had an 8 month void as he could not get rid of fleas despite having a no pets rule. He found out that tenant had moved out from a conversation in the pub rather than the tenant being honest and speaking to him (to be fair, I think she was really embarrassed but that didn't solve his flea problem).


Only take on a rental like this if you really know what you are doing, it can be a real financial drain otherwise.

nzhang6666

Guest101 wrote: »

I live in Lancaster, which area or street is it, I can give you some hints and tips.

This is from the email the agent sent to me:

Location

All of our 2-Bed Type 2A-S category of houses are near

town centres of the Lancashire towns located along the

M65 Motorway. These houses are in popular high rental

demand areas and are very similar in layout, and are

renovated to similar high standards.

Guest101

nzhang6666 wrote: »

This is from the email the agent sent to me:

Location

All of our 2-Bed Type 2A-S category of houses are near

town centres of the Lancashire towns located along the

M65 Motorway. These houses are in popular high rental

demand areas and are very similar in layout, and are

renovated to similar high standards.

Unfortunately Lancaster is no where near the M65, this will be Burnley likely. Which has nice areas, but is generally a bit run down.