is there any point in buying property in rubish areas?

lush_walrus

There are so many areas of London that are set to change in coming years. Some less obvious than others, I doubt you will get the answer on here as anyone investing will be keeping their mouths shut. Regeneration is sprung from many things, people being out priced from one area and pushed to the next is an obvious one that leads to gentrification. Transport and easier journeys is the other obvious one. But major changes to something off putting is a generator - Old Oak Common was worth a punt a couple of years ago, masses of land banks are being sold off, arguably still is. Changes to Heathrow flight routes have been happening, that's positively affected some areas of London and dropped the prices in others. Sewage plant changes. Areas marked as being less polluted are good locations to invest in family housing.

There are always areas changing in value one way or the other. There are plenty of places in London now which have planned investment or low key limiting factors being removed that will change in the next 10 years.

economic

but how much of that is priced in already?

lush_walrus

It depends on how public the alterations are, Tottenham football clubs new stadium and residential developments around the new stadium for example has been discussed in mainstream media for many years. Prices around that area of Tottenham have alresdy risen substantially, maybe there is more to come or maybe if I were investing now I might move my thoughts to Tottenham Hale, lots of industry still around there, which will start to become more attractive to sell than make out of, it has a good transport link but grossly unattractive due to the one way system (which i expect to be ear marked for change soon after TH stadium). There's some good housing stock.

Old oak common for example might as network rail are yet to develop the land, the development is marked as having the potential to be designed as Canary Wharf but others are expecting it to be a disaster. The negative press wil slow general public punting on it, reality is there is massive spotlight on it my guess would be they will get it right.

As I say there are others less spotlight with changes in the pipeline, you just need to look for them.

padington

Tottenham Hale and Woodgreen are very safe north London bets. Both ( being in Haringey) enjoyed the largest increase in house prices to income than anywhere in the U.K in the last two years ( according to some recent estate agent PR guff piece recently penned by Martin Gerrard)

There is a lot more to come over a ten year timeframe, I would imagine . Anything under 5 years is now a complete unknown though with brexsh*t offering a huge amount of wasted energy and own goals in the short term.

Saying that the large reputable long term studies seem to be saying gentle rises every year. What can be guaranteed is rock bottom interest rates in the U.K ( in my humble opinion).

caronoel

Conrad wrote: »

My own strategy is buying just on the M25 periphery in areas with good transport links. Finding a lot of people moving out of London to find better value but of course this acts as demand push factor on prices.

Any thoughts on Guildford Conrad?

Mrs Caronoel is a 20% taxpayer, and I was considering buying a BTL in her name in an area close to the university and hospital. Yield is about 6%.

Thoughts?

chucknorris

We bought a 3 bed Victorian terraced house in Tottenham Hale in 2008 (surely that must count as one of the worst 'rubbish areas'), we bought it for about £243k, and the current rent is £15.6k per annum, and the current value is about £500k. It has turned out to be a nice little earner, it will probably be the last property that we sell, as we want to give that area a chance to improve to a reasonable place (which might take forever), although I have to admit it has improved a fair bit since we invested. It was only a bit of a punt after reading an article about future improvements to Tottenham.