Property Advice

Friday 27 January 2017

Is this the final nail in the coffin of ‘buy to let’ in Hampstead?

Almost a year since the former Chancellor, George Osborne, in his last Autumn statement back in 2015, caused Hampstead landlords to ask whether buy to let is a viable investment option. He announced that landlords, when buying another buy to let property from April 2016, will have to pay an additional 3% stamp duty on top of the standard rate. So for example, It meant that the stamp duty bill for a £285,000 buy to let home rose from £8,550 under the original structure to £12,800 from April of last year. 




Some said that property in Hampstead would be worth less because potential landlords wont not be willing to pay as much for them, and if house builders or existing homeowners don't feel they are going to get as much for them, then there is less motivation to build / sell them?... and the person we can blame for this is George himself. Back in 2012, he choose to utilise the British housing market to kick start the UK economy, with  subsidies, Funding for Lending and Help to Buy. However, whilst that helped the Tory’s get back into power in 2015, some say this impressive growth in the UK property market has been at the expense of pricing out youngsters wanting to buy their first home.

Others say this is the straw that breaks the camel’s back as over the next four years Landlords will slowly lose the ability to offset all their mortgage interest against tax on rental income, after changes announced in the Summer Budget. At the moment, landlords can claim tax relief on buy to let mortgage monthly interest repayments at the top level of tax they pay (ie 40% or 45%). However, over the next four years this will reduced slowly to the basic rate of tax – currently 20%.

Surely, this is the end of Buy to Let in Hampstead? Probably.. but before we all run to hills panicking .. let me give you another thought.
Stamp Duty rules were changed in December 2014. Before then, landlords were eagerly buying up properties under the ‘old slab style Stamp Duty’ system. For example, the stamp duty bill on that £285,000 property was lower on the old slab style duty (pre Dec 2014), at £8,550, yet it isn’t a million miles away from new £12,800 stamp duty bill. Interestingly though, George Osborne had left some legal loopholes in the new rules, some of which were little known about. Below is the list of these.

The tax loopholes buyers are using to beat the stamp duty hike


  1. ·        Parents buying properties for their children can set up trust structures so the child is a beneficiary of a trust, meaning they won’t have to pay the extra tax.
  2. ·        Landlords who expected to miss the deadline but didn’t want to abandon the sale were negotiating with sellers to arrange to split the extra tax cost between them.
  3. ·        Investors who completed transactions before the April 1st 2016 deadline to beat the tax change were allowing sellers to stay living in the property until they found a new home.
  4. ·        Landlords who incorporate properties they already own also have to pay the increased tax. Many are transferring their properties into a limited company now to avoid having to pay the extra 3pc if they do this after April 1.

I believe that total returns from buy to let will continue to outpace other investments, such as the stock market, gilts, bonds and even pensions. Also, the best part about investing in property is that it is bricks and mortar. You can touch it, you can feel it, and it isn’t controlled by some City whiz kid in Canary Wharf .. the British understand property and that goes a long way!

Buy to let has enough impetus behind it that prospective landlords will continue to buy even with a larger stamp duty bill. My thoughts on this are simple... for as long as the house building quota remains insufficient relative to demand, Private Sector Landlord’s will be taking up the mantle as they have been over the past 16/17 years.

Hampstead landlords will need to be savvy with what property they buy to ensure the extra stamp duty costs are mitigated. Purchasing a buy to let property is a long term venture. In the past, it didn’t matter what property you bought in Hampstead or at what price – you would always make money. Now with these extra taxes, the adage of ‘any old Hampstead house/flat will make money’ has gone out the window. You wouldn’t dream of investing in the stock market without at least looking in the newspapers or taking advice and opinion from others, so why would you take the same advice and opinion about buying a buy to let property in Hampstead?


If you are looking for an agent with experience that can help you find the right tenant for your property, then contact us to find out how we can get the best out of your investment property. Email me on chris@ashmoreresidential.com or give me a call on 020 7435 0420. Pop in for a chat – we are based on Ashmore Residential, Suite 7, 25-27 Heath Street, London, NW3 6TR. The kettle is always on.

Don't forget to visit the links below to view back dated deals and Hampstead Property News.




Friday 20 January 2017

Will the young people of Hampstead ever own their own home?

I had the most interesting chat with a mature couple (in their early/mid 50’s) from Childs Hill the other day, whilst viewing one of our rental properties. The property wasn’t for them, but their son, who wanted a second viewing with his Mum and Dad to get the parental blessing. Now I know that isn’t the norm, but in this case the parents were going to act as Guarantor. We got chatting about the Hampstead property market and how they had bought their first property in the area just after they got married in the late 1980’s when they were in their early/mid 20’s. Anyway, we got chatting about how the youngsters of the UK seem to rent more than buy nowadays and from that the conversation covered a number of similar topics. I want to share the highlights of that conversation with you today.

Their son, like many 20 to 30 year olds in Hampstead, desperately wants to own his own property and the parents said he had read in the Telegraph recently, when you compare house prices to earnings, the current 20 to 30 something’s generation have to spend more of their salary in mortgage payments than any previous generation. The demand for private rental sector accommodation in Hampstead is huge. There are in fact 31,419 private rental properties in the borough of Camden at the last count, impressive when you consider there are 22,517 council houses included in that figure. However, let us not forget 31,343 properties are owner occupied (14,712 with a mortgage). 





Let us all be honest, private renting doesn’t have the stigma it had a few decades ago and it might surprise people that even though us Brit’s class ourselves as a nation of homeowners, roll the clock back 100 years and over 75% of people rented their own home (and it was all from private landlords as council housing only started to come in with the ‘homes for hero’s’ after the first World War). It might also surprise you to learn that at the time of the 1971 census, still more people rented than owned their own home.


Looking at the affordability issue, I have proved time and time again, it is in fact cheaper to buy a property than rent, when one looks at starter homes for first time buyers. Banks have been offering 95% mortgaged to first time buyers for over five years and whilst you could certainly find better properties in better condition in better areas, flats/apartments can be bought for as little as £300,000   just south of Hampstead Heath (meaning a modest deposit of £15,000 would be required).
When it came to affordability, I was able to tell them that when they bought their first house in Hampstead in 1988, the ratio of median house prices to median salary was 6.12 to 1 in Hampstead ... and here was the surprise for both of us, according to the Office of National Statistics (ONS),  today’s ratio is a staggering 20.0 to 1! 




I said I believed there had been a cultural attitude change towards renting property in Britain and that this quiet revolution was likely to be permanent. In the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s, saving for the deposit and buying a house was everything. Youngsters today have considerably more disposable income today than people had in the Callaghan and Thatcher years, but choose to spend it to sustain their lifestyle; Upgrading their mobile phones every 12 months, the newest tablet or PC, the latest 50” LCD TV, upgrading their car every 18-24 months and two sun drenched holidays a year, than go without and save for a deposit.

Yes, there are horror stories of tenants living in rat infested properties with landlords who charge exorbitant rents and don’t repair their properties. But that is very much the exception as most tenants rent homes of a quality they couldn’t ever to afford to buy. Twenty or so years ago, if you said you rented a property, you were regarded as being of a lower social status ... but now it’s the norm.

So with mortgage affordability appearing to being well within the bounds of most first time buyers, the level of deposit required for a 95% loan being surprisingly modest (starting off at c. £15,000 in Hampstead as mentioned above). Until we change our attitudes, the UK housing market is slowly but surely turning into a more European model, where people rent for long periods of their life, then eventually inherit their parents’ properties and subsequently become homeowners themselves, albeit later in life. 

Hence, I cannot see the demand for decent, high quality rental properties ever dropping in the next 10 to 20 years, but only ever increasing as the population continues to soar. Just make sure you by the right property, at the price, in the right location. 



If you are looking for an agent with experience that can help you find the right tenant for your property, then contact us to find out how we can get the best out of your investment property. Email me on chris@ashmoreresidential.com or give me a call on 020 7435 0420. Pop in for a chat – we are based on Ashmore Residential, Suite 7, 25-27 Heath Street, London, NW3 6TR. The kettle is always on.

Don't forget to visit the links below to view back dated deals and Hampstead Property News.




Friday 13 January 2017

Hampstead Landlords could be fined £6,957,000 per year


“Who would want to move to Hampstead 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 5.45pm. 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 Highgate 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 ‘Right to Rent’ legislation, as his long term tenant had handed in their notice recently; on this new tenancy he called us for our opinion.

For those Hampstead landlords that don’t know or have had long term tenants (tenancies that pre date February 2016) landlords will need to check the immigration status of any new tenants moving into properties or face a £3,000 fine. This rule will apply to all tenancies; 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 Highgate wanted to know how much of a real issue ‘Right to Rent’ in Hampstead was. I was able to tell him, the last available figures (from a couple of years ago) show that 2,319 people (whom were registered as Non-UK Born Short-term Residents) moved into private rented accommodation in the Camden 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 £6,957,000 to the landlords of the borough.
It doesn’t sound a lot when you think there are 220,306 residents in the Camden Council area and of those, 126,691 people (or 57.51%) were born in the UK. However, Camden is a cosmopolitan borough as the country of birth of the residents can be split down as follows:

·        UK                                                                    57.51%
·        Ireland                                                                2.37%
·        Europe                                                              13.59%
·        Africa                                                                  6.02%
·        Middle East and Asia                                        12.27%
·        Americas and Caribbean                                      5.81%
·        Australia and Pacific region                                 2.37% 

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 29,933 Europeans in the area necessarily have the right to live in the UK either.


In a nutshell, Hampstead 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 this 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 Hampstead Property Blog for a while and because of the knowledge we impart to the landlords of Hampstead, 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 £110 per month for his property (when we found a tenant just a few days 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  broken down boilers and washing machines it us  a win-win situation for everyone.


If you are looking for an agent with experience that can help you find the right tenant for your property, then contact us to find out how we can get the best out of your investment property. Email me on chris@ashmoreresidential.com or give me a call on 020 7435 0420. Pop in for a chat – we are based on Ashmore Residential, Suite 7, 25-27 Heath Street, London, NW3 6TR. The kettle is always on.

Don't forget to visit the links below to view back dated deals and Hampstead Property News.








Monday 9 January 2017

Hampstead Buy To let –Freehold House or Leasehold Flat?

Well my Hampstead Property Blog reading friends, as it seems to be all the rage with Jeremy Corbyn asking the PM questions emailed in to him at Prime Minster’s Question Time, I too wish to answer a question emailed into me from a potential Hampstead landlord last week. Nice chap, lives in Primrose Hill, and it turns out, after having a coffee with him, he works in IT, has a spare bit of cash (now the kids have flown the nest) and wanted to invest in his first buy- to- let property.

His main question was ... Do I buy a freehold house or a leasehold flat in Hampstead?

Most people will say freehold every time, because you own the land. However, it’s not as simple as that (it never would be would it!). The definitive answer though is to research what Hampstead tenants want in a specific part of the area.  The tenant is ultimately your customer, and, if they don't want to rent what you decide is best to buy, then you are not going to have a successful BTL investment. So starting with the tenant in mind and working backwards from there, you won’t go far wrong. In a nutshell, find the demand before you think about creating the supply.

Leasehold flats and apartments in Hampstead are excellent in some respects as they offer the landlord certain advantages, including the fact a flat can be initially cheaper to buy. Yields can be quite good, offering better cash flow. The building will already be insured and yes there is a service charge, but it’s still for a service at the end of the day and that cost is spread between many others (i.e. when your freehold house roof goes, its falls 100% on your shoulders) and one of my favourites is that there is often no garden to maintain or blown down fences to replace!

However, some Hampstead leasehold flats can suffer from poor capital growth. Some leasehold properties have no cap on the level of the service charge and it may get out of control. The length of the lease will significantly affect value if not renewed before it gets too short. Thankfully there’s not many, but some Hampstead apartments/flats have burdensome clauses. Finally, with leases, there can be sub-letting issues – which means you can’t let them out.



So what do the numbers look like? Well since 2003, the average freehold property in Hampstead (detached, semis and terraced) has risen from £1,159,883 to £3,790,000, a rise of 227% whilst the average Hampstead leasehold property (flats and apartments) has gone up in value from £385,241 to £940,138, a more mediocre rise of 144%.  See graph below.



I was really interested to note that of the 21,489 rental properties in the London Borough of Camden  area that the Office of National Statistics believe are either let privately or through a letting agency, approximately 90%  are apartments. However, there are 84,017 apartments in the whole council area (be they owned, council rented or privately rented), which represents 84.8% of the whole housing stock in the area (see the pie chart). This really intrigued me that, quite obviously, there is a very high proportion of Hampstead’s leasehold apartments/flats rented to tenants compared to detached, semi’s or terraced. Fascinating don’t you think? 



Every Hampstead apartment block, every terraced house or semi is different. Like I said at the start, the definitive answer is to research what prospective tenants want in the area of Hampstead they want. Demand for town centre apartments, near the nightlife and transport links can be popular and can offer the Hampstead landlord very good yields with minimal voids. However, Hampstead terraced houses and semis, whilst not always offering the best yields (although sometimes they can), they do offer the Hampstead landlord decent capital growth.

My advice to the prospective landlord as is to you- is do your homework.  One such website, which only talks about the Hampstead buy to let Property Market, is the Hampstead Property Blog,  www.NW3propertyblog.com  Another source of info many Hampstead landlords use is me! What many Hampstead landlords do, irrespective of whether you are a landlord of ours, a landlord with another agent or a DIY landlord, if you see any property in Hampstead, that catches your eye as a potential buy to let property, be it a terraced house, semi or flat ... email me chris@ashmoreresidential.com  and I will email you back with my thoughts (although I will tell you what you need to know .. not what you want to hear!)



If you are looking for an agent with experience that can help you find the right tenant for your property, then contact us to find out how we can get the best out of your investment property. Email me on chris@ashmoreresidential.com or give me a call on 020 7435 0420. Pop in for a chat – we are based on Ashmore Residential, Suite 7, 25-27 Heath Street, London, NW3 6TR. The kettle is always on.

Don't forget to visit the links below to view back dated deals and Hampstead Property News.







Friday 6 January 2017

Hampstead Property Market - Asking Prices Drop but Values rise

Those of you who regularly read my weekly articles in the Hampstead Property Blog will know I like to keep abreast of the local property market. Something attracted my attention this week about the local property market that I  wanted to share with my many readers.

Over the last month, there appears to have been an anomaly in the local property market, whereby asking prices in the area have dropped, yet property values have increased.  The average asking price of a Hampstead property, according to Rightmove, fell 1.3% this month yet the average value of a Hampstead property rose by 0.3%.



So how does this relate in monetary terms?  This anomaly has driven the average asking price of a Hampstead property down slightly to £1,489,000 whilst the average value is now £1,141,966. The graph below illustrates this variance.




So why the difference? Technically an ‘asking price’ can be any price that a homeowner wants to place his or her property on the market for. Unfortunately, many times this is done without research and can result in overpriced properties that don't sell. As the summer months are normally slightly quieter those left on the market wanting to sell often reduce their asking prices in these months to try and generate interest in their property.

On the other side of the coin, the property ‘value’ is the price that a willing buyer is prepared to pay and a willing seller is prepared to sell at. Therefore, in a nutshell, Hampstead property values are continuing to rise ,albeit gradually and those homeowners in Hampstead who have properties on the market, last month on average, reduced their asking prices... great news for property owners and buyers alike!

In previous articles, I have spoken about the continued fundamental shortage of property coming on to the market compared to buyer demand. That is especially true for homeowners wanting to upgrade to a better house/better location. I can appreciate Hampstead home owners are reluctant to put their own property on the market speculatively and wait for the right property to become available and some high demand locations can suffer from a property stalemate.

Most homeowners don’t want to sell and have nothing to buy.
But that’s the beauty of the much maligned English and Welsh house buying process. You can find a purchaser for your property, and then ask them to wait. By agreeing a sale (subject to contract) before you try to buy sounds concerning to many, but with fewer properties for sale you need to have a buyer for your property or you will be treated as a less serious buyer yourself. If you cannot find the right home for you, you can slow the deal with your purchaser until it comes along. If nothing suitable does comes along and you lose your buyer then the worst outcome is that you have to find another purchaser or take your property off the market and stay put for now, and as long as you mention this at the start they must not commit to any costs until you have agreed your onward purchase. 

However, for the landlord/buy to let investors, these potential problems are nothing further from the truth. As I write this article, there are 597 properties for sale in the Hampstead area- see the pie chart below with the breakdown.( 546 flats for sale, 37 terraced houses and 14 semis for sale in Hampstead).  Landlord/Buy to let investors can normally pick up some bargains in the Autumn months, as sellers who are selling their homes often have a pressing need to sell by this time.
The types of houses a Hampstead landlord typically buys, are not the same types as the homeowners wanting to move to a desirable pocket of the area as they are attracted by larger semis and detached properties. The best types of properties for buy to let are the smaller flats from self contained studios – 2 bedrooms. There are, in fact, too many of these smaller properties for sale-  

see the pie chart below that illustrates the market share each type of property has in the Hampstead area.






If you are looking for an agent with experience that can help you find the right tenant for your property, then contact us to find out how we can get the best out of your investment property. Email me on chris@ashmoreresidential.com or give me a call on 020 7435 0420. Pop in for a chat – we are based on Ashmore Residential, Suite 7, 25-27 Heath Street, London, NW3 6TR. The kettle is always on.

Don't forget to visit the links below to view back dated deals and Hampstead Property News.





What does 2017 have in store for the Hampstead Property Market?

Hampstead house prices up or Hampstead house prices down? ... and if so, by how much? Those of you who read the Hampstead Property Blog will know I am not the sort of person who pulls punches nor someone who ever fails to give a forthright and straight talking opinion – so here are my thoughts for the 31,343 Hampstead and Camden homeowners and landlords.

The average Hampstead property is on average 4.2 % higher today than it was a year ago, (Seasonal adjustments taken into account) which doesn’t sound a lot, but when you consider inflation is currently running at 1.02 % and average salary growth is slightly up on last year at 2.9%. This is bad news for first time buyers as property affordability continues to decrease (although I was reading in The Times the other day that wage inflation (ie salary growth) is showing signs of weakening).

Some commentators have said the higher stamp duty taxes introduced last April, concerns over the insufficient house building, the knock on effect of the Brek
xit vote and tighter lending criteria, despite record low interest rates, will really dampen the property market in 2017. I hope you all read my previous article about what the new stamp duty rule changes would REALLY mean for Hampstead landlords in my blog, but I believe the real issue in the Hampstead property market is the shortage of property to buy, as people either worry there will be no suitable house to move to, or cannot afford to upgrade. However, on the supply side, Mr Hammond said in his Autumn Statement that he will change the planning laws to create no less than 11 new Garden Cities to ensure the government meets the pledge made at the General Election (back in May 2015) of 200,000 new homes a year.  All I can say is .. Good luck Phillip with hitting those numbers!

Why? Because houses take years to build .. not months .. So Mr Hammond and his fabled house building aside.... where does that leave us in Hampstead in 2017?
Well, talking of supply ... whilst Mr Osborne builds his properties, let us look at the shortage of properties for sale. Back in December 2010, 1,063 properties were for sale in Hampstead .. Today that figure is 773. On the face of it, this means there is less choice for Hampstead buyers – but it also means with a restricted supply of properties for sale .. it keeps property prices high for Hampstead house sellers.




Everything isn’t all doom and gloom though ... again back in December 2010, the average property in Hampstead took 129 days to find a buyer .. latest figures state this has dropped to 87 days .. a drop of 33% in how long it takes to find a buyer. However, when you delve even deeper, the best performing type of property today in Hampstead is the 2 bed, which only takes 70 days to find a buyer (on average) compared to the 4 bed, which takes 128 days. It just goes to show, even though the average has dropped since 2010, how varied that change has been!




So, back to the question everyone is asking .... What will happen to property values in Hampstead in 2017?  I am going to suggest they will rise between 2.5% and 3% ... nothing out of the ordinary, but unless something cataclysmic happens in the world, 2017 will be like 2016! For more thoughts, opinions and views on the Hampstead property market .. visit the Hampstead Property Blog www.NW3propertyblog.com


If you are looking for an agent with experience that can help you find the right tenant for your property, then contact us to find out how we can get the best out of your investment property. Email me on chris@ashmoreresidential.com or give me a call on 020 7435 0420. Pop in for a chat – we are based on Ashmore Residential, Suite 7, 25-27 Heath Street, London, NW3 6TR. The kettle is always on.

Don't forget to visit the links below to view back dated deals and Hampstead Property News.









Hampstead Tenants Pay 53.5% Of Their Salary in Rent

I had the most interesting chat with a local Hampstead landlord the other day about my thoughts on the Hampstead property market. The subject of the affordability of renting in Hampstead came up in conversation and how that would affect tenant demand. Everyone wants a roof over their head, and since the Second World War, owning one’s home has been an aspiration of many Brits.  However, with rents at record highs, many are struggling to save enough for a house deposit.

Let’s be honest, it’s easy to get stuck in a cycle of paying the rent and bills and not saving, but even saving just a small amount each month will sooner or later add up. The former Chancellor, George Osborne, announced such schemes as the Help to Buy ISA, where the Government will top up a first time buyers deposit.


Therefore, I thought I would do some research into the Hampstead property market and share with you my findings.  Hampstead tenants spend on average over half of their salary to have a roof over their head.  According to my latest monthly research, the average cost of renting a home in Hampstead is £3,455 per month or £41,460 per year. The average household income for Hampstead currently stands at £77,500 per year that means the average Hampstead tenant is paying 53.5 % of their salary in rent. (Now to have just over half your salaries go on rent is unattainable, so you can see why people share.)  I doubt there is much left to save for a deposit towards a house after that and various household bills. That my Hampstead Property Blog reading friends, is such a shame for the youngsters of the local area. 


You see one of the reasons for rents being so high is property prices being high.  As I have mentioned before, there is a severe lack of new properties being built in Hampstead.  It’s the classic demand vs supply scenario, where demand has increased, but the number of houses being built hasn’t increased at the same level.  Also, Hampstead people aren’t moving home as often as they did in the 80’s and 90’s, meaning there are fewer properties on the market to buy. 


If you recall, a few weeks ago I said back in Summer 2008, there were over 1,000  properties for sale in Hampstead and since then this has steadily declined year on year, so now there are only 636 for sale in the whole of the NW3 area.

 So, the planners haven’t allowed enough properties to be built in the area and existing Hampstead homeowners are not moving home as much as they used to, thus creating a double hit on the number of properties to buy.  This is a long term thing and the continued diminishing supply of housing has been happening for a number of decades. There simply aren’t enough properties in Hampstead to match demand, these are the reasons houses prices in the area have remained quite buoyant, even though economically, over the last 6 years, it was one of the worst on record for the country and the London region as a whole.

However, things might not be all doom and gloom as originally thought, as a recent Halifax Survey  (their Generation Rent 2016 Survey) suggested  more and more people may be long term, if not lifelong tenants. In fact there is evidence in the report to suggest that the perception of how difficult it is to get on the housing ladder is vastly different between parents and people aged 20 to 45.  It seems from this survey that the state of the UK economy has shifted priorities quite significantly in quite a short space of time.  With fewer people able to save up the deposit required by mortgage lenders, more and more people are continuing to rent.  This delay in moving up the property ladder has driven rents across the UK up as more people were seeking rental properties.

 It is often said that more people in central Europe rent for longer or never own their own property. The last two census in 2001 and 2011 show that proportionally the percentage of people who own their own home in Britain is slowly reducing and, as a country, we are becoming more and more like Germany.   That isn’t a bad thing as Germany is considered to have a more successful economy, one of the main stays, often quoted,  is because they have a much more flexible and mobile workforce, (which renting certainly gives) and from that, they have a higher personal income than in the UK.      
Therefore, if we are turning into a more European model and the youngsters of Hampstead and the Country have changed their attitudes, demand for rental properties will only and can only go from strength to strength.

This news is a mixed bag for Hampstead tenants and landlords alike; wages have risen in real terms to 1.9% adjusted for inflation, since this time last year. For landlords property values in Hampstead are now 2.1% higher than year ago, despite the fall out of Brexit, with rentals having shown a steady rise of 3.2% year on year.



If you are looking for an agent with experience that can help you find the right tenant for your property, then contact us to find out how we can get the best out of your investment property. Email me on chris@ashmoreresidential.com or give me a call on 020 7435 0420. Pop in for a chat – we are based on Ashmore Residential, Suite 7, 25-27 Heath Street, London, NW3 6TR. The kettle is always on.

Don't forget to visit the links below to view back dated deals and Hampstead Property News.




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