Why buy this? Semilong, Freehold House, 5% return

With landlords increasingly holding onto property at the moment, houses like this which used to be freely available are increasingly rare. This 2 bed house in Cambridge Street, NN2 will be coming on soon - it's tenanted at £650 which will raise soon to £675 - and from what I understand £155k buys it although it's likely to be advertised higher.

What's Semilong like?
It's a staple rental area - rows of Victorian terraced houses just like this one - close to town and very popular with tenants. We manage probably 30 houses there and none sit empty. Rents are generally £650 to £700 in the current market.
What's the history of this property?
We've had it rented for a decade with various tenants in there - it's never been empty. It's a little tired in places but has never caused any major issues - it's not one of these that has ongoing problems with moisture / damp etc.
Why would I buy this?
If you want a freehold property and you don't want to buy in an ex-Local Authority area, this is where the market starts. You'll struggle to find anything less expensive than this in Northampton without compromising on area. The headline return of 5% is also pretty decent for a single property at the moment - many landlords are buying flats that offer less once service charges are factored in. It comes with tenant in situ so you'll have income from day 1.

Any queries - richard.baker@belvoir.co.uk

IF YOU PAY PEANUTS.............

.......you get this chap here - and appealing though he may be, you don't really want him managing your rental properties for you!
I took over an existing tenancy from another agent this week. The owner felt there were some maintenance issues which the agent had been slow to attend to - could I go and take a look, then report back?
The agent in question was privately owned but had recently sold out to one of the larger corporate agencies - had been changing staff ever since, and is fairly well known locally to be experiencing a few problems.
I'm not saying we never get something wrong - like any business, sometimes we do. But on the odd occasion we do drop a clanger, when it's clearly our error we generally try to put it right and indemnify anyone who has suffered a genuine loss.
Having said that, I don't think we've ever ended up in a situation like this - tenant living in the apartment - bath waste leaking for 4 months - has reported it constantly - no action taken by managing agent - as such what was actually quite a simple problem to fix has become a far bigger issue requiring de-humidifiers, replacement flooring, replastering of walls, etc.
The landlady enquired about an insurance claim - no point as the damage hasn't occurred as the result of a specific 'incident' - it's happened because it's been allowed to get worse - the insurer wouldn't pay out. Her case, if anyone, is against her managing agent who've been told, but failed to deal. She sees it as too much issue to chase it now, so will be paying several hundred pounds to have this sorted from her own pocket. The comment about peanuts and monkeys actually comes from her.