In
recent blogs, I’ve looked at what you can buy, at a general level, in the
Northampton Housing market. These have covered standard properties that will appear for purchase on a regular basis, and are easy to categorise. If you're the type that likes to research before you buy, reading these blogs will make it possible to generalise about 90% of the market.
There are however other non-standard investments that pop up on an ad hoc basis. Weird though they are, they often make really good investments, and require a confident landlord to quickly 'take a punt'. In the last 12 months, we've seen the following;
A 1 bed coach house on Grange Park. These are freehold and very few of them are actually built, so it's not like you can wait for one to come along. However one did, and a landlord picked it up for in the region of £95k, making it a good investment. It will bring in at least £495PCM - a 6.2% yield. This isn't earth shattering, but is about as good as you'll get in a premium postcode.
A weird town centre building cut into 2 flats, but not separated legally so could only be sold as 1 unit. A canny landlord picked this up for about £100k, and brings in about £1000PCM in rent for the 2 flats. He's getting a 12% yield, and owns the freehold. Whilst the building won't win any awards for architectural beauty, as a high yield, low risk investment this is about as good as I've seen since I started trading.
And finally, a caravan! Some of you may not be aware that Northampton is home to one of the largest caravan parks in the UK - Billing Aquadrome. It's actually quite upmarket and is almost a small town in itself - acting as a retirement village, holiday destination, and commuter estate all in one. Whilst there are various rules about tenure and tenancy, some of the fixed homes there (I'm not allowed to call them caravans) sell for over £100k. However the owner of this one paid about £20k, and gets around £350PCM in rent, which by my reckoning is in the region of a 20% yield. Argue with that!
