2 bedroom flat, Swinford Hollow, £112,500

With yesterday's flat gone already, here's another one about to hit the market that's well priced and will appeal to someone as an investment option.
It's in Swinford Hollow, Little Billing - which is a better postcode than yesterday, has 2 bedrooms, and will be advertised next week at £112,500. It's leasehold - 94 years remaining and around £1200 payable annually so we're advised. Rather than being in a block this is more of a maisonette type arrangement where there's one flat upstairs (this one) and another downstairs - no big block.
The flat is tenanted at £500PCM with a nice tenant who's been there for some years. The market rent for something like this is £650PCM and the low rent reflects the fact that whilst the flat is very clean and tidy internally it's quite dated in terms of its fixtures and fittings, and also that the current owner doesn't believe in pushing rental figures to anywhere near their maximum for good quality tenants.
She's being sensible with her sale price too - £112,500 is cheap for this sort of flat even if it will need updating before long - there's an identical property on the same road on the market for £129,995 - so it's advertised at £112,500 and will sell at that price.
We'll be selling this one and we also manage the current tenancy, so and questions, please ask away. I don't have internal pictures, but my summary of clean, tidy, but dated is a fair one. richard.baker@belvoir.co.uk.

SNAP IT UP, 1 bed flat £85,000

NOW SNAPPED UP (within 24 hours!) We haven't seen anything like this for a while! It's a decently priced 1 bedroom flat with an asking price of £85,000. It's in Thorplands and will have a council lease on it so the charges are generally reasonable and the lease lengths decent too. You'll note from the pictures that the Council have just put new double glazing in it.
It looks like it needs some work - hopefully not too much - but is an easy one to quickly update and of course we'll deal with this for you as required.
It's an easy renter too - £500 for one of these - which is a headline return of 7% based on the £85k asking price. The tenant will be in full time employment.
Some pictures of the property are below. The full ad is here https://www.onthemarket.com/details/6606025/ . If you're interested you'll need to move really quickly on this one as it's sensibly priced and in a price band that will open it up to the whole market. Any queries as ever, please don't hesitate to ask. richard.baker@belvoir.co.uk.

Nicer Areas Appreciate More : Urban Myth?

I was recently asked to value a 1 bed apartment in Thorplands, NN3 as the owner was re-mortgaging. He reminded me that he'd bought the property a few years back after I'd plugged it on this blog, which prompted me to delve into the archives - it was actually the first property I ever promoted in this way. See http://lettingsblog.blogspot.com.es/2011/04/potential-investment-with-9-yield.html
He paid £41k for it, and it's now worth conservatively £85k - other properties are advertised well into the £90s. The rental price I suggested then was £375. Now it's £525.

How has the value changed?
What's interesting is that it's in an area that, according to some, isn't the best. Thorplands is an ex Local Authority area on the east side of town, and we manage about 20 properties there. Maybe it wouldn't be my first choice of places to live, but it attracts good tenants and the properties don't cause us any more issues than anywhere else. It's also an area that many investors have turned their nose up at over the years - "ooh I wouldn't want to buy there" etc, and when pushed they claim it's because property prices won't appreciate over time like they do in a nice area.

The apartment in that first blog rather disproves that theory. In just over 6 years it's more than doubled in value so the guy that bought it has done phenomenally well. I look at other properties we took on at the same time and see one in Grange Park which is generally considered to be one of the best areas of Northampton - modern, affluent, easy on the eye. When I do the figures that's worth about 30% more than it was in 2011 - again a fine return but nothing compared to the ex Local Authority area.
Why the difference in appreciation?
As we look back, the housing market was generally suffering in the late noughties. The market crashed in 07, it took everyone a couple of years to accept this and revise their valuations of their own properties, and prices didn't start to rise again until about 2011 - even then the rise was slow. When the market went south, the supposedly poorer areas of town suffered more and prices fell harshly whereas the more affluent areas whilst hit badly, didn't suffer in terms of value to the same extent. There's a logic here - people in the more affluent areas were in a better position to 'ride it out' and so they did.
The lesson to be learnt is that prices fluctuate less in the more affluent areas - so when the housing market is in poor shape these areas will suffer, but will suffer least badly. On the flip side, when the housing market is buoyant as it has been recently there's more upside in the cheaper areas as there's never a shortage of people wanting to get onto the housing market if the economy allows. In the time I've been a lettings agent, the investors who have seen the greatest capital return are those who have snapped up the cheapest properties in a stuttering market then sat on them waiting for things to improve.