Bexley Borough Property News

After speaking to a friend, one of my landlords from Latham Road rang me last week. They had been discussing the local property market and neither could decide if it was time to sell or to buy. If you read the newspapers and landlord forums on the Internet, you’ll find plenty of doom and gloom, especially with changes to landlords’ taxation, new legislation on checking tenants, and general uncertainty about the global economic situation. Admittedly, some landlords in our Borough have over-exposed themselves in the last few years with high percentage loan to value mortgages. With current (artificially low) interest rates these mortgages will start to suffer as their modest monthly positive cash flow/profit, (income (rent) less costs (mortgage, fees, tax)), will become negative as tax and mortgage rates rise throughout 2017 and beyond. It appears that these landlords have treated the local buy-to-let market as a sure bet rather than as a business. They thought, “I’ll...

Remember 10.05 pm on Thursday, 7 th May 2015, when the BBC exit polls brought the shock news that the Conservatives would be returned with a majority?  Middle class families on roads such as Danson and Latham Road gave a huge sigh of relief. Bexley Borough landlords, faced with rent controls from Red Ed and the Labour Party, had something to cheer about. The Tories have always been considered a party that accepts the importance of the rental market and supports its development while targeting lawbreaker landlords with below-standard accommodation. However, since May George Osborne announced rises in stamp duty for buy-to-let landlords in the future and a change in the interest relief on buy-to-let mortgages, causing some to question that reputation.  Things could have been a lot worse. Under serious consideration was the idea of making landlords pay more tax, increasing Capital Gains Tax rates to the landlord’s own income tax levels. If landlords had ha...

Recently I was having lunch at Hamers in Bexley Village with a local solicitor friend when the subject of property came up.  “What are your thoughts on the Bexley Borough property market for the next five years?” he asked. Property prices are a British national obsession and a key driver of the consumer economy. What will happen next in the property market?  This is what I told my friend: Before I can predict what will happen over the next five years, I need to look at what has happened over the last five years. One of the key drivers of the housing market and property values is unemployment (or the lack thereof), as that drives confidence and wage growth – key factors as to whether people buy their first house, move up the property ladder, or, if they are buy-to-let landlords, decide whether or not to continue purchasing property.  When the Tories came to power in May 2010, the total number unemployed in our suburb stood at 1,857 (or 4.2% of...