united kingdom property market

The UK housing markets has served canny investors well over the years.

For about two thirds of the last 40 years, investing in housing using a mortgage facility has given excellent returns generally higher than putting cash into a building society, let alone National Savings or a bank.

Property investment – like any form of investment – is a skill, which can be learned by either:

	Learning it the hard way (through your own mistakes) or
	Learning from someone else’s experience

That’s because the success of your investment depends on:

	Buying the right property
	Buying in the right location
	Finding and managing your tenants
	Managing and maintaining your property
	Dealing effectively with voids, refurbishments, agents and any tenant problems.

If you buy your property in the wrong area you could lose your money, be unable to resell the property or possibly, you might not be able to find suitable tenant.

Right now, many ‘quick-fix’ investors are choosing the wrong properties and the wrong finance, buying too many properties and managing them badly.

However, there is money to be made by those with common sense and a practical game plan for the long term – which is where he professional helps out.But in case you think you might have missed the property investment cycle, let me give three forecasts from 2002

	The average house price is predicted to almost triple in value from £101,161 to £300,643 by 2015(Extract from Housing Futures). Imagine how well you would do if you beat the average.
	New House-building can’t possibly keep up with demand UK Population is predicted to rise 10% in the next 25 years (that’s 6 million people!)
	RENTAL DEMAND will nearly double inside ten years (Extract from the Centre for Economic Business research)

It’s not hard to see that the long term Buy To Let investor will call the shots over the next decade and beyond – cashing in on escalating price and a growing pool of renters.

The question you should be asking today isn’t “Should I invest in what will become the most lucrative market of the 21st century.”

......but rather, “How can I do it safely and profitably?.

Investing in student accommodation is also an attraction. The Universities and Colleges Admissions Service reported a 12 per cent rise in applications in October. Student Accommodation Investors have been lured by predictions that student numbers will rise 28% by 2014.

Also, recent figures show that rents from student property in

London grew by an average 10% in the 2008-9 academic year, compared with a fall of 3% in the normal residential market in 2009. Student rents have consistently exceeded retail price inflation and the trend is expected to continue. The property consultancy, Unite Group, Britain’s largest student accommodation provider, announced recently that the Unite UK Student Accommodation fund had raised £167m from investors, used partly to purchase five properties in London, Edinburgh, Exeter and Glasgow, previously owned by the company itself. The value of the properties has risen 18% over the past six months.

Additionally, others that invested in student accommodation in towns such as Bolton, Bristol, Leeds, Liverpool or Nottingham have since last year enjoyed a rental returns increase of 13 per cent, 10% rise over the same period in Birmingham.

When deciding where to buy in the UK (if you are buying to Let), you should consider the following;

	a property located close to public transportation will be a good choice.
	Knowledge of future train lines, road widening schemes etc.
	High maintenance properties such as those with large gardens or a lot of woodwork should also be avoided in most cases.