A house pricing report released by Halifax recently has shown that house prices, on average, fell by 0.9% in November and the average house price now stands at around £161,700. This is positive news for prospective homeowners, and for landlords looking to expand their property portfolios!
Housing Market
The housing market has been looking increasingly difficult to get on to in recent months as the economic crisis deepens as many of us Brits struggle to raise enough funds to afford a decent mortgage, or any mortgage whatsoever.
Housing Economist, Martin Ellis, has been commenting: “House prices have remained remarkably stable in 2011 despite the difficult and deteriorating economic climate and the substantial pressure on households’ finances. We expect the market to remain broadly unchanged in the coming months.”
It is also now expected that the Bank of England, which is meeting tomorrow, will leave the base rate unchanged at 0.5% due to their own continually decreasing confidence in the UK housing market. Meanwhile, Nationwide published a report that suggests that the prices of UK property will decline during 2012.
If house prices do further decline, it could actually lead to more and more people being able to afford new properties, which could in turn spark the housing market back into life. This could, in the long run, only be a good thing. I would personally love to be able to get on to the property market, but like thousands of other people in the UK, renting is the only affordable option at the moment.
Fancy becoming a landlord?
The idea of becoming a property developer and a landlord is definitely an appealing one however. Of course, it cannot all be easy money though. An incredible amount of risk, hard work, and dedication has to go into each and every property in order to turn it into a success. Becoming a landlord is also a rather long term investment – it would be wrong to expect to see short term gains.
Landlords have to be very careful also about the tenants they take on; there have been cases of abusive and anti-social tenants destroying properties. It would be wise for landlords to request a landlord insurance quote in the event of any unfortunate damages befalling a property, particularly if anti-social tenants are occupying the property!
Furthermore, landlords are often expected to be able to respond to any maintenance issues as quickly as possible. This can be stressful as nobody wants their spare time eaten into by a cracked pipe at a property 20 miles away, for example. However, that’s kind of the point of a landlord; it is a full time undertaking, and not something anyone can do half-heartedly.