The Property Options’ Bristol Buy To Let Market Update.
This update is by economist Chris Worthington, a speaker at our February PIM.
House Prices
In February Homelet, the insurance company that specialises in insurance for the private rented sector, released the latest edition of the All City House Price Index for 65 towns and cities in the UK. Bristol is placed 14th in the table for year on year house price growth at 8.0%.
Only Portsmouth and Manchester are above Bristol out of the major cities in the table, with year on year house price growth of 8.8% and 8.1% respectively.
The towns at the top of table are predominantly towns from where it is possible to commute to London such as Medway, Milton Keynes, Swindon and Southend. These have recorded year on year increases in house prices of over 9%.
The latest Bristol City Market Insight published by estate agents Knight Frank highlighted Redland and Harbourside as the areas with the highest growth in house prices in 2016. The report also highlighted the volume of sales by postcode with the highest sales volume in BS5 where housing is still comparatively cheap.
The City Centre and Build to Rent
In the January edition of our Bristol Buy to Let Update, we referred to the extensive new developments that are underway in the city centre.
James Petherick, Director of Development at property consultants JLL recently commented that “Bristol boasts one of the most active housing markets in the country. The city centre has really taken off and developers have so far risen to the challenge with some excellent schemes built and underway.”
One of the new developments, at Finzels Reach on the waterfront, will include 194 homes available for rent. The potential for “Build to Rent” to improve the housing supply was referred in the Housing White Paper published by the government in January and it is attracting increasing interest from institutional investors and developers.
The next build to rent development in Bristol with be the 255 home ND7 regeneration scheme in the Temple Quarter Enterprise Zone, funded by Legal and General.
Build to Rent developments will offer high quality accommodation, on site services and greater security of tenure.
To compete with this landlords and buy to let investors need to set high standards for improvements and refurbishment of property and consider offering tenancies that are longer than the usual shorthold tenancies of six months to a year. This may suit some tenants who want to move on the end of the year, but many families need to feel more secure.
Conclusion
We will all be discussing the latest position on the property market in Bristol and across the UK at our next PIM on 27 April 2017 at Holiday Inn, Bristol City Centre, 6-9 pm.
We hope you will join us then.
For more info and to reserve your place Click Below
Property Options Bristol
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