40.5% of Milton Keynes tenants in the private rented sector are on Housing Benefit

“What does the ideal Milton Keynes tenant look like?”, asked one of my landlords from Loughton the other day, to which he carried on before I could reply, “Let me guess, a professional couple, both in their 30’s, flawlessly tidy, pays their rent early, doesn’t complain or fuss, who has no plans to move and cheerfully accepts annual rent rises”.

Before I can answer that question properly, I have always believed all a landlord wants (and expects) of their tenants is to pay their rent on time and look after the property as if it were their own. In return, the landlord should provide a property that is warm, clean, modern and damp free and sort any issues (such as repairs) quickly and without fuss. 

Back to the tenants – tenants tend to fall into several groups ... 20 something professionals; young and middle aged families; corporate tenants (ie their employer finds their employee a house to live in); students; older singles/couples and housing benefit claimants – and they come with different needs and wants. So choosing who best suits your Milton Keynes property – and steering clear of bad tenants – is a big factor in making property investment a success.

One topic that I am often asked is should they, as a landlord, accept tenants on housing benefit?

It might interest the landlords of Milton Keynes that of the 15,930 private rented properties in the local council area, 40.5% of the tenants of those properties are on some form of housing benefit.

(6,465 properties to be exact). I know many landlords have suffered late rent payments with tenants on benefit, especially since 2008, when local authorities started paying housing benefit to tenants rather than directly to the landlords, but you can’t ignore the fact that housing benefit tenants make up a significant proportion of the Milton Keynes rental population. My opinion is that the final choice of accepting such tenants has to be the landlords but you can’t tar every tenant with the same brush (I will always give you a balanced opinion if ever asked).

Interestingly, it might surprise some readers of the Milton Keynes Property Blog, when we compare Milton Keynes to the national picture, Milton Keynes’s Housing benefit claimants are higher, as nationally a lower proportion of private tenants claim the benefit. Nationally, 39.2% of the tenants of the 3,891,467 rental properties in Great Britain claim some form of housing benefit (ie 1,526,915 properties).

Now, let us look at the occupations of Milton Keynes tenants, which makes even more fascinating reading. Of the 15,930 privately rented properties in the Milton Keynes area, 12,878 head tenants (the head tenant being classified as the head of the household) are in employment (the other 3,052 rental property head tenants either being retired, long term sick, students or job seekers).

Splitting those 12,878 head tenants down into their relevant professions, 5,559 of them are Managers, Directors, Senior Officials, Professional or Technical Professions, 1,231 in Administrative and secretarial occupations, 1,225 in Skilled Trades, 854 in the Caring, Leisure and other service occupations, 928 Sales and Customer Service Occupations, 1,086 Process, Plant and Machine Operatives and finally, 1,995 in Elementary Occupations.

The one thing I have always known anecdotally, but until I did my research, never had anything to back it up with, was the high proportion of professionals and skilled trades renting property in Milton Keynes – intriguing! Maybe in future articles, I will look deeper into the corporate tenant market, young and middle aged families, students and older persons rental markets.... but in the meantime, if you want more news, views and commentary about the Milton Keynes property market, there are many similar articles like this on the Milton Keynes Property Blog

Milton Keynes Landlords count the cost of a Tory Election win

Can you remember 10.05pm on Thursday, 7^th May 2015 ... with the shock news that BBC Exit Polls suggested the Conservatives would be returned with majority? The middle classes in Woburn Sands and Aspley Guise exhaled a huge sigh of relief, as Milton Keynes landlords, faced with rent controls from Red Ed and the Labour Party, now had something to cheer about as the Tory’s were always considered to be a political party that accepted the importance of the rental market, supported its development while properly targeting the lawbreaker landlords renting out below standard rental accommodation.

Since May though, George Osborne announced future rises in stamp duty for buy to let landlords and a change in the interest relief on buy to let mortgages, some people have started to question that loyalty. However, things could have been a lot worse for Milton Keynes landlords as previous ideas of making landlord’s pay more tax was the idea (which was seriously considered) of increasing Capital Gains Tax rates to the landlord’s own income tax levels. If Landlords would have had to pay capital gains tax of 40% to 45% on any uplift in value, I can tell you here and now, that would have made investing in property a non starter for almost everyone.

However, I will admit the loss of mortgage higher rate tax relief will make a number of properties not stack up financially. The new rules are likely to slow demand in the Milton Keynes housing market, which is in fact good news for the other landlords, as there is less competition from 'amateur' landlords offering too much.

Just a thought, but making Milton Keynes landlords think twice and

run their numbers more cautiously is not such a bad thing.

So looking at the numbers, the November figures have just been released and they show a growth of property values in Milton Keynes of 0.6% over the month of November. That figure doesn’t surprise me due to the time of year. It’s quite dangerous to look at one month in isolation, so looking at a more medium term view, over the last 12 months, property values in Milton Keynes have risen by 10.9%, not bad when you consider inflation is running at -0.1%.

However, regular readers of the Milton Keynes Property Blog know my passion for looking deeper into the stats. The really interesting information is the value growth, but what types of property are actually selling in Milton Keynes?  Looking at all the properties sold, as recorded by the Land Registry, within 5 miles of the centre of Milton Keynes in September 2015 (this data always runs a couple of months behind the house price data) compared to September 2007 (a couple of months before the credit crunch started to bite and the subsequent property crash).

	Sept 2007	Sept 2015	Difference
Detached in Milton Keynes	118	116	-2%
Semis in Milton Keynes	139	87	-37%
Terraced Houses in Milton Keynes	148	129	-13%
Apartments / Flats in Milton Keynes	202	61	-70%

Now I have mentioned in previous articles that the numbers of properties selling in the town has certainly dropped post 2008, but what amazed me were the greater drop in the number of semis and apartments selling in Milton Keynes compared to the small drop in sales of detached and terraced properties.  

Less properties are selling than last decade in Milton Keynes

and the types of properties selling have changed ...

interesting times ahead for the Milton Keynes Property market!

Therefore, all I can say to the landlords of Milton Keynes is do your homework, make sure the numbers do stack up, take advice and opinion from professionals and above all, for those of you planning to add to your portfolio, buy the right property at the right price. One place for such advice and opinion on the Milton Keynes Property market is the Milton Keynes Property Blog

Where will Milton Keynes Property Prices be by 2021?

I was having lunch the other day at Loch Fyne, in Milton Keynes, with a local solicitor friend of mine, when the subject of property came up. He asked me my thoughts on the Milton Keynes property market for the next five years.  Property prices are both a British national obsession and a key driver of the British consumer economy.  So what will happen next in the property market? So here is what I told him, and now wish, my blog reading friends, to share with you.

Before I can predict what will happen over the next five years to Milton Keynes house prices, firstly I need to look at what has happen over the last five years.  One of the key drivers of the housing market and property values is unemployment (or lack of it), as that drives confidence and wage growth – key factors to whether people buy their first house, existing homeowners move up the property ladder and even buy to let landlords have an appetite to continue purchasing buy to let property.

When the Tory’s came to power in May 2010, the total number of people who were unemployed in town stood at 3,360 (or 5.05% of the working age population in Milton Keynes parliamentary constituency’s). Last month, this had dropped to 1,278 people (or 1.9% of the working age population).

As the Milton Keynes job market has improved with better job prospects, salaries are rising too, growing at their highest level since 2009, at 3.4% per year in the private sector (as recently reported by the ONS).  That is why, even with the turbulence of the last few years, property values in the Milton Keynes area are 26.58% higher today than they were five years ago.

Many home occupiers have held back moving house over the past seven to eight years following the Credit Crunch but with the outlook more optimistic, I expect at least some to seize the opportunity to move home, releasing pent up demand as well as putting more stock onto the market. With a more stable economy in the town, this will, I believe, drive a slow but clearly defined five year wave of activity in home sales and continued house price growth in Milton Keynes.

I forecast that the value of the average home

in Milton Keynes will increase by 23.0% by 2021

23.0% might sound optimistic to some, but according to Land Registry, values are currently rising in Milton Keynes at 10.6% year on year, I believe my forecast to be fair, reasonable and a reflection of both positive (and negative) aspects of the local property market and wider UK economy as whole.

However, it wouldn’t be correct not to mention those potential negative issues as I do have some slight concerns about the future of Milton Keynes housing market.  The number of properties for sale in Milton Keynes is lower than it was five years ago, restricting choice for buyers (yet the other side of the coin is that that keeps prices higher). Interest rates were being predicted to rise around Easter 2016, but now I think it will be nearer Christmas 2016 and finally the new buy to let taxation rules which are being introduced between 2017 and 2021 (although choosing the right sort of property / portfolio mix in Milton Keynes will, I believe, mitigate those issues with the next taxation rules).

I am telling the landlords I speak to, that with interest rates at their current level 0.5%, the cash in your Building Society Passbook is going to grow so slowly that it might as well be kept under their bed. Property prices, by contrast, have rocketed over the years, even after the property crashes, far outstripping bank accounts and inflation.

So my final thought ...  property is a long term investment, it has its’ up and downs, but it has always outperformed, in the long term, most investments. Those in their 40’s and 50’s in Milton Keynes would be mad not to include property in their long term financial calculations. Just make sure you buy the right property, at the price in the right location. One source of information on such matters would be the Milton Keynes Property Blog ...

What does 2016 have in store for the Milton Keynes Property Market?

Milton Keynes house prices up or Milton Keynes house prices down? ... and if so, by how much? Those of you who read the Milton Keynes Property Blog will know I am not the sort of person who pulls punches nor someone who ever fails to give a forthright and straight talking opinion – so here are my thoughts for the 35,450 Milton Keynes homeowners and landlords.

The average Milton Keynes property is 10.6% higher today than it was a year ago, which doesn’t sound a lot, but when you consider inflation is currently running at -0.1% (ie consumer/retail prices are dropping) and average salary growth is only around 2.5% pa, this is bad news for first time buyers as property affordability continues to decrease (although I was reading in The Times the other day that wage inflation (ie salary growth) is showing signs of weakening).

Some commentators have said the higher stamp duty taxes announced a few weeks ago in the Autumn Statement for buy to let landlords, concerns over first time buyer affordability and the outlook of UK interest rate rises in 2016 will really dampen the property market. I hope you all read my previous article about what the new stamp duty rule changes would REALLY mean for Milton Keynes landlords in my blog, but I believe the real issue in the Milton Keynes property market is the shortage of property to buy, as people either worry there will be no suitable house to move to, or cannot afford to upgrade. However, on the supply side, Mr Osborne said in his Autumn Statement that he will change the planning laws to ensure the government meets the pledge made at the General Election (back in May) of 200,000 new homes a year.  All I can say is .. good luck George hitting those numbers!

Why? Because houses take years to build .. not months .. so George and his fabled house building aside .... where does that leave us in Milton Keynes in 2016?

Well, talking of supply ... whilst Mr Osborne builds his properties (and let’s be honest - a week doesn’t go by without him being filmed on a building site with a high viz jacket and hard hat building a house here and there!), let us look at the shortage of properties for sale. Back in December 2011, 2,596 properties were for sale in Milton Keynes .. today that figure is 1,098. On the face of it, this means there is less choice for Milton Keynes buyers – but it also means with a restricted supply of properties for sale .. it keeps property prices high for Milton Keynes house sellers.

Everything isn’t all doom and gloom though ... again back in December 2011, the average property in Milton Keynes took 106 days to find a buyer .. latest figures state this has dropped to 55 days .. a drop of 48% in how long it takes to find a buyer. However, when you delve even deeper, the best performing type of property today in Milton Keynes is the 3 bed, which only takes 40 days to find a buyer (on average) compared to the 1 bed, which takes 69 days. It just goes to show, even though the average has dropped since 2011, how varied that change has been!

 

So, back to the question everyone is asking .... What will happen to property values in Milton Keynes in 2016?  I am going to suggest they will rise between 9% and 10% ... nothing out of the ordinary, but unless something cataclysmic happens in the world, 2016 will be like 2015! For more thoughts, opinions and views on the Milton Keynes property market .. visit the Milton Keynes Property Blog

Milton Keynes Landlords could be fined £1,476,000 per year

“Who would want to move to Milton Keynes in weather like this?”, was what one landlord said to me as we shook hands outside his property, the other afternoon. It was windy, cold, it had been raining most of the day and it was the last appointment of the day at 4.45pm. I will admit, as I had been out of the office all day, I was looking forward to getting home, putting the fire on, and watching telly with a big mug of tea.. but this landlord lived in neighbouring Luton and this was the earliest he could do. 

It turned out he had been self-managing the property himself over the last few years, but was worried with all the new legislation that had been introduced recently. He was particularly concerned about the up and coming ‘Right to Rent’ legislation, so as his tenant had handed in their notice recently, on this new tenancy he called us for our opinion.

For those Milton Keynes landlords that don’t know, landlords will need to check the immigration status of any new tenants moving into properties from February 2016 or face a £3,000 fine. It is called the 'Right to Rent' rules. However, tenants should also be aware that as well as traditional landlords, tenants who sub let rooms and homeowners who take in lodgers, must also check the right of prospective tenants to reside in the UK.

Our landlord from Luton wanted to know how much of a real issue was ‘Right to Rent’ in Milton Keynes. I was able to tell him, the last available figures (from a couple of years ago) show that 492 people (whom were registered as Non-UK Born Short-term Residents) moved into private rented accommodation in the Milton Keynes Borough Council area in one year alone. If all of those people weren’t supposed to be in the UK, that would be a fine of £1,476,000 to the landlords of the town.

It doesn’t sound a lot when you think there are 171,750 residents in Milton Keynes Borough Council area, and of those, 134,417 people (or 78.26%) were born in the UK. But Milton Keynes is a cosmopolitan town as the country of birth of the residents in the Milton Keynes Borough Council area can be split down as follows:

·         UK                                                                          78.26%

·         Ireland                                                                    0.74%

·         Europe                                                                   5.83%

·         Africa                                                                      6.61%

·         Middle East and Asia                                           7.01%

·         Americas and Caribbean                                    1.25%

·         Australia and Pacific region                               0.26% 

 

However, it must also be recognised that landlords, by checking up on tenants, could potentially be accused of discrimination under the Equality Act. This is a real minefield for landlords, especially when you consider that not all of the 10,010 Europeans in the area necessarily have the right to live in the UK either.

 

 

In a nutshell, Milton Keynes landlords will need to check and retain copies of certain documents that show a potential tenant has the right to live in the UK. These include ....

·         UK Passport

·         EEA Passport/Identity card

·         Travel document or Permanent Residence Card showing indefinite leave to remain

·         Paperwork from Home Office stating their Immigration status

·         Certificate of registration or naturalisation as a British citizen.

 

I hope the new law will target dishonest landlords who repeatedly fail to carry out Right to Rent checks by making it a criminal offence. This means they could face imprisonment for failing to check on their tenants. That is why more and more landlords are asking agents to manage their properties, so they can stay the right side of the law.

So what did our landlord do?

Well after our chat, he asked us to find a tenant and manage the property for him - he had been reading the Milton Keynes Property Blog for a while and because of the knowledge we impart to the landlords of Milton Keynes, we obviously know what we are talking about.  Even better news for him, even though this would cost him agency fees, I was able to get him an additional £60 per month for his property (when we found him a tenant one week later). Now, together with the peace of mind we will keep him the right side of the law and put a stop to midnight phone calls complaining about dripping taps, it was a win-win situation for everyone.

Will the young people of Milton Keynes ever own their own home?

I had the most interesting chat with a mature couple (in their early/mid 50’s) from Loughton the other day, whilst viewing one of our rental properties. The property wasn’t for them, but their son, who wanted a second viewing with his parents to get the parental blessing. Now I know that isn’t the norm, but in this case the parents were going to act as guarantor. We got chatting about the Milton Keynes property market and how they had bought their first property in the town just after they got married in the late 1980’s when they were in their early/mid 20’s. Anyway, we got chatting about how the youngsters of the UK seem to rent more than buy nowadays and from that the conversation covered a number of similar topics. I want to share the highlights of that conversation with you today.

Their son, like many 20 to 30 year olds in Milton Keynes, desperately wants to own his own property and the parents said he had read in the Telegraph recently, when you compare house prices to earnings, the current 20 to 30 something’s generation have to spend more of their salary in mortgage payments than any previous generation. The demand for private rental sector accommodation in Milton Keynes is huge. There are in fact 12,700 private rental properties in Milton Keynes at the last count, impressive when you consider there are 6,923 council houses in the town. However, let us not forget 35,450 properties are owner occupied (23,945 with a mortgage).

Let us all be honest, private renting doesn’t have the stigma it had a few decades ago and it might surprise people that even though us Brit’s class ourselves as a nation of homeowners, roll the clock back 100 years and over 75% of people rented their own home (and it was all from private landlords as council housing only started to come in with the ‘homes for hero’s’ after the first World War). It might also surprise you to learn that at the time of the 1971 census, still more people rented than owned their own home.

Looking at the affordability issue, I have proved time and time again, it is in fact cheaper to buy a property than rent, when one looks at starter homes for first time buyers. 95% mortgages have been available to first time buyers for over four years and whilst you could certainly find better properties in better condition in better areas, apartments can be bought for as little as the early £80,000’s in the Walnut Tree area of Milton Keynes (meaning a modest deposit of just under £4,200 would be required).

When it came to affordability, I was able to tell them that when they bought their first house in Milton Keynes in 1988, the ratio of house prices to salary was 7.54 to 1 in Milton Keynes ... and here was the surprise for both of us, today’s ratio is only 6.53 to 1!

I said I believed there had been a cultural attitude change towards renting property in Britain and that this quiet revolution was likely to be permanent. In the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s, saving for the deposit was everything and buying a house was everything. Youngsters today have far much more disposal income today than people had in the Callaghan and Thatcher years, but choose to spend it upgrading their mobile phones every 12 months, the newest tablet or PC, a newest 50” plasma LCD TV and two sun drenched holidays a year, than go without and save for a deposit.

Yes, there are horror stories of tenants living in rat infested properties with landlords who charge massive rents and don’t repair their properties. But that is very much the exception as most tenants rent homes of a quality they couldn’t ever to afford to buy. Twenty years ago, if you said you rented a property, you were considered the lowest of the low ... but now it’s the norm.

So with mortgage affordability being well within the bounds of most first time buyers, the level of deposit required for a 95% being surprisingly modest (starting off at c.£4,200 in Milton Keynes as mentioned above) until we change our attitudes, the UK housing market is slowly but surely turning into a more European model, where people rent for long periods of their life, then eventually inherit their parents properties and subsequently become homeowners themselves, albeit later in life.

Hence, I cannot see the demand for decent, high quality rental properties ever dropping in the next 10 to 20 years, but only ever increasing as the population continues to soar. Just make sure you by the right property, at the price, in the right location. One source of information on such matters would be the Milton Keynes Property Blog ...

Has George killed the buy to let market in Milton Keynes?

Well George Osborne, in his Autumn statement last week, caused Milton Keynes landlords to ask whether buy to let is a viable investment option, when he announced that landlords, when buying another buy to let property from April 2016 will have to pay an additional 3% stamp duty on top of the standard rate. So for example, on a £100,000 terraced, the stamp duty goes from nil to £3,000. It becomes quite stark when you look at the middle to upper market, so it means that the stamp duty bill for a £285,000 buy to let home will rise from the current £4,250 to £12,800 from April next year. 

Some say property in Milton Keynes will be worth less because potential landlords will not be willing to pay as much for them, and if house builders or existing homeowners don't feel they are going to get as much for them , then there is less motivation to build / sell them?... and the person we can blame for this is George himself. Back in 2012, he choose to utilise the British housing market to kick start the UK economy, with  subsidies, Funding for Lending and Help to Buy. However, whilst that helped the Tory’s get back into power in 2015, some say this impressive growth in the UK property market has been at the expense of pricing out youngsters wanting to buy their first home.

Others say this is the straw that breaks the camel’s back as over the next four years Landlords will slowly lose the ability to offset all their mortgage interest against tax on rental income, after changes announced in the Summer Budget. At the moment, landlords can claim tax relief on buy to let mortgage monthly interest repayments at the top level of tax they pay (ie 40% or 45%). However, over the next four years this will reduced slowly to the basic rate of tax – currently 20%.

Surely this is the end of Buy to Let in Milton Keynes? Probably.. but before we all run to hills panicking .. let me give you another thought.

Stamp Duty rules were changed in December 2014. Before then, landlords were eagerly buying up properties under the ‘old slab style Stamp Duty’ system. For example, the stamp duty bill on that £285,000 property was lower on the old slab style duty (pre Dec 2014), at £8,550, yet it isn’t a million miles away from new £12,800 stamp duty bill. Interestingly though, George has left a legal loophole in the new rules, because when it comes to selling up, they can offset purchase costs against any eventual capital gains tax, including stamp duty.

I believe that total returns from buy to let will continue to outpace other investments, such as the stock market, gilts, bonds and even pensions. Also, the best part about investing in property is that it is bricks and mortar. You can touch it, you can feel it, and it isn’t controlled by some City whiz kid in Canary Wharf .. the British understand property and that goes a long way!

Buy to let has enough impetus behind it that prospective landlords will continue to buy even with a larger stamp duty bill. Milton Keynes landlords will need to be savvy with what property they buy to ensure the extra stamp duty costs are mitigated.   Buying buy to let property is a long term venture. In the past, it didn’t matter what property you bought in Milton Keynes or at what price – you would always make money. Now with these extra taxes, the adage of ‘any old Milton Keynes house will make money’ has gone out the window.   You wouldn’t dream of investing in the stock market without at least looking in the newspapers or taking advice and opinion from others, so why would you take the same advice and opinion about buying a buy to let property in Milton Keynes?