April Fools Day was no joke for some landlords, as they rushed their buy to let property purchases throughout late March to beat the extra 3% stamp duty George Osborne imposed on buy to let properties after the 31st March 2016. Because some investors brought forward their 2016 property purchases to save the extra tax, speaking to fellow property professionals in Bexhill, all of us have noticed, since the clocks went forward, demand to buy in April and May from these landlords

I was reading the Sunday Papers and, when reading the financial pages, it was announced UK inflation had increased to its highest level in a year. Inflation, as calculated by the Government’s Consumer Prices Index, rose by 0.3% over the last 12 months.  The report said it had risen to the those ‘heady’ levels by smaller falls in supermarket and petrol prices than a year ago. If you recall, in early 2015, we had deflation where prices were dropping! So what does this mean for

You find me in a reflective mood today as I want to talk about the future of investing in property in Bexhill. The truth is that we have got lethargic, with many people having mistaken the ever rising Bexhill (and in fact the whole of the UK) property market since the 1960’s as the eternal gift that kept giving as property prices constantly rose and doubled every five to seven years. The days of making money from property as easy as falling off a log, like taking candy from a

If you read all the newspapers, the Brexit debate seems to be focused solely on central London. Many commentators have said Brexit would mean central London would have a lower standing in the world, meaning less people would be employed in Central London, with the implication of lower wages, fewer jobs etc. in Central London, but we are in Bexhill, not Marylebone, Mayfair or any part of Zone 1 London. Now on the run up to the vote on the 23rd of June, I predict the ‘in’ camp

The ‘Right to Buy’ scheme was a policy introduced by Margaret Thatcher in 1980 which gave secure council tenants the legal right to buy the Council home they were living in with huge discounts. The heyday of Council ‘Right To Buys’ was in the 80’s and 90’s, when 1,719,368 homes in the country were sold in this manner between October 1980 and April 1998. However, in 1997, Tony Blair reduced the discount available to tenants of council houses and the numbers of properties being

My parents bought their first house in the 1960’s, they were in their early 20’s. Interestingly, looking at some research by the Post Office from a few years ago, in the 1960’s the average age people bought their first house was 23. By the early 1970s, it had reached 27, rising to 28 in the early 1980’s. This year alone, 365 people in Bexhill will turn 28 and 383 in 2017 and dare I say 365 in 2018 year in year the conveyor belt carries on where are the Bexhill youngsters goin

“The growth of the private rented sector, and the arrival of an investor class of buy to let landlords within it, is an issue that won’t be going away anytime soon, no matter what you read in the Daily Mail”, I said, as I chatted over a coffee with a landlord client of mine at Blueberries Coffee Shop on Endwell Road in Bexhill-On-Sea. Whether you are a landlord of mine (or not as the case maybe), I am always happy to look over any properties you are thinking of buying for buy

I had an interesting email from someone in Bexhill a few weeks ago that I want to share with you. In a nutshell, the gentleman lives in Little Common, he is in his mid 60’s and still working. He has a decent pension, so that when he does retire in a couple of years’ time, it will give him a comfortable life. He had recently inherited £200,000 from an elderly aunt. One option he told me was put it into a savings account. The best he could find was a 2 year bond with the Post O

One of my landlords rang me last week from South Cliff, after he had spoken to a friend of his. Over Christmas, they were discussing the Bexhill property market and neither of them could make their mind up if it was time to either sell or buy property. If you read the newspapers and the landlord forums on the internet, there is a good slice of doom and gloom, especially with changes in the taxation towards landlords, new legislation on checking tenants and the general uncerta