Recently I was having a chat with one of my second cousins at a big family get-together. The last time I had seen them their children were in their early teens. Now their children are all grown up, have partners, dogs and children. Wow – how time flies! So, I got talking over a glass of lemonade with my 2nd cousins and a couple of their children, about the times of 15% interest rates and how the more mature members of our family had to endure the 3 day week, 20% inflation and

There are 23.4 million properties in England and Wales with 64% being owner occupied and 36% being in rented either from a private landlord, local authority or housing association. Over nine out of ten of those English and Welsh owner-occupied properties are a whole house or bungalow. Now, most people would assume they would be freehold – however, of those renting, nearly half of rental properties, 44% to be precise, lived in other leasehold apartments and flats. It might be

This was a question posed to me on social media a few weeks ago, after an interesting discussion with some clients about our mature members of Bexhill-On-Sea and the fact many retirees feel trapped in their homes. After working hard for many years and buying a home for themselves and their family, the children have subsequently flown the nest and now they are left to rattle around in a big house. Many feel trapped in their big homes (hence I have dubbed these Bexhill home own

2017 has started with some positive interest in the Bexhill property market.  Taking a snap shot of the Bexhill property market for the first quarter of 2017, the picture suggests some interesting trends when it comes to the number of properties available to buy, their asking prices and what prices properties are actually selling for. Let us first consider the number of properties for sale, compared to 12 months ago: So when we add in building plots and other types of propert

Investing in Bexhill buy to let property is different from investing in the stock market or depositing your hard-earned cash in the Building Society. When you invest your money in the Building Society, this is considered by many as the safe option but the returns you can achieve are awfully low (the best 2-year bond rate from Nationwide is a whopping 0.75% a year!). Another investment is the Stock Market, which can give good returns, but unless you are on the phone every day

If I were a buy-to-let landlord in Bexhill today, I might feel a little bruised by the assault made on my wallet after being (and continuing to be) ransacked over the last 12 months by HM Treasury’s tax changes on buy-to-let. To add insult to injury, Brexit has caused a tempering of the Bexhill property market with property prices not increasing by the levels we have seen in the last few years. I think we might even see a very slight drop in property prices this year and, if

An Englishman’s Home is His Castle as Maggie Thatcher lauded – everyone should own their own home. In 1971, around 50% of people owned their own home and, as the baby-boomers got better jobs and pay, that proportion of homeowners rose to 69% by 2001. Home ownership was here to stay as many baby boomers assumed it’s very much a cultural thing here in Britain to own your own home. But on the back of TV programmes like Homes Under the Hammer, these same baby boomers started to j

Well, it doesn’t seem like two minutes ago that it was Christmas – and now it’s all over! Happy New Year to you all. One cold December morning, after arranging the office’s Christmas cards I thought I would nip out for a quick festive coffee and mince pie at my favourite local coffee shop, Blueberries Coffee Shop in Endwell Road.  I met an old client of mine in the coffee shop and we got talking about the Bexhill Property Market. I had just completed my research for my next b

Bexhill people aged over 65 currently hold more housing wealth in their homes than the annual GDP of the whole of Powys, and this is a problem for everyone in Bexhill! Many retiree’s want to move but cannot, as there is a shortage of such homes for mature people to downsize into.  Due to the shortage, bungalows command a 10% to 20% premium per square foot over houses of the same size with stairs. To add to the woes, in 2014, just 1% of new builds in the UK were bungalows, acc

Well, hasn’t 2016 been eventful. The ups and downs of Brexit, the Queen’s 90th, Andy Murray winning Wimbledon, Trump, Bake Off to Channel 4 and something close to the hearts of every buy to let landlord and homeowner in Bexhill … the Bexhill Property Market. So, let’s look at the headlines for the Bexhill property market… In the last month, Bexhill property values rose by 0.63%, leaving them, year on year 10.8% higher, whilst interestingly, Bexhill asking prices are down 2% m

Figures just released by the Bank of England, show that for the first half of 2016, £128.73bn was lent by UK banks to buy UK property – impressive when you consider only £106.7bn was lent in the first half of 2015. Even more interesting, was that most of the difference was in Q2, as £68.12bn was lent by UK banks in new mortgages for house purchase, which is the highest it has been for two years. Looking locally, in Bexhill last quarter, £310.6m was loaned on TN39 properties a

The Bexhill Property Market continues to disregard the end of the world prophecies of a post Brexit fallout with a return to business as usual after the summer break. The challenge every Bexhill property buyer has faced over the last few years is a lack of choice – there simply hasn’t been much to choose from when buying a property (be it for investment or owner occupation). Levels are still well down on what would be considered healthy levels from earlier in this decade, as

I had an interesting chat the other day with a Bexhill landlord. He said he had been chatting with an architect friend of his who said back in the mid 2000’s, the developments he was asked to draw were a balance of one and two bedroom properties, compared to today where the majority of the buildings he is designing are more towards two and sometimes three bedrooms. There is a really important point as I explained to this landlord, as knowing when and where the demand of tenan

Bexhill is already in the clutches of a population crisis that has now started to affect the quality of life of those living in Bexhill. There are simply not enough homes in Bexhill to house the greater number of people wanting to live in the town. The burden on public services is almost at breaking point with many parents unable to send their child to their first choice of primary or secondary school and the chances of getting a decent Dentist or GP Doctor Surgery next to ni

Even the sane among us in Britain has to admit the Brexit vote will, in one shape or another, affect the UK Property market. Excluding central London which is another world, most commentators are saying prices will be affected by around 10%. So looking at the commentators’ thoughts in more detail, property values in Bexhill will be 10% lower than they would have been if we hadn’t voted to leave the EU. As the average value of a property in the Rother District Council area is