Student Accommodation Property Investment; Do your Research

Landlords hoping to invest in student accommodation in London have been offered advice on where to look.

David Lawrenson, property letting expert and owner of LettingFocus.com, pointed out that student letting is a sub-set of the market and has unique features.

"It's a good time to be a student landlord on the whole. One of the key things to look out for on the student market [is that] you have got to get the kind of property that is in demand for students," he noted.

"[It has got to be] in the right area and it has got to be [at] the right time as well because students only look at certain times of year - and that varies by university."

While the majority of first-year students will have been assigned university accommodation by this point, there will still be a number of older students looking to find property to rent in London and in their own university towns.

"One of the key things to be careful of with student lets is that with rising fees coming in, you have to look at the level of demand coming in for that particular education institution where you are buying, because some places are in less demand than others," Mr Lawrenson posited.

"With introduction of fees for students and the increase in cost of university [it] has focused minds a bit more about which university to go to, so look at the level of demand coming through for that particular university."

This may not be the same level of demand that landlords were expecting, but it helps to know the limitations of the local rental market.

Another thing to look out for, according to the expert, is that large companies do not come into an area and build university accommodation blocks that "soak up" most of the student demand.

"If you're not careful you could end up in an area which becomes oversupplied," Mr Lawrenson warned.

His advice came after research from Lloyds TSB revealed the average house price in new university towns has risen by 70 per cent since 2001.

London Property to Rent

Middlesex Property With Planning For Sale, Stanmore, North London

Jubilee Line Property With Planning for 5 Bed Home

Stanmore
Glanleam Road
Stanmore
Middlesex
HA7

Net Saleable: 4000 sq/ft*

£ 1,150,000
Freehold

Glanleam Road can be found in the North London suburb of Stanmore. The property is located on a private road moments from a superb range of shops, cafe's and bars in Stanmore.

Local transport links are available nearby from Stanmore Underground Station (Jubilee Line).

Planning consent has been granted for the demolition of the existing bungalow and for the construction of single family dwelling.

The scheme comprises 5 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms circa 4,000 sq ft.

The property will also benefit from a carriage driveway and large south facing rear garden.

Middlesex Property and Land For Redevelopment

Basingstoke Freehold Property for Sale

Property With Planning for Sale in Basingstoke

Darwell House
Essex Road
Basingstoke
Hampshire
RG21

NIA: 7299 sq/ft*

£ 2,100,000
Freehold

This exclusive development is located close to the mailine railway station and Basingstoke Town centre.

Planning permission was granted for the erection of a side extension, construction of a second floor and minor alterations to existing building to form 14 no flats with associated parking and landscaping (7 x 1 beds & 7 x 2 beds)

All the flats benefit from large lounges, fully fitted luxury kitchens with dining area, good sized bedrooms, bathroom and storage cupboards.

All 14 flats are let on an AST basis @ £125,000 p.a.

Hampshire Property for Sale, Basingstoke

Streatham Freehold Property for Sale, Lambeth, South London

Streatham Investment Property For Sale, Lambeth

Gleneldon Road
Streatham
London
SW16

NIA: 11198 sq/ft*

£ 2,600,000
Freehold

Gleneldon Road is located in Streatham in the London Borough of Lambeth. The subject property is situated on the south side of Gleneldon Road and is bounded by residential units on Gleneldon Road to the north and east, by gardens and thereafter residential units to the south, and by Bournevale Road to the west.

The property is easily accessible via public transport. There are a number of bus routes operating on Streatham High Road (A23) and Tooting Bec Road (A214) providing access to the surrounding areas and Central London.

Streatham Railway Station is located approximately 0.26 miles to the south on Streatham High Road (A23), which provides services to London Victoria and London Waterloo. Tooting Bec Underground Station (Northern line) is approximately 1.4 miles to the north west of the subject property. The immediate area is primarily residential and benefits from a range of independent shops, bars and restaurants.

The properties comprise four semi detached Edwardian houses that have been broken up into 30 flats (22 x studios, 7 x 1 beds & 1 x 2 bed) on an assortment of tenancies (1 x Regulated, 1 x assured, 28 x ASTs)

The buildings benefit from a large rear gardens and off street parking.

Rents average £109 pw, Current Local Housing Allowance Rates are £184.62 pw for studios and 1 bedroom apartments and £230.77 pw for 2 bedroom apartments.

Current Income £171k pa Potential ERV £277k pa
Potential Break-up value circa £3.6m

NIA 11,198sq.ft and GEA 13,815sq.ft

All offers should be exclusive of any VAT which may be charged on the purchase price.

Lambeth HMO Investment Property For Sale

Investment Finance News: Landlords 'should be optimistic' about buy to let opportunities

Landlords with property to rent in London and other parts of the UK are increasingly turning their thoughts to expanding their portfolios, an independent property industry expert has said.

Malcolm Harrison commented that many landlords are right to be optimistic about their buy to let prospects, as the rental market will "remain very tight" until there is more housing stock and a wider range of UK mortgage offers for first time buyers.

"There is no house building, there is a shortage of decent housing in many areas and you can't get a mortgage, so quite a lot of people are going to be very dependent on buy to let investors," he pointed out.

"I think [landlords] are right to be cautiously optimistic anyway because we don't know what is happening with the overall economy yet."

Mr Harrison's comments come after LSL Property Services published research showing half (49 per cent) of landlords think now is a good time to invest in their portfolios, with 86 per cent are planning to do just that in the next few months.

Investment Finance News

Birchington Development Opportunity for Sale

Property With Planning for Conversion

Birchington
The Square
Birchington
Kent
CT7

Net Saleable: 4879 sq/ft*

£ 340,000

Birchington is a quiet popular Town located on the Kent North Coast. This development opportunity is situated at the rear of 8-10 Birchington Square and is a few minutes walk to the local shops, bus routes, railway station and local amenities.

Full planning permission has been granted for the conversion of existing outbuildings into 2 residetial dwellings and the erection of 4 new build houses.

All 6 houses will benefit from 2 bedrooms and off-street parking.

Net saleable approximately 4,879sq.ft

Kent Investment Property for Sale

London Retail Landlords Are Better Off

Landlords who have retail property in London are likely to be better off than their counterparts in town centres.

Matthew Hopkinson, director at the Local Data Company, explained that landlords are finding it tougher to let their town centre retail spaces for a number of reasons.
He explained: "There are lots of aspects about town centres which make it much harder [to let].

"There are a number of dynamics, and those dynamics vary depending on where you are in the country and the type of shop and population that you are serving."
Mr Hopkinson added that infrastructure issues, such as parking and the size of the retail space, are causing problems for landlords.

He claims many retailers want a space that has ease of access and parking that supports their business.

However, landlords who have retail property in London may not need to be too concerned, as Iain Smith, spokesman for the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry, recently said that London is the "best business city in the world".

London Commercial Property News

Central London Investment Property For Sale In Bloomsbury

Bloomsbury Investment Property for Sale

King's Mews
London
Greater London
WC1N

GIA: 10512 sq/ft*

£ 5,650,000
Freehold

The buildings are situated on the eastern side of Kings Mews and can be accessed from Theobalds Road or Northington Street.

The property is located in Bloomsbury in the London Borough of Camden. Chancery Lane Underground station is approximately 350 metres to the south of the property on the corner of High Holborn and Grays Inn Road.

The site comprises a row of 6 freehold buildings. It is our clients wish to retain 2 of the units (preferably 25-26) The Kings Mews buildings are an assortment of low rise commercial buildings with one residential flat across the top floor of numbers 29 and 30.

The buildings for sale form part of a larger consented scheme for residential development. The buildings are now being sold separately and accordingly any prospective purchaser will need to make a separate planning application.

However, given than Camden Council granted a residential consent over the larger property, it could be argued that the principle of residential use for these properties has been established.

Having regard to the size of the buildings and plots for sale, there is potential for the development of mews houses in place of the buildings (subject to all necessary consents).

Individual buildings or parcels can be purchased.

There is an opportunity to develop the buildings on Kings Mews into mews style houses, subject to all necessary consents.

Investment Property in Bloomsbury

London Properties For Sale

Browse our listings of leisure, offices, retail, industrial, healthcare, student & commercial property investment opportunities for sale in London

• London property sales & investment guide
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Property in South East England

Browse our listings of leisure, offices, retail, industrial, healthcare, student & commercial property investment opportunities for sale in Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, East Sussex, Hampshire, Isle of Wight, Kent, Oxfordshire, Surrey and West Sussex

• Commercial property investments for sale in South East England
  
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UK Pubs; Change of Use and Planning

Redeveloping Commercial property to meet the demands of the UK’s property deficit is a highly cyclical and risky business and finding the perfect property for development does not happen by chance. The ability to determine your property investment needs, identify problem areas and ask the right questions can be the difference between profit and loss.

Over the last few years more and more people are choosing to convert former public houses into private residential dwellings. The traditional British pub is currently under threat as never before. A combination of factors has led to more and more pub owners shutting down pubs and seeking to convert the buildings to other uses; Footfall in all pubs has gone down two-thirds in the last twenty years, and there just isn't the demand that there used to be. Beer sales are falling by 20pc year on year and pubs are closing at the rate of 5 a day. The price of freehold pubs continues to fall, as breweries, pub chains and pub companies offload unprofitable, struggling, run down or vacant pubs.

But finding the ideal pub site to redevelop is not always that simple. There are issues with finding finance for the purchase of a commercial building, VAT to be considered but perhaps most important are the issues of change of use and planning.

Paramount Investments specialise in the sale of licensed and commercial properties and Sales Director, Steve Oliver has been selling pubs, wine bars, hotels and restaurants for the last 8 years;

" Some of our commercial properties already have planning permission for redevelopment. Pubs have a flexible A4 planning ‘business use class’ that normally can be changed to A1 use (say, for a newsagents), A2 (a delicatessen or a firm of solicitors or architects) or A3 (restaurants). And if you buy a property with planning permission, you can get on with your property development, modernisation or refurbishment project straight away."

Lincoln Pub and Development Land for Sale

Former public house/development land for sale with full vacant possession.

Joiners Arms
Victoria Street
West Parade, Lincoln
Lincolnshire
LN1

Ground floor footplate: 1524 sq/ft*

£ 125,000 + VAT
Freehold

Unconditional offers are invited for our clients unencumbered interest.

Approx gross site area: 1,741 sq ft*

The property represents excellent value for continued licensed use / owner occupation. There is also enormous potential for redevelopment (residential / commercial / mixed use) subject to gaining the appropriate Local Authority consents.

The existing use class of the property is A4 'Drinking Establishments'. Planning consent is not required to change the current use to A1 (shops), A2 (financial and professional services) or A3 (restaurants and cafes).

Rateable Value: £3,850

Joiners Arms Pub for Sale, Lincoln

Hotel for Sale, Mansfield Derbyshire

Derbyshire Hotel for Sale

Stanton Hotel
New Houghton
Mansfield
Derbyshire
NG19

Gross Site Area: 9708 sq/ft*

£ 250,000 + VAT

Freehold Hotel For Sale, Mansfield, Derbyshire

Gloucestershire Pub For Sale

Property investors looking for pubs for sale might be interested to hear that the Fox & Elm in Tuffley, Gloucester, is on the market for £29,950 leasehold.The Citizen reported that the premises include gardens, a three-bedroom flat and a dining room, with rent set at £16,000 for the next two years.

A skittle alley, children's play area and large car park are also part of the pub, which was last refurbished in 2004.It also has 14 years left on a renewable Marstons Inns lease, while prospective investors might be pleased to hear that it turned over £180,000 in the last financial year.

Councillor Gerald Dee told the newspaper that it is hard for the pub to compete with cheap alcohol sold in supermarkets.

"I would like to see it continue as a successful pub but I am not sure if it could unless they started serving food," he added.

The Campaign for Real Ale noted that the site has hosted a pub for at least 60 years, having been known as the New Inn, the Blinking Owl and Fox & Elm over time.

UK Pub Sales News

Guide to Buying Properties at Auctions

If you've set your mind on buying properties at auction, properties are usually advertised for three or four weeks before the auction day, during which time you can inspect them.

This is the time to do your homework and importantly make sure it's suitable. If you decide to take the plunge, let the auction house know you're interested, so it can keep you informed of developments. Some pubs are sold prior to the auction.

This is also the time to have the pub surveyed; Legal documents are usually available to download from the property auctioneer's website which you should get your solicitors to look through, however you don't need your solicitor to attend the auction.

Follow the links for more info on Guide to Buying Properties at Auctions

Downham Market Pub for Sale, Norfolk

Norfolk Pub with Land for Sale

Jolly Farmers
Feltwell Road
Southery, Downham Market
Norfolk
PE38

Gross Site Area: 42112 sq/ft*

£ 210,000 + VAT

Jolly Farmers Freehold Pub for Sale, Downham Market

Bloomberg Analysts Warns U.K. Retail Demergers Should Await Consumer Return

First-quarter sales at Costa Coffee surged 23 percent, Whitbread said last week, while sales at its budget hotel chain Premier Inn rose 8.1 percent. The company plans to double the size of Costa Coffee to 3,500 stores worldwide over the next five years.

“Nothing is likely in the near term,” Ellis said June 23. “It isn’t the easiest market environment to sell into at the minute, with ongoing consumer pressures. They would be better to hold off. It is now at the stage where a lot of investment in overseas markets is starting to bear fruit.”

The planned demerger of Punch Taverns Plc (PUB) this year to separate its leased pub division from Spirit, the faster-growing managed pub estate that includes Chef & Brewer, is unlikely to create shareholder value as weak consumer spending hurts leased outlets, say analysts.

“My valuation is 70 pence for Spirit and five pence for the Punch part of it,” Paul Hickman, an analyst at Peel Hunt, said in a phone interview on June 23. “It is fairly valued at the moment. The demerger is the delayed result of a company hitting the recession with too many pubs and too much debt. While trading is quite difficult, what they are doing is appropriate.”

Punch climbed 1.9 percent to close at 71.35 pence a share in London trading on June 24.

Punch Taverns is making “good progress” with its demerger the company said on June 8. The demerger needs the approval of bondholders.

Save the Pub Group; Planning law changes ‘won’t save pubs’

Morning Advertiser reports that protecting pubs through changes to planning law is “not deliverable”, community pubs minister Bob Neill has warned campaigners.

However, he has promised to look at a “mixture” of ways to improve protection of pubs and boost the chances of communities taking over assets where they are both viable and valued.

The All-Party Parliamentary Save the Pub Group, in conjunction with the Campaign for Real Ale, had issued Neill with a Charter for Protecting Pubs in England.

The charter calls for an end to the “scandal” of closing profitable pubs against the wishes of the community. It wants changes to the planning system to ensure pubs can’t be demolished or undergo change of use without planning permission.

It also wants to ensure a guarantee that a pub will not be lost where there is a viable bid to buy it and to continue running it as a pub.
Neill warned the Save the Pub Group that he could not deliver protection for every single pub.

“I don’t think it is deliverable — and certainly not through the planning system, as it deals with the regulation of land use. If you are regulating a certain type of business use, that is not deliverable.”

He added: “You can’t use the planning system to alter the shape of the market.”

Stonegate Pub Company and Town & City Pub Company Merger

Stonegate Pub Company and Town & City Pub Company have merged to form the largest privately held managed pub operator in the UK, with a combined portfolio of 560 pubs and revenues approaching half a billion pounds, reports Property Week.

The merger is the first significant transaction for Stonegate since it was formed by private equity firm TDR Capital to acquire pubs from Mitchells & Butlers in November 2010.

The merged entity will be called Stonegate Pub Company, with TDR Capital as the majority owner.

In 1998 TDR Capital were the original backers of Punch Taverns, orchestrating the acquisition of an estate of 1,428 pubs from Bass and the first tied pub securitisation. In 2003 TDR Capital acquired PizzaExpress, combining it with ASK in 2004 to create the Gondola Group, a leading casual dining group with over 500 restaurants across the UK.

“The UK pub industry continues to undergo significant change. This merger further strengthens our platform and positions us to be leaders in this shake-up.”

Great British Beer Festival 2011

The Great British Beer Festival at Earls Court, Britain's biggest beer festival, once again brings together a wide range of real ales, ciders, perries and international beers.

There's plenty to occupy you at the festival, you can play on some traditional pub games, enjoy live music, sample some food, including good traditional pub snacks, and also attend tutored beer tastings.

Britain's biggest beer festival 2-6 August 2011 Earls Court, London