Fletchers
A shortage of good quality property, coupled with high demand from tenants in our area, has seen us achieving higher rental prices. In fact, the strength of the market has meant we have achieved increasing rents on new tenancies with some Landlords now receiving an additional 5% or more. We are particularly busy with corporate tenants who are relocating to London for work, and with families who are eager to find a family home in the area.
We continue to see great enthusiasm from our Landlords who are optimistic about the future of the lettings market. This is reinforced by the fact that, over the past year, less than 1% of our Landlords sold their property asset. We believe the popularity of living in London will see further increases to not only rental returns but also to London’s property prices over the next ten years. In fact, we predict property values will rise by at least 50% over that time.
There’s also a great outlook for Landlords on the finance front. We are seeing the rules on Buy to Let mortgages softening and lenders competing to attract this business. There’s now the widest range of Buy to Let mortgage options on the market since the financial crisis. All of this means there are big savings available for those who are remortgaging - we are happy to put you in touch with our Mortgage Advisors should you be interested in exploring your remortgage options.
We are noticing a real flight to professionalism from Landlords who expect their agent to be highly experienced and fully regulated. The Tenant Fees Act, which restricts what a tenant can be charged, is just one of the many laws to be changed in recent times. Fletchers already had some of the lowest tenant charges because we didn’t want to discourage anyone from looking at our Landlords’ properties, so for us there has been little change caused by the new law. We are regulated by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) and are a member of the Association of Residential Lettings Agents (ARLA), the Property Ombudsman scheme (TPO) and we have an approved tenancy deposit scheme. All of this ensures that tenants feel safe and secure in their dealings with us.
Well managed properties encourage tenants to stay longer and, at Fletchers, we are seeing more three year tenancies being agreed than ever before. Our fantastic Property Management team are increasingly busy as more and more Landlords opt to have our experts keep their property in prime condition. If your investment isn’t already managed by us and you want to find out more, please contact us.
We have been consulting with the Government on the matter of longer term tenancies, and we were also consulted on the proposed changes to issuing a tenant notice (known as Section 21). Should these proposed changes be adopted, you can rest assured that you will still be able to recover your property should you need to - so we are not unduly concerned about this proposal. We expect further news on this, and other licensing and regulation matters, in 2020 which we will pass on to you.
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