Over the weekend I went to see this one bedroom ground floor flat in Gordon Road N9. It was up for auction with a guide price of £115,000+ which would have been an absolute steal for any property and great for a one bed with separate kitchen and reception room, large bathroom AND private garden!
On Monday it went under the hammer and achieved a sale at £156,000. Now the property does need modernisation but I’d say no more than £10,000 max, leaving a total price of £166,000 which is still pretty good. In this area one bed’s achieve a rental price of around £900 which would give a gross yield of 6.5%, again that’s pretty good.
However a couple of areas that I feel need attention are:
1 – The layout. The entry door to the first floor flat is at the top of the stairs, rather than at the base, presumably making the stairs strangely communal. The position of the stairs also means that access to the bedroom which is via the lounge, is in the corner of the room and under the slope of the stairs making access a little awkward. There are workmen in the flat above so potentially the new owner could strike a deal with the owner of the upstairs flat regarding moving the stairs for the benefit of both.
2 – Where is the planning? Looking on the Land Registry website, I can only see one set of details for this address. There is also nothing listed on the Enfield Council Planning portal regarding a change of use to two flats. This is the sort of thing that needs to be looked into quite carefully before purchase. It may be that an application will be put in retrospectively but you need to know what the situation is before you buy.
I’m interested to see what will happen with this flat and how it is transformed.
At Belvoir Lettings Enfield we don’t sell property, we simply use our experience to advise people as to what might make a good buy to let property investment in the Enfield, Haringey and Barnet areas, and how to successfully let their property.
