The conventional way of categorising property in Britain is to look at the number of bedrooms rather than its size in square metres (square feet for those of you over 50!). My intuition tells me that homeowners and tenants are happy to pay for more space. It’s quite obvious, the more bedrooms a house or apartment has, the bigger the property is likely to be. And it’s not only the tangible additional bedrooms, but those properties with those additional bedrooms tend to have larger (and more) reception (living) rooms. However, if you think about it, this isn’t so surprising given that properties with more bedrooms would typically accommodate more people and therefore require larger reception rooms.
In today’s Loughborough property market, the Loughborough homeowners and Loughborough landlords I talk to are always asking me which attributes and features are likely to make their property comparatively more attractive and which ones may detract from the price. Over time buyers’ and tenants’ wants and needs have changed.
In Loughborough, location is still the No. 1 factor affecting the value of property, and a property in the best neighbourhoods can achieve a price almost 50% higher than a similar house in an ‘average’ area. Nevertheless, after location, the next characteristic that has a significant influence on the desirability, and thus price, of property is the number of bedrooms and the type (i.e. Detached, Semi, Terraced or Flat).
The number of bedrooms for owner-occupiers very much depends on the size of the family and the budget, whilst Loughborough landlords have to consider the investment opportunity. In this article, I have analysed Loughborough’s housing stock into bedrooms and tenure. Initially looking at Loughborough homeowners and then the private rented sector.
It can be seen from my research that Loughborough owner-occupiers tend to occupy the larger properties with more bedrooms. This would be expected due to the demographic of homeowners and people that privately rent.
However, this shows there could be opportunities for Loughborough buy to let landlords to purchase larger properties with more bedrooms to attract tenants requiring properties with more bedrooms. However, before you all go buying larger 4 bed and 5 bed mansions to rent them out, a lot of bigger properties in Loughborough don’t make financial sense when it comes to buy to let.
For numerous years, Loughborough buy to let landlords have been the lone buyers at the smaller one and two bed starter homes of the market, as they have been lured by elevated tenant demand and eye-catching returns. Some Loughborough landlords believe their window of opportunity has started to close with the new tax regime for landlords, whilst it already appears to be opening wider for first time buyers. This is great news for first time buyers! But one final note for Loughborough landlords – all is not lost. You can still pick up bargains, you just need to be a lot more savvy and do your homework and one source of such information with articles like this is the Loughborough Property Market Blog.
If you would like to discuss the Loughborough property market or chat about any potential investment please feel free to call us on 01509 260777 or email me.
