13.86% per year return on investing in Canterbury property

I was talking to a landlord from Wickhambreaux the other day about the Canterbury property market, following my recent articles in the Canterbury Times. With all the news about house prices rising, he wanted to know what had happened to average property prices since the New Year. According to my calculations, the ‘average value of a property’ in Canterbury is now £294,600, which is a rise of £3,300 from the figure two months ago of £291,300 (a rise of 1.13%). Now by my calculations, the average rent being asked in Canterbury is £1,124 pcm, which means the yields / annual return are an impressive 4.6% per year.  Since August 2013, the average value of a property in Canterbury has risen by 9.2%, meaning landlords achieved an average annual total return of 13.8%.

When comparing this to what you get in return from banks, buy to let could be a good investment for you. As I reminded another landlord the other day from Tyler Hill, the Canterbury property market has certainly changed since 2001. At the turn of the Millennium, of the 55,584 households in the City and immediate villages (including Whitstable and Herne Bay), 6,124 of those households (or 11.02%) were privately rented. Ten years later, and 5,187 new properties had been built in Canterbury/Whitstable/Herne Bay, but most of those had been bought for Buy to Let; because by 2011, there were 10,665 properties that were rented out to tenants .. that’s a lot of rented houses! That means 17.5% of the households in Canterbury/Herne Bay and Whitstable are privately rented whilst the South East average is 14.7% and the National average is 15.6%.

Don't get me wrong, there are pitfalls. My message to all the people of Canterbury, be you an existing landlord or you are thinking of dipping your toe in the water for the first time is quite simple – take some independent advice before buying anything, unless you're 100% sure of what you're doing. I say this because I know what happens when people don't. Even if it's not from ourselves, there are still a few regulated agents in Canterbury who are well placed to advise on whether the property you're considering will rent, and at what potential price. We're certainly more than happy for you to pop in (as I am sure they are) and see me at our office on Watling Street in Canterbury for a chat or email me direct for any opinion on david.anthony@martinco.com