As 33.4% of Royal Tunbridge Wells Property on the Market is Sold Are there any bargains because of Brexit?

Bargains – well yes and no – and let me explain why. To find a bargain you need to know the ‘market’, yet there is not one ‘property market’ in the UK. In fact, the British property market is like a fly’s eye, it looks one whole but in fact it is split into lots of fragmented pieces and the same goes for the Royal Tunbridge Wells property market as that too is split into different patches… in fact it can even come down to two streets adjacent to each other, one street selling like hot cakes for top dollar whilst the next street can stick and at comparatively lower prices (i.e. if there is a school catchment boundary or differing postcode).

According to Coutts, property values in ‘Prime London’ have dropped by 14.7% in the last 5 years … yet look closely at those stats and Prime London is considered anything within a 1,500m radius of Kensington High Street above £4.6m – a totally different world to the average property in Royal Tunbridge Wells, which is worth just over £490,000 and has risen in value over those same 5 years by 29.6%  .. a different world!

I have noticed that the top end of the market above £750,000 in Royal Tunbridge Wells and the surrounding areas is proving a little tougher to shift than a few years ago, yet this can’t all be blamed on Brexit, as buyers have long been flinching at overestimated asking prices and excessive stamp duty rates. 

In Royal Tunbridge Wells, 25.7% of properties for sale have 

reduced their asking price in the last 3 months by

an average of 5.0%

A lot less than the reductions that are being seen in central London. In fact, the property market in Royal Tunbridge Wells is looking reasonably good with 

33.4% of properties on the market in Royal Tunbridge Wells being 

shown as under offer and Sold subject to contract

…Interesting when compared with the aforementioned London Prime market where only 5.86% of the properties for sale are sold .. some bargains to be had there!

So, where are the bargains in Royal Tunbridge Wells? Well, to start with, it’s all about knowing the local Royal Tunbridge Wells market. It’s all about comparing and contrasting property, so to start with, check out the property web-portals such as Zoopla and Rightmove to see what’s for sale. The art here is to click on the ‘include Sold stc’ in the filters .. then arrange them in price order. Then you will get a feel for what properties are roughly selling for. Also look at recent sales, so in Rightmove click on ‘House Prices’ on the main menu, on the proceeding drop down menu click on ‘Find Sold House prices’ and now you can type in a street, or even a street plus 0.25miles/0.5miles .. click on ‘List View’ and they are in date order. There is a similar function in Zoopla (feel free to contact me if you need a hand with that).

Then once you have found what you think is a bargain .. view it. Ask the agent why the sellers are moving.  By doing your research on the seller, seeing how long it has been on the market, whether they have reduced the asking price (if you ask an agent they have to tell you and by how much)  — you could cut a better deal if they are compelled to sell. Push home your advantage i.e. if you are a first-time buyer, don’t have a property to sell, chain free or cash purchaser it can all make a difference.

Looking at the numbers above, some savvy Royal Tunbridge Wells landlords and home buyers are taking advantage of the doom and gloom newspaper headlines as property owners’ expectations are probably at the lowest they have ever been since the Credit Crunch, especially if they are in the ‘got to sell’ category instead of the ‘would like to sell’ category.

Like anything in life .. buying a property bargain comes down to putting the hard-work in, doing your homework and jumping at opportunities.

How Did Brexit Affect the Royal Tunbridge Wells Property Market in 2018 – and its Future for 2019?

A few weeks ago, I suggested property values in Royal Tunbridge Wells would be between 0.8%and 1.8% different by the end of the year. It might surprise some people that Brexit hasn’t had the effect on the Royal Tunbridge Wells property market that most feared at the start of 2018.

The basis of this point of view can clearly be seen in the number of property transactions (i.e. the number of property sold) that have taken place locally since 2008. The most recent property recession was the Credit Crunch years of 2008/2009/2010. 

In property recessions, the headline most people look at is the average value of property. Yet, as most people that sell also go on to buy, for most home movers, if your property has gone down in value, the one you want to buy has also gone down in value so you are no better or worse off. If you are moving up market - which most people do when they move home - in a repressed market, the gap between what yours is worth and what you will buy gets lower ... meaning you will be better off. 

Yet, most property commentators, including myself, suggest (and I have mentioned this before in some of my other blog articles) a better measure of the health of the property market is the transaction numbers (i.e.the number of people selling and buying). So, I decided to look at the 2018 statistics, and compare them with the Credit Crunch years (2008 to 2010) and the boom years (2014 to 2017). The results can be seen in the table below.

The Average Number of Properties Sold Per Month Over the Last 10 Years in Tunbridge Wells
	2008 to 2010	2014 to 2017	2018
Jan	93	153	127
Feb	104	144	132
March	113	171	138
April	123	137	99
May	135	156	90
June	142	189	139
July	155	205	186
Aug	132	216	187
Sept	139	180	130
Oct	128	179	127
Nov	142	163	145
Dec	137	158	115

Then, I looked at the average quarterly figures for those chosen date ranges ... and created this graph ... 

In that 2008 to 2010 property Credit Crunch recession, the average number of properties sold in the Royal Tunbridge Wells council area were 129 per month. Interesting when we compare that to the boom years of 2014 to 2017, when an average of 171 properties changed hands monthly … yet in the ‘supposed’ doom laden year of 2018, an impressive average of 135 properties changed hands monthly … meaning 2018 compared to the boom years of 2014 to 2017 saw a drop of 21.3% - yet still 4.6% higher than the Credit Crunch years of 2008 to 2010.

The simple fact is the fundamental problems of the Royal Tunbridge Wells property market are that there haven’t been enough new homes being built since the 1980’s (and I don’t say that lightly with all the new homes sites dotted around the locality). Also, the cost of buying your first home remaining relatively high compared to wages and to add insult to injury, all those issues are armor-plated by the tougher mortgage rules which were introduced in 2014 and the current mortgage market conditions.

It is these issues which will ultimately determine and form the rather unexciting, yet still vital, long term outlook for the Royal Tunbridge Wells (and national) housing market, as I feel the Brexit issue over the last few years has been the ‘current passing diversion’ for us to worry about. Assuming something can be sorted with Brexit, in the long term property values in Royal Tunbridge Wells will be constrained by earnings increases with long term house price rises of no more than 2.5% to 4% a year. 

Fundamentally, the question I am asked by many Royal Tunbridge Wells buy to let landlords and Royal Tunbridge Wells homebuyers is ... “should I wait to buy or not?”

As a Royal Tunbridge Wells homebuyer, one shouldn’t be thinking of what is happening in Westminster, Brussels, Irish Backstop, China or Trump and more of your own personal circumstances. Do you want to move to get your child in ‘that’ school or do you need an extra bedroom for your third child? For lots of people, the response is a resounding yes - and in fact, I feel many people have held back, so once we know what is finally happening with Brexit and the future of it, there could a be a release of that pent-up demand to move home as people humbly just want to get on with their lives. 

There is little to be lost in postponing a house purchase until there is better clarity on the situation. If it isn’t Brexit it will something else - so just get on with your lives and start living. We got through the global financial crisis/Credit Crunch in ‘08/’09, Black Wednesday in ’92 where mortgage interest rates went from 8.5% to 15% in one day, we got through the worst stock market crash with Black Monday in ’87, hyperinflation, power shortages, petrol quadrupling in price in less than a year and a 3 day week in the ‘70’s … need I go on?

Royal Tunbridge Wells Landlords? Well, where else are you going to invest your money? Like I said earlier in the article, we aren’t building enough homes to keep up with demand ... so as demand outstrips supply, house values will continue to grow. Putting the money in the building society will only get you 1% to 2% if you are lucky. In the short term though, there could be some bargains to be had from shortsighted panicking sellers and in the long term ... well, the same reasons I gave to homeowners also apply to you.

Royal Tunbridge Wells House Prices up 29.6% in the last 5 Years

Over the last 5 years, we have seen some interesting subtle changes to the Royal Tunbridge Wells property market as buying patterns of landlords have changed ever so slightly.

The background to this story was the recently published set of buy-to-let (BTL) lending statistics. Roll the clock back 12 months and 6,700 BTL mortgages were granted (in the same month) for £900m, meaning the average BTL mortgage was £134,200. Looking at last month’s figures, and as one might expect with the Brexit issue overhanging the property market, the lending figures were down, yet not by the amount I originally thought. Last month, just over 6,100 new buy-to-let mortgages were granted for a total sum of £800m (meaning the average landlord mortgage was a respectable £131,100). Yet, when I looked back to the boom year of the 2014 property market, in the corresponding same month, only £1,030 million was borrowed on 8,300 buy-to-let properties (meaning the average buy-to-let mortgage was £124,100). It seems Brexit is having no effect on landlords buying habits.

Looking closer to home in Royal Tunbridge Wells, throughout 2018, I have been regularly chatting to more and more landlords, be they seasoned professional Royal Tunbridge Wells BTL landlords or FTL’s (first time landlords) and their attitude is mostly positive. Instead of reading the scare-papers (oops sorry newspapers), those Royal Tunbridge Wells landlords that look with their eyes, will see the Royal Tunbridge Wells property market is doing reasonably well, with medium term rents and property values rising; as quite obviously from the mortgage figures .. landlords are still buying. 

The question I get asked all the time is .. “What type of buy-to-let property should I buy?  You can make money from property through both the rent (expressed as a yield when compared to the value of the property) and how the actual value of the home itself changes.

Since 2014, property values in Royal Tunbridge Wells have risen by 29.6%.

We have records of what each type of property (i.e. Detached/Semi/Terraced/Apartments) has achieved per square metre going back 20 years … and looking back over the last 5 years, these are the numbers ..

	2014 Royal Tunbridge Wells Average Value £/Sq.M	Current Royal Tunbridge Wells Average Value £/Sq.M
Detached	£3,499	£4,482
Semi Detached	£3,242	£4,250
Terraced	£3,405	£4,458
Apartments	£3,170	£4,016

They all look to have similar percentage uplifts, however as you can see from the table there is in fact some variation throughout and although only slight this can equate to thousands of pounds in monetary terms.

Price Changes in Royal Tunbridge Wells in Last 5 years by Type
Detached	28.1%
Semi Detached	31.1%
Terraced	30.9%
Apartments	26.7%
Overall Average	29.6%

This has proved that semis and terraced houses have performed the best .. although like the £/Sq.M figures, these are just averages. When investing, whilst Royal Tunbridge Wells’ apartments haven’t been the best performers in terms of capital growth, they do tend to generate a slightly better yield than houses, probably because several sharers can afford to pay more than a single family. But houses tend to appreciate in value more rapidly and may well be easier to sell, simply because there are fewer being built.

Now these are of course averages, but it gives you a good place to start from. The bigger picture here though is this - irrespective of what is happening in the world, be it Brexit/no Brexit, China, Trump, whatever, Royal Tunbridge Wells people still need a roof over their heads and we as a Country haven’t built enough homes to keep up with the demand since the late 1980’s. This means even if we have a short term wobble in 2019 when it comes to property values ..in the medium term, demand will always outstrip supply and prices and rents will increase – because, I doubt the local authority, let alone Westminster, have the billions of pounds required to build the one hundred thousand Council houses per year nationally for the next decade to fix this issue – meaning as the population increases, the only people who can fulfil the demand for accommodation in the medium term is the private BTL landlord.

Before I go …on average, housing associations and local authorities have built around 26,500 houses each year since 2010. The Labour government had a lower average, building about 19,000 homes per year, yet in the 1960’s, under both administrations, 180,000 councils were built per year!

Royal Tunbridge Wells Tenant’s Deposits held total £5,759,828

With the Government preparing to control tenant’s deposits at five weeks rent, Royal Tunbridge Wells landlords will soon only be protected in the event of a single month of unpaid rental-arrears, at a time when Universal Credit has seen some rent arrears quadrupling and that’s before you consider damage to the property or solicitor costs.

It can’t be disputed that the deposits Royal Tunbridge Wells tenants have to save for, certainly raises the cost of renting, putting another nail in the coffin of the dream of home ownership for many Royal Tunbridge Wells renters whilst at the same time, those same deposits being unable to provide Royal Tunbridge Wells landlords with a decent level of protection against unpaid rent or damage to the property.

In fact, the total of all the tenants’ deposits in 

Royal Tunbridge Wells, deposited or protected, is £5,759,828

When you consider the value of all the privately rented properties in Royal Tunbridge Wells total £2,643,744,933, the need for decent landlord insurance to ensure you are adequately covered as a Royal Tunbridge Wells landlord is vital.

However, I want to consider the point of view of the Royal Tunbridge Wells tenant.  Several housing charities believe spending more than a third of someone’s salary on rent as exorbitant, yet for the tenants they find themselves in that very position.  I feel especially sorry for the Royal Tunbridge Wells youngsters in their 20’s who want to rent a place for themselves, as they face having to pay out the rent and try and save for a deposit for a home. 

The average 22 to 29-year-old in Royal Tunbridge Wells spends 52% of their typical salary on a one bed rental property

….and 41% of their salary for a 2-bed home in Royal Tunbridge Wells.

40 years ago, British people who rented spent an average of 10% of their salary on rent, and only 14% in London. Looking in even greater detail, according to the ONS, over the past 60 years the proportion of total spending on all housing (renting and mortgages) has doubled from 9% in the late 1950’s to 18% today.  Whilst on the other hand, the proportion of total expenditure on food has halved (33% to 16%), as has the proportion of total spending on clothing (10% to 5%) ... it’s a case of swings and roundabouts!

Yet landlords also face costs that need to be covered from rents including mortgages, landlord insurance (especially the need for the often-inadequate deposits to cover the loss of rent and damage), maintenance and licensing.  In fact, rents in the last 10 years have failed to keep up with UK inflation, so in real terms, landlords are worse off when it comes to their rental returns (although they have gained on the increase in Royal Tunbridge Wells property values – but that is only realised when a property sells).

There are a small handful of Royal Tunbridge Wells landlords selling some/or all of their rental portfolio as their portfolios become less economically viable with the recent tax changes for buy to let landlords, which will result in fewer properties available to rent. 

However, this will reduce the supply and availability of Royal Tunbridge Wells rental properties, meaning rents will rise (classic textbook supply and demand), thus landlords return and yields will rise.  Yet, because tenants still can’t afford to save the deposit for a home (as we discussed above) and we are all living longer, the demand for rental properties across Royal Tunbridge Wells will continue to grow in the next twenty to thirty years as we turn to more European ways where the norm is to rent rather than buy in the 20’s and 30’s age range. This will mean new buy-to-let landlords will be attracted into the market, buy properties for the rental market in Royal Tunbridge Wells and enjoy those higher yields and returns … isn’t it interesting that things mostly always go full circle?

Royal Tunbridge Wells Property Market – Outlook for 2019

Property values in Royal Tunbridge Wells’ are unexpectedly 3.9% higher than at the end of 2017, notwithstanding the uncertainty and threats over the potential impact of Brexit in 2019. This has exceeded all the predictions (aka guesses) of all the City of London economists, in an astonishing sign of strength for the local Royal Tunbridge Wells and wider national economy.

Nevertheless, the statistics from the Land Registry come after a lethargic year for the number of properties in Royal Tunbridge Wells compared to the actual prices achieved for those properties.  All this against a framework of amplified political ambiguity and ensuing years of rising Royal Tunbridge Wells’ property values that have reduced the affordability of homes in the locality. 

The average value of a Royal Tunbridge Wells property today 

currently stands at £493,200

Looking in finer detail, it isn’t a surprise that 1,076 property sales in Royal Tunbridge Wells over the last 12 months is somewhat lower than the long-term average over the last 20 years of 1,609 property sales per year in Royal Tunbridge Wells as the long-term trend of people moving less has meant a decline in the number of property transactions.

I believe locally, property value growth in Royal Tunbridge Wells will be more reserved in 2019 after two decades of weaker wage rises. One of main drivers in the demand (and thus the price people are prepared to pay for a home) is the growth of peoples wage packets. Interestingly, wage inflation over the last six months has risen from 2.4% in the late summer to its current level of 3.3% (which is higher than the average since the Millennium, which has been a modest 2.1%). One of the reasons why wages are growing in the short term is the unemployment rate in the country currently only stands at 4.1%, continuing to stay close to its lowest level since the 1970’s.

However, even though Royal Tunbridge Wells salaries and wages are rising comparatively higher than they were last year, looking over the long term, Royal Tunbridge Wells property values are 140.58% higher than they were in January 2002, yet average salaries are only 76.1% higher over the same time frame. This means over the last few years, with average property values so high comparative to salary/wages, many Royal Tunbridge Wells potential buyers have been priced out of being able to purchase their first home.

At first glance, these stats are actually rather positive during this reported time of political uncertainty and the height of Brexit commotion ... because I genuinely believe that to be the case. The press have always looked for the bad news (well they do say it is that that sells newspapers), and whilst I am not entering into the pros and cons of Brexit itself, the numbers do stack up quite well since the Brexit vote took place nearly 3 years ago.

Moving forward, when taken with the recent reduction in short to medium term number of property transactions (i.e. the number of Royal Tunbridge Wells properties sold), it should be noted that a lot of the this buoyant house price increase has a lot more to do with a shortage of properties on the market rather than an uplift in the Royal Tunbridge Wells housing market generally. And we can’t forget that Royal Tunbridge Wells isn’t in its own little bubble, as there are noteworthy differences across the UK in property value inflation. House prices in London and the South East have hardly risen or even fallen in some places, whilst in the Midlands, North and other parts of the country they have generally increased. 

Looking forward, I would say to the homeowners and buy to let landlords of the locality that I expect house price growth in Royal Tunbridge Wells to remain stable between 0.8% and 1.8% by the end of this year (although they could dip slightly during the summer) ... as long as nothing unexpected happens in the world economically or politically of course.

Royal Tunbridge Wells Homeowners 227% More Likely To Live in a Home with 3+ Bedrooms than those that Privately Rent

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 todays Royal Tunbridge Wells property market, the Royal Tunbridge Wells homeowners and Royal Tunbridge Wells 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 Royal Tunbridge Wells, 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/Flat).

The number of bedrooms for owner-occupiers very much depends on the size of the family and the budget, whilst Royal Tunbridge Wells landlords have to consider the investment opportunity. In this article, I have analysed Royal Tunbridge Wells’ housing stock into bedrooms and tenure. Initially looking at Royal Tunbridge Wells homeowners..

And now the Private rented sector … 

It can quite clearly be seen that Royal Tunbridge Wells 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 Royal Tunbridge Wells 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 Royal Tunbridge Wells don’t make financial sense when it comes to buy to let.

For numerous years Royal Tunbridge Wells 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 Royal Tunbridge Wells 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 Royal Tunbridge Wells landlords .. all is not lost .. you can still pick up bargains, you just need to be a lot more savvy and do your homework ..one source of such information with articles like this is the Royal Tunbridge Wells Property Market Blog 

As OAP’s set to rise to 1 in 4 of Royal Tunbridge Wells’ population by 2037 – Where are they all going to live

With constant advances in technology, medicine and lifestyles, people in the Royal Tunbridge Wells area are, on average, living longer than they might have a few decades ago. As Royal Tunbridge Wells' population ages, the problem of how the older generation are accommodated is starting to emerge. We, as a town, have to consider how we supply decent and appropriate accommodation for Royal Tunbridge Wells’ growing older generation’s accommodation needs while still offering a lifestyle that is both modern and desirable. 

In 1997 in Royal Tunbridge Wells, around one in every six people (17%) were aged 65 years and over (and the local authority area as a whole), increasing to nearly one in every five people (19%) in 2017 and it is projected to reach around one in every four people (26%) by 2037, meaning..

Over the next 19 years, the growth of the over 65 population in Royal Tunbridge Wells will grow by 36.8% - a lot more than the overall growth population of Royal Tunbridge Wells of 6.1% over the same time frame.

In fact, the number of those over 90 is expected to more than double in our local authority from 1,371 (1.2%) in 2017 to 3,100 (2.5%) by 2037.

And looking at the proportional percentage changes over those years..

Looking at Royal Tunbridge Wells and the local authority as a whole, there is a distinct under supply of bungalows and retirement living (i.e. sheltered) accommodation. The majority of sheltered accommodation fit for retirement is in the ex-local authority sector whilst the majority of private sector bungalows were built in the 1960s/70s/80s and are beginning to show their age (although that means there is often an opportunity for Royal Tunbridge Wells investors and Royal Tunbridge Wells buy to let landlords to buy a tired bungalow, do it up and flip it/rent it out).

In the medium to longer term, we need to build more bungalows and sheltered accommodation and, if we do that, that won’t only be of benefit to the elderly population of Royal Tunbridge Wells – it will have a direct knock-on effect to the younger and middle-aged population by unlocking those family homes the older generation homeowners live in.  

There have been 17 Housing Ministers since 1997. No one ever seems to stay in the job long enough to create a consensus and direction in Government Policy on the vital issue of the country’s housing shortage, yet the sound bites and White Papers seem only to focus exclusively on first-time buyers when there is an even more severe and disregarded shortage in suitable housing for the older generation.

This scantiness affects both mature homeowners trapped in unsuitably big family properties, unable to find smaller bungalows or suitable retirement apartments, whilst the waiting list for Council sheltered accommodation is putting a strain on other aspects of social care. In both circumstances, policy coming (or not coming) out of Government is repressing the supply and type of accommodation mature people desire, need and want, whilst at the same time, increasing the cost (and taxes) for social and NHS care.

Maybe we need tax breaks for people to downsize or planning permissions that stipulate bungalows only. Whichever way you look .. there are challenging times ahead for us all.

The ‘Home Owning’ Movers and Shakers in Royal Tunbridge Wells in 2018

It’s now commonly agreed amongst economists and the general public that the dramatic rise in Royal Tunbridge Wells’ property prices of the last six years has come to an end. 

Read the National newspapers, and they talk of doom and gloom in the British housing market with such things as strained buyer affordability (as property prices have increased over the past six years at a far faster pace than average salaries), a lack of new properties being built and the Brexit uncertainties over the last two and half years being blamed for the slow down - yet in the last 12 months, people have still been moving, buying and selling in Royal Tunbridge Wells at levels similar to the last six years - something tells me we have a case of ‘bad news selling newspapers’. \

So instead, let me share with you what, exactly, is happening in the Royal Tunbridge Wells property market, and more specifically, who is moving and why. Most of the sales in Royal Tunbridge Wells over the past twelve months were flats, which on average sold for £285,800. Terraced properties had an average sold price of £391,550 and semi-detached properties averaged at £465,250.

In Royal Tunbridge Wells, in the homeowner sector in 2018 (i.e. owner occupation), 447 households moved within the tenure (i.e. sold the home they owned and bought another one) and 87 new households were created (i.e. they moved from living with family/friends and bought their first home without privately renting).

What does this mean for Royal Tunbridge Wells buy to let landlords? Well looking at the graph, it appears bad news for landlords. There were 208 households that moved into the home owning (owner occupation) tenure from the private rented sector, whilst on the other side of the coin, 164 Royal Tunbridge Wells households moved to the private rented sector from owner occupation … which appears on the face of it, a reduction in the private sector.

My research has calculated that in 2018, an additional 217 new households in the Royal Tunbridge Wells private rental sector were created

...and it will continue to grow at those levels for the foreseeable future.

I have one final thought and opportunity for you property investors in Royal Tunbridge Wells. 108 owner occupied households in Royal Tunbridge Wells sold in last year where the homeowners had passed away. These properties can be a potential goldmine and offer great returns. The reason being is some members of the older generation who have owned these homes for decades have spent money on high capital items (double glazing / central heating etc.) but not spent money on more superficial low-ticket items such as up to date carpets, kitchen, bathroom and decorating (vital if you want to sell your property for top dollar). These properties can often be bought cheaply because most buyers can’t see past the avocado or brown bathroom suite from the 1970’s and the dated decor, so if you were to buy wisely and do the works, you could sell it on for a healthy profit.

So, whatever is happening in the world with Brexit, Trump, China, and the Stock Market … the Royal Tunbridge Wells housing market is in decent shape for the medium to long term. If we do have small corrections in values in the next 12 to 18 months, in the long term, house prices have always returned ... and returned with vengeance. Like I say to anyone buying a property, be they a first time buyer, landlord or homeowner ... property is a long game ... and if you play the long game, you will always win (although isn’t that true in most aspects of life?).