This is the question many people are asking right now, and the answer depends on your circumstances. I pride myself on my ability to provide objective, fact-based information on the Rugby property market so potential Rugby house sellers, landlords and buyers can make the best decision for themselves. My role is to educate the potential Rugby […]

What will the stamp duty cuts and interest rate rises mean for Rugby homeowners and landlords? Last week the Bank of England increased interest rates to 2.25% and they are expected to be 3.25% by early next year. This increase will make the monthly mortgage payments more expensive for first-time buyers, an issue dubbed by […]

Rugby property prices have increased by 24.2% over the last two years. Rugby house prices have risen on the back of several things, including changes in how people see their homes and how they live and work (i.e. working from home), a lack of properties on the market and government tax incentives (the stamp duty […]

The total value of homes owned by Baby Boomers in Rugby alone is £2,938,670,816 – and two-thirds of the Rugby Millennials are set to inherit all that in the next few decades! Could this be the answer to the housing crisis? Could Rugby Millennials live it up for the next few decades, safe in the […]

“Tell me what is happening to the Rugby property market”, asked the friend of a friend at a recent do I went to in Rugby (after finding out I was an agent in Rugby). I always reply, “It depends if you are buying, selling or both”. The Rugby property market is like a seesaw. For […]

Even though the average value of a Rugby first-time buyer property has risen by 312.6% since 1989 to £205,370, the monthly payments Rugby first-time buyers must make on their mortgages as a proportion of their take-home pay is 40.7% less today compared to 1989. Today, according to the Nationwide Building Society… the average Rugby first-time […]

Could the high levels of mortgages that Rugby people take out cause another property crash? Many Rugby homeowners and landlords have been contacting me recently and asking what will happen to the Rugby (and the UK) property market? More specifically, will we have a repeat of the 2008/9 Credit Crunch property crash? High mortgage payments […]

139 of the 452 properties on the market in the Rugby area have had a price reduction in the last 3 months. The average reduction has been 6.2% of the original asking price. This is great news for Rugby home buyers and Rugby buy-to-let landlords, strangely Rugby house sellers as well. The last couple of […]

Well, what a weekend that was. Street parties, gatherings in the park, the purple bunting, egg and cress sandwiches, union jack flags, cheese and pineapple on cocktail sticks, and let’s not forget the trifle – the Platinum Jubilee Party. And no decent party is worth its salt without a game or a quiz. So, if […]

According to some newspapers and pundits, the property market boom could soon be over with the increasing interest rates and inflation. In this article, I share the 3 fundamental economic reasons why things are different to the last property market crash. The insider’s way to find out if there will be a property crash. … […]

Rugby needs 274 additional private rented properties per year to keep up with current and future demand from Rugby tenants. Yet over the last 5 years, Rugby has lost 324 private rented homes. What are the 5 reasons the supply of private rental properties in Rugby are falling? What does this mean for tenants and […]

In 1981, 20.7% of properties in Rugby were council houses. Today, that figure stands at 9.2%, a proportional drop of 55%. Why has the number of council houses dropped so much in those 40 years? How has that changed the dynamics of the Rugby property market in those 40 years? The ability of local authorities […]

1,032 properties have sold in the Rugby area in the last 12 months. It only takes 33 days to sell a Rugby home, so why does it take 114 days from the sold board going up to the buyer getting the keys? With a shortage of solicitors and a sub-standard conveyancing system, this article discusses […]

The average time to find a buyer for a Rugby property reduced from 53 days in 2020 to 33 days in 2021. Yet still, just over 1 in 5 Rugby homeowners are on the market after 12 weeks. Why are so many Rugby homes still on the market after all that time, and what does […]

The UK is currently experiencing its highest inflation rate since the early 1990s. This increase in prices has primally come about by the combination of an increase in demand for goods and services from consumers following lockdown last year together with global supply chain disruptions. Most economists weren’t too concerned about this increase in the […]

The energy bills of every Rugby resident will rise in April as the price cap increases to account for the global increase in the cost of gas. Those not on the gas mains will still be hit as the UK uses gas to make 45% of its electricity. So, what can Rugby residents do to […]

Some Rugby landlords face bills of between £11,000 to £14,000 as Michael Gove, the Housing Minister, declared an attack on poor quality private rental homes. 1,112 Rugby rental properties will require upgrading. The Government announced in their ‘Levelling Up’ White Paper last week they plan to introduce a new minimum standard for private rental properties. Also, […]

Will Rugby OAP homeowners be forced to sell their home as their gas & electric bills are set to double in 2022? What can the 9,006 Rugby OAP homeowners do to mitigate this? What are their options if they do need to sell? And what will that mean for the Rugby property market as a […]

The average house price in Rugby has increased by 197.2% to £295,000 in the last 20 years, a profit of £195,700 That means, when adjusted for inflation in those two decades, Rugby house prices have risen in real terms by 125.1% What does this mean for existing Rugby homeowners and first-time buyers trying to get […]

The Headlines… Rugby rents up by 6.7% in the last 12 months Rugby house Prices up 14.4% in the last 12 months Rugby landlords helped by ultra-low mortgage rates and a stamp duty holiday  Yet, some landlords in Rugby anxious about a possible end to no fault evictions New EPC rules could cost Rugby landlords […]

Finding your next Rugby property, be that for yourself to live in or as a Rugby buy-to-let landlord, can sometimes be a scary task. You are possibly making one of the biggest purchases of your life, and you want to ensure you make the right choice. Buying your next property is all about finding a […]

The Housing Minister, Chris Pincher, has suggested older homeowners are “rattling around” in their homes as they are too big for them. He implied they are selfish and should sell up and move to a retirement home when he spoke to a committee in the House of Lords. He stated that many British homes are […]

Everyone should be doing their bit to help reduce the UK’s carbon footprint on the globe – yet the question is, is that burden being put too much on the shoulders of Rugby landlords with potential bills of £7,600+ in the next four years? The background – the UK has obligated itself to a legally […]

House prices tend to rise with inflation, so with the UK annual inflation hitting 4.2% last week, that’s good news, isn’t it? Yes and no – let me explain what it means for Rugby homeowners. The year-on-year cost of living rose by 4.2% in October, its highest rate in almost a decade. The jump in […]

The Government’s scheduled publication of their White Paper for the Renter’s Reform Bill, which incorporates proposals to forbid Section 21 evictions and introduce ‘Lifetime Deposits’, has been suspended until 2022. The additional time is required to give a chance to create a level playing field to reforms for both landlords and tenants in the private […]

In recent articles on the Rugby property market, I have been talking a lot about house prices over the last 12 months and 5 years in Rugby.   When it comes to newspapers talking about the property market, the headline most people look at is what is happening to house prices. However, as 2 in […]

How far would you go to help your child get on in the world? Many Rugby parents move area to ensure their child gets into the best primary school or fund their university costs. Many of you reading this have even helped your children with the deposit for their first home from savings. However, I […]

With grocery, energy and other household prices/costs rising and hitting everyone’s back pocket, inflation (rising prices) may feel like an unimportant issue when it comes to the cost of keeping a roof over your head. Yet nothing could be further from the truth for many Rugby homeowners and Rugby landlords. Because inflation over the long-term […]

The ‘Buy-To-Let’ Mortgage is celebrating its Silver Anniversary (25 years) this autumn. Isn’t it fascinating that a decision between a group of letting agents and bankers all that time ago to offer ‘Buy-To-Let’ (BTL) mortgages has changed the face of the Rugby (and national) property market? But has it been a good thing? Or has […]

The stamp duty tax holiday is over, furlough finished at the end of September, unemployment is due to rise and inflation is rife … is this the end of the post lockdown Rugby property boom? Surely, we are heading for house price correction? Forecasting what will happen in the Rugby property market this Autumn may […]

The number of properties for sale in Rugby has fallen by 57% since this time two years ago (October 2019). One of the reasons is that many Rugby buyers feel overwhelmed and fearful they will be made homeless if they sell their home and can’t buy another. So, I have decided to look again at […]

As they struggle to meet demand, Argos have had to increase the wages of their HGV drivers from £11.41 an hour to £15 an hour – a rise of 31.2% meaning their pay goes from £27k to £35k. Care home providers are offering signing-on bonuses of many thousands of pounds to entice nursing staff away […]

Rugby landlords are becoming progressively more self-assured about expanding their rental portfolios; as Rugby rents rise, mortgage interest rates fall and demand for decent Rugby rental properties outstrips supply. A number of reports nationally would suggest around a third of UK ‘portfolio’ landlords (i.e. landlords with more than one rental property) are actively looking to […]

A recent report by Legal & General stated that, since the pandemic, many older homeowners had put their plans to move home ‘on ice’. It said that fewer OAP homeowners are planning to downsize from their large family homes after the pandemic made them realize the actual value of their local community and space.  Historically, […]

With Rightmove announcing a national drop of 0.3% in average asking prices in August, some are asking if the steam has been let out of the property market. Yet with the gains we have seen in the last 12 months, is this just a minor bump in the road? Alarm bells normally ring when new […]

Should you sell or should you buy in this most interesting Rugby property market? I have calculated that at least 106 Rugby house sellers have rented a home to break their house chain in the last 12 months, although at a cost as they face paying many thousands of pounds in rent.  There are a […]

Whether you are a Rugby homeowner, first-time buyer or landlord; the last 15 months has been a roller coaster ride when it comes to the Rugby property market. With 213,120 UK house buyers and 58,580 UK tenants moving home in June, the summer has been manic for many people. Meaning some Rugby homeowners are asking […]

The bungalow is a building that has represented a more leisurely, gentler way of life since the early 1900’s. Bungalows have been sold as an aspiration for those about to retire, saving them the annoyance of having to climb stairs. With an ageing population, one would think they would be building more bungalows, yet nothing […]

The Semi-Detached House – the icon of middle-class aspiration, the pinnacle of liberalism yet at the same time compromised individuality, the ‘semi’ as it is colloquially termed is, for many Rugby homeowners, the highpoint of modern domestic bliss. Britain’s gift to architecture is the humble ‘Semi-Detached House’. This type of property has been exported around […]

as 142.04% more people sell in June compared to the Rugby area 10-year average… June 2021 was the busiest month ever for UK estate agents, home removal companies and conveyancers since monthly records began, as HMRC logged 213,120 residential transactions in June, a jump of more than 216% nationally on the same month last year […]

And the reason you shouldn’t either.. I know of many Rugby buy-to-let landlords who fell into property investing by accident. Many didn’t want to sell their family home when the Rugby housing market crashed in the Credit Crunch of 2009/10, yet still needed to move (often for work). They thought they would keep their Rugby […]

… yet Bitcoin investors would have made £11,870,830 in profit. Is investing in ‘Bricks & Mortar’ dead? Investing in property has historically been a sound investment, yet alternative investments (like Cryptocurrency) have been gaining traction over the last five years. So, should we all ditch buying our own home and buy Bitcoin? Cryptocurrency with such […]

The value of an average Rugby semi-detached house has increased in value by £19,003 in the last 12 months, an increase in value of 8.16%. Yet the costs of building a Rugby home have shot up even more in the last 12 months, meaning the price of Rugby new homes and any building works you […]

Rugby house prices rose by 1.9% last month, according to the Land Registry meaning the annual rate of house price growth in Rugby now stands at 13.5%. Looking at the national figures, many people were concerned the UK property market was overheating as spring saw annual growth of 9.9%, the highest rate of house price growth documented since […]

Rogues or Saviours? There is no getting away from the fact that the rise in the number of buy-to-let properties in Rugby has been nothing short of astonishing over the last twenty years. As a result, many in the press have said Britain is a broken nation, with many twenty and thirty-somethings unable to buy […]

And how new Gov’t rules will mean draughty low-eco Rugby homes will drop in value.. ‘It’s Not Easy Being Green’, was the song that Kermit sang on Sesame Street. Yet now being green is a normal way of life for most of us. Walking or cycling places instead of taking the car, recycling and even […]

Would it surprise you even more when I said the ratio of house prices to wages are still lower today when compared to 1871?  Yes, you read that correctly, as a proportion of average wages British house prices are 17.6% proportionally cheaper today than they were in 1871. I wish to talk about the last […]

… Whilst possible new mortgage rules for Rugby homeowners would make it harder to sell their draughty old properties As the UK has committed to a legally binding target to be carbon neutral by 2050, one of the biggest producers of greenhouse gasses are residential properties. To hit that target, every UK property will need […]

All the signs are that the Rugby housing market is sat on good foundations, yet one key hazard could still scupper the market. ‘UK Property Prices Rising at Record Levels’ is the headline of many newspapers. In the last few weeks, the Halifax reported they had grown by 6.5% in the last 12 months, whilst […]

Rugby landlords, sell your property portfolios, your tenants will soon be leaving in droves as they buy their first home with the new 5% deposit mortgages backed by the Government’s new mortgage-guarantee scheme revealed in March’s budget! These 95% mortgages are to be supported by the Treasury, lessening losses for mortgage lenders should the borrower […]

As 1 in 4 Rugby homes are selling within a fortnight of coming to market. One of the most astounding things that has happened in the last 12 months was something that did not happen. Even after the country saw the deepest recession since the Great Freeze of 1709 with GDP dropping 28% in one […]

Would it surprise you that there are 64% fewer properties for sale today in Rugby than a decade ago? Property values are much higher than a decade ago and the property market at the moment in Rugby is on fire. In all my years as an agent, I have never seen it like it is […]

So is it a good idea to rent in between moving home, to be chain-free? Moving home is said to be the third most stressful thing you can do, so if you can do anything to reduce that stress, so much the better? When buying your next Rugby home, being chain-free can certainly reduce your […]

A look back at the Rugby housing market over the last decade… With all of us completing the Census, a couple of weeks ago, it made me realise profoundly that mine and my family’s life, which from our own point of view seems unique and delightful, makes us all into a series of statistics for […]

Has there ever been a better time for Rugby home sellers? The Rugby property market, for people looking to sell, is at its sturdiest for at least the last five years with home buyers jumping onto the Rugby property ladder with abandon. Rugby house prices are anticipated to rise throughout 2021 after the Stamp Duty […]

Yet higher mortgage rates could see Rugby buyers paying a lot more each month for the privilege Being a Rugby first-time buyer in the last 12 months has not been an easy thing. Just before lockdown there were 400 ‘5% deposit mortgage’ deals and first-time buyers were able shop around to get the best deal. […]

… and new 5% deposit mortgages for Rugby first-time buyers The Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced two initiatives to keep the Rugby property market firing on all cylinders into 2021.  Firstly, the £500,000 zero-rate Stamp Duty band has been extended to the 30th June 2021. After then it will phase down to £250,000 for an additional […]

How wealth is distributed will always be a contentious issue, especially as the Baby Boomers (those aged between their late 50’s and late 70’s) wealth has grown exponentially over the last 20 years, compared to the wealth of the younger generation.  With most UK property in the hands of the older generation, with its total […]

In Britain, there are 27,071,500 households, of which 17,044,450 are owned and are worth a total of £3,925,865,212,950 (£3.92 trillion). Over the last 5 years, an average of 86,096 properties sell each month, meaning just over a million UK households move home per year. Therefore, the average British homeowner moves every 16 years 5 months. […]

Over the last six months, the Rugby Property Market has been flourishing. As soon as an estate agents “For Sale” flag went up, neighbours would be checking out Rightmove to see the internal pictures and compare the asking price to their own home (go on … admit you do that too – every Rugby homeowner […]

What does this mean for Rugby property owners? With most Rugby families home schooling their children in lockdown and the forthcoming Stamp Duty Holiday deadline on the 31st March 2021, less Rugby properties have been coming onto the Rugby property market since the new year. This has prompted a 23% drop in the supply of Rugby homes […]

Most people pay Stamp Duty Tax when they buy a property, house, apartment or other land and buildings over a particular price in the UK. The Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, (quickly followed suit by the Welsh and Scottish Governments) announced last July that Stamp Duty was partially being suspended on all English property transactions up to £500,000 […]

When William the Conqueror invaded our fair shores in 1066, like all good kings, he needed to buy loyalty and raise cash to build his castles and armies. He did this by feudal law system and granted all the faithful nobles and aristocrats with land. In return, the nobles and aristocrats would give the King […]

Christmas Eve brought the news that Boris Johnson had conclusively agreed on a Brexit deal for the UK with the European Union. This gave optimism that the economic turmoil of leaving the EU would be radically reduced, yet what will this ‘trade deal’ do to the value of your Rugby home and the mortgage payments you […]

Roll the clock back to April 2020, and major financial economists and property market commenters were sounding the alarm. The very best-case scenario was a 5% drop in property values by the end of the year, and most were in the 10% to 15% range. They forewarned the Covid-19 stimulated recession would trim tens of […]

…and the three reasons why it will not be the catastrophic scenario some are predicting In the last few months, the Rugby (and UK) property market has resisted and flouted every economist’s prediction. With the economy a shadow of its former self, unemployment set to hit 11.9%, the Government on track to borrow nearly half […]

If the proposals were adopted in full, some Rugby landlords would pay £8,500 less Capital Gains Tax than they would currently The government borrowed £394bn this financial year (April ‘20 to April ’21). This figure does not include the cost of the November lockdown and support measures, which means the final bill will probably be […]

Looking back at the Rugby property market for 2020, it certainly can be seen as a frenetic game of two halves, albeit with a very long half time in the spring. Between the General Election in mid-December and Christmas, many Rugby agents saw an unusually higher uplift in activity in the property market just as […]

… and the 5 ways on how all Rugby landlords can escape the worst of the coronavirus downturn on their Rugby rental property. With the second lockdown starting on the 5th November 2020, does this mean Rugby landlords can wave goodbye to their Rugby buy-to-let investment and see it go up in smoke on the […]

Rugby homebuyers and Rugby landlords purchasing residential property have saved £198,050 since the Chancellor reduced stamp duty on 8th July 2020, yet many more Rugby homebuyers could miss out. My analysis of properties sold in Rugby from the Land Registry between the introduction of the stamp duty holiday on 8th July 2020 and 14th August […]

Post lockdown, the need for Rugby families who want bigger homes has meant Rugby homebuyers must now to pay considerably more to trade up to that larger home… One thing that has come out of lockdown has been the inexorable movement of Rugby households wanting to upsize to a larger home. Often considered to be […]

The Rugby property market is an enigma and chock-full of contradictions. Notwithstanding an economic recession and forecasts of property values dropping, nobody seems to have informed the Rugby homeowners selling their homes and those Rugby people looking to buy them. As I have discussed in many recent articles on the locality, the Rugby property market […]

Leamington has always been a town which benefits from its central location, just a short drive from Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwick, Kenilworth and Coventry, Leamington is also well-connected by rail to business hubs including London and Birmingham. Let’s start with some fun facts Overall prices have continued to grown by 0.7% since the end of April. An … Continue reading Leamington Spa & Warwick Property Market Update →

There are 3 principles that work when selling a home – Presentation Price and Promotion. Decisions house sellers make on these principles can avoid underselling their home. Preparing your home for viewers and making the right choice of estate agent, will not only ensure your property is sold faster, but can potentially add thousands of […]

It is always important to understand what is going on in the local housing market. As part of our ongoing service to you, please watch, listen or read our local housing trends in Rugby Town. We can also have a bit of fun, comparing our area to the UK as a whole. I’m Brendan Petticrew, […]

Nationally, the number of new homes created in 2018 was 222,194, the highest since 1989. Yet since 2002, the average number of properties built in the UK has only been 146,700 per year. You would think, seeing all the new homes sites around, you could ask are we building too many houses, especially off the back […]

Many Rugby people ponder the best places to invest their hard-earned savings and the best piece of advice I can give you is to do your homework and speak to lots of people. It depends on your attitude to risk versus reward. Normally, the lower the risk, the lower the reward whilst a higher risk […]

Moving home is said to be the third most stressful life event, following a member of your family dying or getting divorced. So it is always best to keep your stress levels down by investigating and doing your homework on both the particular area of Rugby (or nearby conurbations) where you live (i.e. where you […]

A handful of Rugby landlords and homeowners have been asking me what would happen if we had another property crash like we did in 2008/9? The UK property crash in 2008/9 caused property prices in the UK to drop by an average of 18.37% in a period of 16 months. On the run up to […]

A few weeks ago, I suggested property values in Rugby would be between 0.9% and 1.9% different by the end of the year. It might surprise some people that Brexit hasn’t had an effect on the Rugby property market that most feared at the start of 2018. The basis of this point of view can […]

With the Government preparing to control tenant’s deposits at five weeks rent, Rugby 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 […]

Over the last 5 years, we have seen some interesting subtle changes to the Rugby 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 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 […]

You read the personal finance pages of the newspapers and it all seems to be the impending pensions crisis … where people aren’t saving enough for their retirement. But it’s not the lack of Rugby peoples’ future pension incomes that are my immediate concern. The fact is that so many of the future retirees in […]

As we go full steam ahead into 2019, it’s certain that the Rugby housing market in 2018 was a little more restrained than 2016 and 2017 and I believe this will continue into 2019. Property ownership is a medium to long term investment so, looking at the long-term, the average Rugby homeowner, having owned their […]

With constant advances in technology, medicine and lifestyles, people in the Rugby area are, on average, living longer than they might have a few decades ago. As Rugby’s 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 […]

“I just love looking over and keeping up to date the 108 pieces of legislation that govern the rental of residential property in the UK”   …No Rugby Landlord, ever If you are one of the 1,861 Rugby landlord’s that manages your own property, would it surprise you to know that there are 108 separate pieces […]

A few months ago, I wrote an article on the Rugby Property Blog about the length of time it took to sell a property in Rugby and the saleability of the different price bands (i.e. whether the lower/middle or upper local property markets were moving slower or quicker than the others). For reference, a few […]

What is it to be British? Our stubbornness, long-suffering stoicism, our vexation at injustice, our obsession with football and rugby, we are weather obsessed external awkward noncommittal modest people whilst underneath seething like a volcano because someone jumped the queue….. and our No.1 obsession is with the property ladder. This ‘love affair’ with owning our own […]

It doesn’t seem two minutes ago that it was 90 degrees Fahrenheit in the shade (32 degrees Celsius for my younger readers), hosepipe bans looked likely and it was simply too hot to sleep at night, yet early indications were, that as the temperatures soared, the Rugby property market appeared to be doing the reverse […]

There is no escaping the fact that over the last couple of decades, the rise in the number buy to let properties in Rugby has been nothing short of extraordinary.  Many in the “left leaning” press have spoken of a broken nation, the fact many youngsters are unable to buy their first home with the […]

The Rugby housing market is a fascinating beast and has been particularly interesting since the Credit Crunch of 2008/9 with the subsequent property market crash. There is currently some talk of a ‘property bubble’ nationally as Brexit seems to be the ‘go-to’ excuse for every issue in the Country. Upon saying that, looking at both […]

The number of residential property transactions in Rugby will be 10.1 per cent lower in 2018, compared to 2017. According to my research, the seasonally adjusted statistics for our local authority area suggest with the number of properties already sold in 2018, and the number of properties currently under offer or sold subject to contract […]

Whether you are a Rugby landlord looking to liquidate your buy to let investment or a homeowner looking to sell your home, finding a buyer and selling your property can take an annoyingly long time. It is a step-by-step process that can take months and months. In fact, one of the worst parts of the […]

The combined value of Rugby’s housing market has fallen by £154,363,248 in the last 6 months, meaning the average value of a Rugby property has decreased in value by an average of £6,084.   This is great news for Rugby first time buyers and Rugby buy to let landlords, as there is a slight hesitation […]

Over the last twenty years, there has been a shift in the way the Rugby (and the UK’s) property market works. In the 1960’s, 70’s, 80’s and 90’s, a large majority of twenty somethings saved up their 5% deposit, went without life’s luxuries of going out and holidays etc., for a couple of years and […]

Living in our own homes or owning buy to let property in Rugby and the surrounding areas, it’s often easy to ignore the regional and national picture when it comes to property. As a homeowner or landlord in Rugby, consideration must be given to these markets, as directly and indirectly, they do have a bearing […]

The current average value of a property in Rugby currently stands at £254,300 and the base rates at 0.5%. In many of my articles, I talk about what is happening to property values over the short term (i.e. the last 12 months or the last 5 years), but to answer this question we need to […]

Are you up to speed with all 170 Rented Sector Regulations?​ We are coming across landlords on a daily basis who currently manage their own tenancies, for want of a better word – ‘unintentionally badly’. Legislation now imposed on landlords is lengthy and ongoing – 170 items to be exact. It is abundantly clear from […]

A drop in available properties is pushing asking price rents to record highs, Rightmove has reported. The portal says that available stock has dropped 8.7%, exacerbated by a 19.4% fall in London. National asking prices for new rents, excluding London, in the third quarter this year are £802. It is the first time that average […]

I have been doing some research, looking both at National and Regional reports on the demand and supply of property and people together with future projections on the economy, population and family demographics with some interesting results.  According to the Office of National Statistics, in the last financial year nationally, private renting grew by 74,000 […]

And if it does … who will be the winners and losers? Those Rugby people wanting property values to drop would be those 30 or 40 something’s, sitting on a sizeable amount of equity and hoping to trade up (because the percentage drop of your current ‘cheaper’ property will be much less than the same percentage drop […]

There is good news for Rugby buy to let landlords as ‘top of the range’ well-presented properties are getting really decent rents compared to a year ago however, this rise in rents is thwarting many potential first time buyers from saving for both a deposit and money for a rainy day. On top of this, […]

As we leave the memorably hot summer behind us, some interesting statistics have come to light on the Rugby Property Market which will be thought provoking for both homeowners and buy to let landlords alike. Over the last 12 months 1,258 households have changed hands in Rugby, interesting when compared with the 10-year average of […]

It’s been nearly 18 months since Sajid Javid, the Tory Government’s Housing Minister published the White Paper “Fixing the Broken UK Housing Market”, meanwhile Rugby property values continue to rise at 9.8% (year on year for the council area) and the number of new homes being constructed locally bumps along at a snail’s pace, creating […]

Nearly 5 babies have been born for every new home that has been built in Rugby since 2012, deepening the Rugby housing shortage. This discovery is an important foundation for my concerns about the future of the Rugby property market – when you consider the battle that todays twenty and thirty somethings face in order […]

A noteworthy number of buy to let landlords in Britain plan to buy more properties over the next year notwithstanding the frustrations, challenges and seismic changes in the private rented sector. According to Aldermore, the specialist Buy To Let lender, their research shows around 41% of portfolio buy to let landlord’s objective is to grow […]

In my blog about the Rugby Property Market I mostly only talk about two of the three main sectors of the local property market, the ‘private rented sector’ and the ‘owner occupier sector’. However, as I often stress when talking to my clients, one cannot forget the third sector, that being the ‘social housing sector’ […]

The Millennials were born between the mid 1980’s and late 1990’s thus making them between the age of around 22 to late 30’s. They are the imaginative, artistic youngsters who grew up with the newest tech and computers and who are huge aficionados of music festivals, gourmet pizzas, emoji’s, selfies and old school nostalgia. Also […]

Beast from the East, Russia, Facebook, Brexit, Trump, House prices up, House prices down … the Press is full of column inches on Brit’s favourite subjects of politics, scandal, weather and not forgetting (and I appreciate the irony of this!) the property market. As an agent belonging a national group of letting and estate agents, talking […]

As I have mentioned a number times in my local property market blog, with not enough new-build properties being built in Rugby and the surrounding area to keep up with demand for homes to live in (be that tenants or homebuyers), it’s good to know more Rugby home sellers are putting their properties on to […]

The value of all the homes in Rugby has risen by more than 262% in the past two decades, to £6.619bn, meaning its worth more than the stock listed company British Land Company, which is worth £6.505bn. Those Rugby homeowners and Buy-to-Let landlords who bought their homes twenty or more years ago have come out […]

As our families grow bigger the need for more space, be that bedrooms or reception rooms, has grown with it. Also, as our older generation lives longer and nursing home bills continue to rise quicker than a rocket on the 5th of November  (the average nursing home bill in the area being £777.75 per week) […]

Could you be facing a £30,000 Fine?  The Government are clamping down on rogue landlords and rogue letting agents in a bid to make the private rental sector safer for tenants. You can read the article in full here: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-boost-to-rogue-landlord-crackdown?utm_source=BriefYourMarket&utm_medium=Newsletter%2c+Email&utm_term=&utm_content=NALS+News+12%2f04%2f2018&utm_campaign=Instance%3a+nalscheme.briefyourmarket.com+-+MessageId%3a+1369 Follow me on Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/rugbypropertyexperts/ Visit the blog – https://wordpress.com/view/rugbypropertyblog.wordpress.com  

That got your attention … didn’t it! But before we start, what is Generation X, let alone Generation Z, Millennials, Baby Boomers  … these are phrases banded around about the different life stages (or subcomponents) of our society. But when terminologies like this are used as often and habitually as these phrases (i.e. Gen X […]

Yes, I said ‘rentirement’, not retirement … rentirement and it relates to the 653 (and growing) Rugby people, who don’t own their own Rugby home but rent their home, privately from a buy to let landlord and who are currently in their 50’s and early to mid-60’s. The truth is that these Rugby people are […]

Download this report as a pdf Market snapshot – Rugby – 16 February 2018

As I am sure you are aware, one the best things about my job as an agent is helping Rugby landlords with their strategic portfolio management. Gone are the days of making money by buying any old Rugby property to rent out or sell on. Nowadays, property investment is both an art and science. The […]

As we go headlong into 2018, I believe UK interest rates will stay low, even with the additional 0.25% increase that is expected in May or June. That rise will add just over £20 to the typical £160,000 tracker mortgage, although with 57.1% of all borrowers on fixed rates, it will probably go undetected by […]

Looking at the newspapers between Christmas and New Year, it seemed that this year’s sport in the column inches was to predict the future of the British housing market. So to go along with that these are my thoughts on the Rugby property market. With the average 5-year fixed rate mortgage at 1.98% (down from […]

Well the fallout from the recent Budget is still continuing.  I was chatting to a couple of movers and shakers from the Rugby area the other day, when one said, “There isn’t enough land to build all these 300,000 houses Philip Hammond wants to build each year”. …and if you read the Daily Mail, you […]

It’s now been a good 12/18 months since annual rental price inflation in Rugby peaked at 3.9%. Since then we have seen increasingly more humble rent increases. In fact, in certain parts of the Rugby rental market over the autumn, the rental market saw some slight falls in rents. So, could this be the earliest […]

As the winter months draw in and the temperature starts to drop, keeping one’s home warm is vital. Yet, with the price of gas and electricity rising quicker than a Saturn V rocket and gas, oil and electricity taking on average 4.4% of a typical Brit’s pay packet (and for those Brit’s with the lowest […]

Rugby homeowners will be among those affected by the latest rise in the Bank of England interest rates. The first increase in 10 years; they have just been raised from 0.25 percent to 0.5 per cent. This uplift comes as inflation hits a 51-month high of 2.9 per cent whilst the national unemployment rate is […]

In the credit crunch of 2008/9 the rate of home moving plunged to its lowest level ever. In 2009 the rate at which a typical house would change hands slumped to only once every 22 years. The biggest reason being that confidence was low and many homeowners didn’t want to sell their home as Rugby […]

As I mentioned in a previous article, the average house price in Rugby is 6.52 times the average annual Rugby salary. This is higher than the last peak of 2008, when the ratio was 5.98. A number of City commentators anticipated that in the ambiguity that trailed the Brexit vote, UK (and hence Rugby) property […]

I recently read a report by the Yorkshire Building Society that 54% of the country has seen wages (salaries) rise faster than property prices in the last 10 years. The report said that in the Midlands and North, salaries had outperformed property prices since 2007, whilst in other parts of the UK, especially in the […]

Moving to a bigger home is something Rugby people with growing young families aspire to. Many people in two bedroom homes move to a three-bedroom home and some even make the jump to a four-bed home. Bigger homes, especially three-bed Rugby homes are much in demand and it can be a costly move. If you […]

I was having a lazy Saturday morning, reading through the newspapers at my favourite coffee shop in Rugby.  I find the most interesting bits are their commentaries on the British Housing Market.  Some talk about property prices, whilst others discuss the younger generation grappling to get a foot-hold on the property ladder with difficulties of […]

David Gray, 34-year-old father of two from Rugby, was out house hunting. It was a pleasant August Saturday afternoon, and our man cycles along on his bike. He cycles up a street of suburban semis, where he spots a few retired mature neighbours, chatting to each other over the garden fence. He leans his bicycle […]

Over the last 12 months, the UK has decided to leave the EU, have a General Election with a result that didn’t go to plan for Mrs May and to add insult to injury, our American cousins elected Donald Trump as the 45th President of the United States. It could be said this should have caused […]

On several occasions over the last few months, in my Rugby Property Blog, I predicted that the rate of rental inflation (i.e. how much rents are rising by) had eased over the last year. At the same time I felt that in some parts of the UK rents had actually dropped for the first time […]

Well last week’s article “The Unfairness of the Rugby Baby Boomer’s £2,891,690,000 windfall?” caused a stir. In it we looked at a young family member of mine who was arguing the case that Millennials (those born after 1985) were suffering on the back of the older generation in Rugby. They claimed the older generation had […]

Recently I was having a chat with one of my second cousins at a big family get-together. The last time I had seen them their children were in their early teens. Now their children are all grown up, have partners, dogs and children. Wow – how time flies! So, I got talking over a glass […]

The Chancellor of the Exchequer announced a 3% hike in Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT) on buy-to-let properties and second homes in the 2016 Autumn Statement. This was met with “outrage” from various quarters, such as the Association of Residential Letting Agents (ARLA) and others who describe it as “the nail in the coffin of […]

In November 2015, George Osborne disclosed plans to restrain the buy-to-let (BTL) market, implying its growing attractiveness was leaving aspiring first time buyers contesting with landlords for the restricted number of properties on the market.  One of things he brought in was that tax relief on BTL mortgages would be capped, starting in April 2017.  […]

Should you buy or rent a house? Buying your own home can be expensive but could save you money over the years. Renting a property through a letting agent or private landlord offers less autonomy to live by your own rules, with more flexibility if you need to move. Yet, there is third way that […]

I received a very interesting email the other day from a Rugby resident. He declared he was a Rugby homeowner, retired and mortgage free. He stated how unaffordable Rugby’s rising property prices were and that he worried how the younger generation of Rugby could ever afford to buy? He went on to ask if it […]

There are 23.36 million properties in England and Wales with 64% being owner occupied and 36% being rented either from a private landlord, local authority or housing association. Over nine out of ten of those English and Welsh owner-occupied properties are a whole house or bungalow. Now, most people would assume they would be freehold […]

According to the Land Registry’s latest House Price Index for Rugby and the surrounding locality, the value of apartments/flats are rising at a faster rate than terraced/town houses, semi-detached properties and even detached property.   Values of apartments in Rugby have increased by 4.53% over the past year, which is proportionally 42% more than the […]

As more babies are being born to Rugby mothers, I believe this increase will continue to add pressure to the over stretched Rugby property market and materially affect the local property market in the years to come.   On the back of eight years of ever incremental increasing birth rates, a significant 5.50 babies were […]

So all cards up in the air! A general election will be on the books, but one thing is for sure … whoever gets the job to deal with Brexit has a hard job on their hands (I’m just glad its not me!) As it currently stands, by not assuring the rights of EU citizens in […]

How does that affect the Rugby Property Market? It might surprise you that it isn’t always the poshest villages around Rugby or the swankiest Rugby streets where properties sell and let the quickest. Quite often, it’s the ones that have the best transport links. I mean, there is a reason why one of the most popular property programmes on […]

The Rugby Property Market is a very interesting animal and has been particularly fascinating over the last 12 years when we consider what has happened to Rugby rents and house prices. There’s currently much talk of what will happen to the rental property market following Brexit. To judge that, I believe we must look what […]

2017 has started with some positive interest in the Rugby property market.  Taking a snap shot of the Rugby property market for the first quarter of 2017, the picture suggests some interesting trends when it comes to the number of properties available to buy, their asking prices and what prices properties are actually selling for. […]

The Rugby housing market has gone through a sea change in the past decades with the Buy-to-Let (B-T-L) sector evolving as a key trend, for both Rugby tenants and Rugby landlords. A few weeks ago, the Government released a White Paper on housing. I have had a chance now to digest the report and wish […]

Investing in Rugby buy to let property is different from investing in the stock market or depositing your hard-earned cash in the Building Society. When you invest your money in the Building Society, this is considered by many as the safe option but the returns you can achieve are awfully low (the best 2-year bond […]

The good old days of the 1970’s and 1980’s eh … with such lowlights as 24% inflation, 17% interest rates, 3 day working week, 13% unemployment, power cuts … those were the days (not)… but at least people could afford to buy their own home. So why aren’t the 20 and 30 something’s buying in […]

Starting with the bigger picture, over the last 12 months in the UK, 1,061,557 properties were sold with a total value of £223.74 bn. To give that some context, ten years ago 1,581,727 properties sold with a total value of £405.56bn, so it can be seen the number of people moving house has dropped by […]

If I were a buy to let landlord in Rugby today, I might feel a little bruised by the assault made on my wallet after being (and continuing to be) ransacked over the last 12 months by HM Treasury’s tax changes on buy to let. To add insult to injury, Brexit has caused a tempering […]

Recent statistics published by the Office of National Statistics show that there are 267,704 private rented households in the Country that are occupied by people aged 65 and older, meaning 4.39% of OAP’s are living in private rented property.   It got me thinking two things. How many of these OAP’s have always rented and […]

• 1,182 homes in the Rugby area are empty, which represents 1 in 42 homes.• 892 of those have been empty for more than six months and are worth £254million.• Why are those properties standing empty and deteriorating and why could that become an issue for the whole of Rugby? A couple of weeks ago […]

“How much would it cost to buy all the properties in Rugby?” This fascinating question was posed by the 14-year-old son of one of my Rugby landlords when they both popped into my offices before the Christmas break (doesn’t that seem an age away now!). I thought to myself, that over the Christmas break, I […]