The Clapham Property Blog

Well here it is, for those that want to see the numbercrunching and spreadsheet analysis! If you like this video please like, comment and share and join the Clapham Property Blog community on Facebook, LinkedIn and Youtube. If you prefer old fashioned email  just drop me a line  or come and meet me in person at the  Clapham Property Meet!

So what do chicken shops have to do with the price of fish?? Find out more in this video: If you like this video please like, comment and share and join the Clapham Property Blog community on Facebook, LinkedIn and Youtube. If you prefer old fashioned email just drop me a line or come and meet me in person at the Clapham Property Meet!

Another hot topic today - whether or not to get involved with management yourself... Click here for the video: Summary: 1. Are you letting by the room or are you letting as a whole? Generally letting by the room is much harder work, you're dealing with an infinitely higher number of variables and you have upteen times the work. Every time someone leaves you need to re-advertise for new tenants, go through the rigmarole of vetting and referencing and then by the time they move in the next person wants to move out. With a single let the tenancy term is anything from 6-36 months, but most people will sign up for a year and stay about two. ARLA reported significant increases in tenancy lengths over the last few years, so the trend for people that are living together to stay together longer is increasing. This is naturally a less prevalent trend with room lets because there is generally no baggage to tie them down. 2. How far away do you live from the property? Now

Day 4 of the video series... Thank you very much for the overwhelmingly positive response to my video series! Looks like video is really the medium of 2017, so here comes another one, this time I'll discuss the things to watch out for when choosing an agent. Remember to give me a thumbs up, comment or share to discuss your thoughts also. So.... here comes 6 factors you should be looking at when deciding on an agent for your investment property! 1. Online or High street - It will come as no surprise that I will be for the old-fashioned High Street agent, having been one myself for nearly 15 years. Local agents have... local knowledge. They are trained to better standards (most of the time) and generally have a lot of experience in the field. Online agents generally only get paid to list and then forget about the listing, so you have to pay them and then pay an agent to do it properly. Exception to this is if you are an experienced landlord and don't mind doing y

Welcome to day 3 of my video series on investment tips to help get you better returns from your property developments and investments. Today’s video will focus on photography, so I’m going to give you 5 massive tips on how to get the best from your property in still picture format. Click here for the video: Summary: Dress the property like you are living there, create that homely feel. Pictures up, scatter cushions tidy, curtains tied back, lots of light in there. Prep all the rooms. Toilet seat DOWN! If shower is wet squeegee it down, make it look fresh. Maybe a coloured towel and some ornaments on the sink? Discretion as can look cluttered, speaking of which make sure to take away shampoo bottles etc. Same for kitchen, toaster, kettle, microwave etc… Use a professional photographer or camera and do some editing, brighten up the photos, or if you want to you can outsource that to someone. Failing that: best angle is normally from the doorway. Try to get two wal

Thanks for all your positive comments from yesterday's episode. In case you missed it go back to it here - I talked about curb appeal. On to today's video: Day 2: refurbs on the cheap. As you'll know I've been an estate agent for nearly 15 years before turning to property investment full-time. You will know I've seen my fair share of the good, the bad and the ugly that the London PRS has to offer. In the video I offer my insight into what makes a refurb look "cheap" and how you can avoid being that "cheap" investor! After all everyone likes a bit of quality in their life and housing is no exception. Better returns are for those who go the extra mile. So if you want to know where that magical price point lies click on to the video and have a look and listen as I talk real examples and show you pictures of the good, the bad and the ugly! I hope you find the video useful. Stand by for tomorrow's episode too, it's a top

This morning I was rather inspired to do a little mini series on lettings. A lot of investors overlook the simple things when letting their property, so I thought I would offer some value to their investments with 30 tips in 30 days. Here goes! Day 1 - Curb Appeal I actually recorded a video LIVE to put myself on the spot to give you some added value on my thoughts. Watch the 4min video here: (go easy, it was filmed live!) If you don't have time to watch the video just keep reading: Often times curb appeal is overlooked. Landlord are often too focused on the bottom line and more often than not the inside is where the money is spent, not the outside. I think this is a missed opportunity. There will be times where the front of the property is very important - tenants are waiting around, they may look on Google Streetview to check it out beforehand and there will invariably be an external photo of the property on your agent's RightMove and Zoopla adver

50 years ago, in 1967, the first human heart transplant was performed by Dr Christian Barnard in South Africa. In the same year Sweden switched from driving on the left-hand side to the right-hand side of the road . The average value of a Clapham property was £11,388 , interest rates were at 5.5% and The Beatles released one of my favourite albums – their Sgt Peppers album ... but what the hell has that to do with the Clapham property market today?? Quite a lot actually ... so with my CD Player turned up loud - let me explain my friends! I have been doing some research on the current attitude of Clapham first-time buyers.  First-time buyers are so important for both landlords and homeowners. If first-time buyers aren’t buying, they still need a roof over their heads, so they rent (good news for landlords). If they buy, demand for Clapham property goes up for starter homes and that enables other Clapham homeowners to move up the property ladder. First-time buyers are the lif

You’ll have seen my most recent market update. If you had missed it, check out the video here on YouTube . It would appear that the rental market is a little bit “soft” at the moment. An oversupply is certainly causing prices to come down. Odd this, because the summer is notoriously the busiest time of the year, as I’ve written in the past. Fear not, I suspect that the real rush is yet to come as the August and September months approach. It would appear that rent rises are easing in Clapham, at least they have been 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 in over eight years. Recent research backs up this prediction. Rents in Clapham for new tenancies fell by 1.2% in the last 12 months ( i.e. not existing tenants experiencing rental increases from their existing landlord ). When we compare that current rate with the historical rental inflation in Clapham, an interesting pattern emerges...

Independence day for some, just another day in property in London. Here is a short video for you, I thought I'd share my Deptford project with you thus far. Stand by for launch day! As always, if you are keen to start investing, or start doing something a bit more interesting with your current portfolio... Start the conversation on email . I'd love to meet you in person of course at this month's Clapham Property Meet, so do come along. Click here for tickets and more info.