#yorkshireproperty

What is ‘co-living’? Isn’t it just a fancy new name for HMOs?

What is ‘co-living’? Isn’t it just a fancy new name for HMOs?

SLK-News

I read this comprehensive and balanced article a while ago but revisited it today. I thought it would provide a really good introduction for anyone who isn’t really sure what ‘co-living’ is and why it could be worth their investment.

Co-living: the end of urban loneliness – or cynical corporate dorms?

In the industrial chic lobby of the Collective, a huge apartment block in the northwest London neighbourhood of Willesden Junction, a set of posters advertise its events series for residents. There’s a crystal-pendant-making workshop, a talk on the politics of body hair and another on mental health awareness.

The article even clearly defines the difference between ‘co-living’ and ‘co-housing’ together with both positive and negative opinion from current and former residents of both types of development.

The balance is good, exploring the pros and cons, and discussing whether co-living is really just a way for developers to squeeze the living space and cram as many people as possible into their developments.

My one big take home from it though is the social aspect. I firmly believe the current drive for larger developments, ostensibly to achieve required economies of scale, actually destroys the social cohesion that is the principle desire of a large proportion of the target residents.

I believe these large scale schemes actually reduce the social cohesion and provide greater opportunity for conflict. After all, we know the optimum size for an HMO is 6 people and that co-living works best from a social perspective with 6-12 people sharing resources.

My personal vision for getting those scale economies is to have a large number of smaller units, sharing resources and facilities across sites. Each ‘unit’ works on its own but gains by sharing across a network of local and national resources.

Read this article with that goal in mind and if the idea of developing co-living units interlinked across sites has any resonance, get in touch!

“Top 20 areas of North Yorkshire’s rental market revealed” – not all it seems?

“Top 20 areas of North Yorkshire’s rental market revealed” – not all it seems?

SLK-News

I received the following “Top 20 areas of North Yorkshire’s rental market revealed” through LinkedIn today and I was keen to see the report.

It’s only short and when I’d finished I wasn’t sure what I’d learnt, if anything. Then a closer look revealed … nothing!

https://www.propertyreporter.co.uk/landlords/top-20-areas-of-north-yorkshires-rental-market-revealed.html

After the introductory fluff, the first pertinent table allegedly shows the comparative ‘size’ of the rental markets in towns and cities. It shows Middlesbrough (spelling it incorrectly with an extra ‘o’ by the way) as by far the largest ‘market’, quoting it as 35% of the total North Yorkshire market, with Richmond at 25%, York at 17% and Harrogate at 7.2%. Wow! Interesting.

Hang on! Richmond at 25%?! Richmond has a population of 8,500? Even the whole of Richmondshire is only 53,000 (North Yorkshire has a population of about 1.3m) how can it be 25% of the market?

I look again … the statistics are an “analysis of rental prices (in advertised rents) for homes to let”. Which means these are rental asking prices – for rentals that have not yet let. So really it does not show the size of the rental market at all, it more accurately describes what is NOT renting! Therefore on this data scrape you might be better assuming that Middlesbrough is critically over-supplied and be looking at the lower percentages where there isn’t such a high surplus on the market. No?

No. This data has absolutely no meaning at all – the size of the location is not considered – a low percentage location might still be over-supplied using this data. I can’t actually work out what this data is telling me. Certainly not quickly, which is what data is supposed to do.

What about the next table ‘Top5 rental markets … on rent’?

1. Richmond: £1798 pcm
2. York: £1395 pcm
3. Harrogate: £823 pcm
4. Scarborough: £477 pcm
5. Middlesborough: £425 pcm

In my humble opinion, similarly useless. So Middlesbrough, although substantially highest in the ‘market size’ rank of the first table, is 5th with a rental figure less than a quarter of Richmond. I can sort of extrapolate from the two sets of figures that Middlesbrough has a lot more properties available at much lower rents than Richmond. But now I’m trying to guess what’s going on with Richmond, commanding such high rents – perhaps there are a significant number of very large, rural houses which are not letting and skewing the data.

What data? It’s a mess. Does any of this inform investment decisions or help me define the best rental markets in the region? Emphatically not. Useless. A waste of my time reading and trying to understand this ‘report’ and of the agent’s time in originally producing it. I suppose at least I got a blog post out of it – but not the positive kind of post the originator of the ‘report’ was looking for.

Yorkshire Dales

Why the North? Why Yorkshire. Why North Yorkshire above all.

SLK-News

“Let’s shout it from the Dales: here’s why Yorkshire is the best.”

Of course, a lot of us think where we live is best. However, many people would love to live up here instead of where they live now.

There is certainly a quality of life here among the best in the country.

Let’s shout it from the dales: here’s why Yorkshire is the best | Dave Simpson

Part of the the county has been named as the happiest place in Britain. To music and football writer Dave Simpson, that’s no surprise

You see we think it’s grim down South, not up North!

The Guardian has published this feature piece by Dave Simpson who obviously has real affinity with Yorkshire and the Dales – worth a read if you know little about Yorkshire.

York

The Telegraph’s view on property investment highlights our area for growth potential

SLK-News

Number 2 in their list of areas for property investment growth potential:

“2. Leeds, York and Harrogate – Yorkshire & Humberside. These are the affluent areas of the region where people are not as constrained by affordability. And yet, because prices are nowhere near the £1m, £2m, £3m mark that they are in London, growth has not been hit by stamp duty.”

So the Telegraph informs everyone of something we already know. The Leeds, York, Harrogate triangle is full of opportunity but there are subtle differences in the types of investment which will work efficiently in each area.

In Harrogate in particular, house prices have historically held well in recessions, so if you want to add a layer of protection to your asset pick your location very carefully. Harrogate is a great choice to protect capital but, overall, rentals yields are tighter than many areas of Leeds, where capital growth will still be limited despite infrastructure investment, but short term yields are more attractive. York has a fine mix of both opportunities but there are local factors such as a very strict implementation of Article 4 across the wider city inhibiting HMO investments.

I can’t stress it enough, local ‘boots on the ground’ with specialist local knowledge are what you need for confident, profitable and secure investments.

Which areas will see the biggest house price rises by 2020?

In six months time we could be wondering why we were worried. But, if there is economic trouble in China ahead it could knock confidence in the stock market and housing market, and in the long term it could impact jobs and companies in Britain that sell products to China, Mr Chegwidden explained.