Any decent buy-to-let opportunities in Boulton Moor?

A prospective landlord called in to the office last week. He lives in one of those modern 4 bed detached house on the Boulton Moor development, built on the edge of Alvaston on the South East edge of Derby. The whole development was primarily built in the early to mid 1990’s, and offers mostly larger executive detached houses and also modern semis and town houses. Interestingly though, over 71% of property in Boulton Moor is detached, compared to 41% in the South Derbyshire District area. Something that wouldn’t happen today with the price of land (there would be more semis and town houses)!

Anyway, he wants to purchase his first Buy to Let property and has noticed our previous articles, so was interested in getting to know the industry a little bit more. As he has lived in the Boulton Moor area for over 8 years and he felt comfortable investing in there as he knew it well, we started to discuss the property market in this area. Firstly, we found that of the 181 semi-detached and town houses in Boulton Moor, 153 of them have sold and changed hands since 1999 (some up to 4 times!), so obviously a good place to buy and sell in.

Property values in Derby have risen on average by around 118% over the last 14 years, but most semi-detached properties on the Boulton Moor area have beaten that rise, rising on average by 173%. For example, a top of the range two bedroomed semi-detached property on Paddock Close rose by 175%, from £45,000 in 2000 to £123,800 in 2011 – and this is one of many.

With excellent capital growth you would expect yields to be comparatively lower, but most two bedroomed properties on the development can be picked up from £100,000 to £110,000 and could have achievable rents of £500 per month. This means annual yields can be around an attractive 5.7%! Feel free to pop through the door of our offices on St James Street or send me an email to simonj@professionalproperties.co.uk