Building the Future with a Ready-Made Investment

Key Findings:

• Buy-to-Let naturally fits a long-term strategy
• Premium quality developments will generally attract a premium tenant ensuring yield security
• Undersupply is creating a competitive market
• Ready-made investments are ideal for investors that want a ‘hassle-free’ experience

Longevity is key for building a successful property portfolio. The longer an investment has to build a consistent return the better. Consider the following example – a single £10,000 investment at 20-years-old (based on a 5% interest rate) would grow to £70,000 by the time the investor was 60. That same £10,000 investment made ten years later at 30-years-old would result in around £43,000 by 60.

Buy-to-Let property is no different. It naturally benefits from a long-term strategy where it can generate wealth over time. When combined with ‘compounding’ – growing your investment by reinvesting any earnings – you can see that time is probably the most valuable resource for an investor.

Ready-Made Investment

This is why a ‘ready-made investment’ with a tenant in-situ is so powerful when adapted to a long-term investment strategy. By ensuring immediate rental income, investors can start generating rental yields almost from the outset, maximizing potential return and opening up avenues for reinvestment.

The Future of the Private Rented Sector

The concept of prioritising longevity also matches the natural course the market is taking. While the fundamentals of ‘right location, right time, right demand’ never really change, increasingly we’re seeing both tenants and investors prioritise developments that have hallmarks of ‘quality’ – from surrounding amenities to exclusive resident facilities or smart features.

This is largely down to the performance of ‘quality developments’ over the long-term. A premium product will always consistently attract a premium tenant, ensuring yield security that can help achieve long-term financial goals.

While typically, investors will instinctively choose the lower cost option in an effort to find value upfront, this rarely works in achieving the real goal because these developments may not necessarily attract the same quantity or quality of tenant over the long-term.

This is particularly important in a mature, competitive market where quality tends to suffer. These quality developments will ‘stand-out’ and attract tenants while, typically, overperforming in terms of capital appreciation, increasing in value due to natural market growth.

Growth of Pre-Let Residential Property

While these types of ‘ready-made’ investment opportunity are still a rare occurrence, they remain an ideal option for investors that want a completely ‘hassle-free’ investment experience. Pre-let is more commonplace in the commercial property sector – in 2018 London alone saw 20 pre-lets of 50,000 sq.ft or more being agreed.

This increase in uptake is largely due to the shifting focus on ‘long-term potential’ of an area, maximising the benefits of an emerging investment location from the start. The same rings true for the residential market, with the added caveat of a chronic lack of supply creating a much competitive environment. With quality space at a premium, the opportunity to invest in a prime location and start enjoying the benefits immediately is a rarity.