I was talking to a landlord from Little Baddow the other day about the Chelmsford property market, following my recent articles in the Essex Chronicle With all the news about house prices rising, he wanted to know what had happened to average property prices since the New Year. According to my calculations, the ‘average value of a property’ in Chelmsford is now £297,100, which is a rise of nearly £9,800 from 3 months ago figure of £287,300 ( a rise of 3.4%). Now by my calculations, the average rent being asked in Chelmsford is around £1,049 pcm, which means the yields/annual return are an impressive 4.23% per year.  Since June 2013, the average value of a property in Chelmsford has risen by 7.2%, meaning landlords achieved a total return of 11.43%.

When comparing this to what you get in return from banks, buy to let could be a good investment for you. As I reminded another landlord the other day from Witham, the Chelmsford property market has certainly changed since 2001. At the turn of the Millennium, of the 64,564 households in the City and immediate villages, 3,779 of those households (or 5.85%) were privately rented. Ten years later, and 5,103 new properties had been built in Chelmsford, but most of those had been bought for Buy to Let; because by 2011, there were 7,621 properties that were rented out to tenants .. that’s a lot of rented houses! (interesting though Chelmsford is still below the UK average for renting because  whilst Chelmsford has 10.9% of its households being rented, the UK average is 15.6%).

Don’t get me wrong, there are pitfalls. My message to all the people of Chelmsford, be you an existing landlord or you are thinking of dipping your toe in the water for the first time is quite simple – take some independent advice before buying anything, unless you’re 100% sure of what you’re doing. I say this because I know what happens when people don’t. Even if it’s not from ourselves, there are still a few regulated ‘lettings only’ agents in Chelmsford who are well placed to advise on whether the property you’re considering will rent, and at what potential price. We’re certainly more than happy for you to pop in and see us at our office’s on Duke Street in Chelmsford for a chat or email direct for any opinion on stephen.frost@martinco.com