Hello Medway Property News Readers,

The start of the year is now in full flow and, whilst it has been a slightly bumpy beginning to the year, I am hopeful that, with the vaccine rollout, the sun has begun to slowly peek out from behind the clouds.

For many of us, the new year signals an opportunity to wipe the slate clean, have a new start and kick off our plans for the next 12 months. I have been speaking with several investors over the past week and a hot topic has been the question: “Where to invest?!”

Price, demand, yield and ROI are important factors and an excellent way to assess this is through heatmaps.

I have found some excellent heatmaps demonstrating how affordable Rochester & Chatham are in comparison with surrounding areas. The map below illustrates this; the darker shaded areas reflect a higher price and the Medway Towns really do stand out!

The heat maps also highlight average asking prices in Chatham as being significantly cheaper than both Rochester (£64k lower) and Gillingham (£17k lower) which is worth noting and thinking about further.

Whilst these are certainly not accurate figures, considering that rental prices are relatively similar between the three areas, the lower prices in Chatham reflect a slightly higher yield.

When you zoom into the areas a little further, you will see how this difference in asking price really is quite noticeable!

It is certainly interesting to spend some time looking at the average house prices over the past year. For example, Dale Street in Chatham has an average price of £182,833, Nelson Road in Gillingham has a price of £227,000 and Maidstone Road, Rochester is £371,667. This certainly shows the variance in price!

Although I am conscious that Chatham may not technically be as desirable an area as Rochester or Gillingham, with the extensive development to the town centre (such as the total reconfiguration of Mountbatten House which I discussed in my blog in early December), it really is one to watch.

“What of demand and what about the HMO market?” I hear you ask! Well, for the HMO investor, the Medway Towns in general are an extremely attractive option.

Whilst there does tend to be an oversaturation of HMOs in Gillingham, this certainly does not mean it is not an attractive place to invest. It simply means that to be a successful HMO investor in Gillingham, you just need to deliver a much higher standard of finish.

It will be interesting to see what the Medway property market looks like when we hit 2030! According to data from The Land Registry, the average price of a terraced house in Medway is £226,700 and this compares to £260,264 for Kent in general.

If we review values over the past decade, the price of a terraced house in Medway has increased by 64% since 2010 (from £138,080) compared to just 57% (from £165,581) for Kent. Using this same growth statistic, we could predict that the price of a terraced house in Medway may hit £374k in the next decade. That’s a staggering average monthly growth of around £1.2k!

The lower average prices for Medway in general, mean that investors require less cash up front and therefore can achieve some excellent returns with lower barriers to entry!

I trust that you found this article helpful! I run tailored discovery sessions to provide property investors with all the tools they require to either make their first investment, move into a new area, review, or expand their portfolio.

Sessions last two hours, cost £147 and have proved extremely helpful to both novice and experienced investors alike. I also hand out a copy of my book the HMO Crash Guide (currently at 13,000 words). I’ve conducted around a dozen of these since I launched this service around this time last year. You can find out more and book a session here.

Hasan