Australians flocking to London buy-to-let market
Posted by Gary Winters
The great returns on offer from investing in buy-to-let in London are attracting buyers from the other side of the world.
According to property search service Sourcing Property, there has been a notable increase in the number of Australians looking to make a UK property investment in the capital, attracted by the strong Australian dollar and high yields.
The company's director Jo Eccles said Australian clients mostly buy one or two-bedroom flats priced between £400,000 and £800,000.
"They view central London property as a relatively safe investment, and they're getting a saving on it due to the favourable exchange rate," she said.
"Because the rental market for good quality one and two-bedroom flats is so strong in London, their buy-to-let investment is usually rented out within a couple of weeks at most."
A boom in demand for rented property has helped rents in the capital to soar in recent months, while capital values in London are generally performing much better than in the rest of the UK.
According to a recent HomeLet study, rents in London averaged £1,177 a month as of November 2011, making the average cost of a rented property 13 per cent higher than at the same time the year before.
In contrast, rents outside the capital rose by just 1.6 per cent on average over the same period.
Helen Rooney, who works in HR for Johnson & Johnson Sydney, was one of those to invest in a London buy-to-let property last year, buying a one-bedroom flat in Clerkenwell.
"The property I bought was rented out at full asking price within one week of going onto the market, giving me a gross rental yield of nearly five per cent," she said.
"I aim to keep the property for the long term, renting it out until I own it out-right."
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