Queen's Club Gardens, London W14, Good or bad?

D

Deirdra

Registered User
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A friend of mine is interested in an apartment in this block. She plans to live there for 3 or 4 years and then sell it. Seems Ok on location, at worst there are a lot of management charges.

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I'd appreciate any advice.

thanks
 
It's overpriced at £475 per week or £2056 p.c.m. interest only "rental from the bank" [incl's stamp duty but excl's all other associated charges i.e. life assurance etc, council taxes, sinking fund, capital repayments]. IMO the price of these so called boutique styled properties in W14 and grander areas of London will lose serious value in the short to medium term as a result of the dry up of city bonuses and general downturn in the London economy. Such a purchase would be a short to medium-term depreciating asset.

All these W14 properties are cheaper to rent, click [broken link removed]. Also as there is an oversupply of BTL, there should be room to negotiate a cheaper lease for a longer contract.

Can you see capital appreciation in London over the next 5 years, parking even the positive euro differential to one side? Alternatively look at www.housepricecrash.co.uk , there is a lot of noise but it has some area specific information that can be useful.

Btw I lived in Fulham for years and the Queens Club Gardens obviously has fantastic tennis club nearby [beside really] and is close to Heathrow by the Hammersmith flyover, less than a mile away. But from the photos, it's really a shoe box or crash pad. In the middle of any room -try swinging a cat by the tail, it will touch the walls? Alternatively if viewing with the estate agent, again produce the poor cat, you may get a heavy discount for stating the obvious...

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The London residential has not been hit. YET. It all depends on the location where the intended purchaser is working. It's an OK area but there are better in London for the same price range. I simply can't understand the logic of Camry about the dissolutionment of selling after three years. This is the real world, albeit markets are very wobbly at the moment. If the purchaser is buying and paying in relation to the present market turmoil this is satisfactory. Markets go up and markets go down. The only time to worry if we are all facing Doomsday and I don't think any of us will be that worried on the price of property if that happens.
 
mercman said:
I simply can't understand the logic of Camry about the dissolutionment of selling after three years. This is the real world...
Click to expand...

I can certainly understand the disillusionment of camry.

Buying a place with the intention of selling on after 3 years is certainly bizzarre in my book too and is the last thing i'd be doing at the moment.

There is every lilkelihood that the property will be worth less in 3 years time than it is today.
At the very best it may be worth slightly more.
The downside far outweighs the upside.

The risk reward ratio is not at all good in that strategy at the moment.

WHy not just rent for teh short term and avoid all the risks gievn that the upside is so limited?
USe your money to invest in something else.

Also there are a lot of entry/exit charges with property.
So to break even your property will have to rise by at least this much.

This may have worked a few years ago in teh boom - but I think you gotta pick your battles better than that these days.

In this climate ,property should be looked on as at the very least a 7 or 8 year term investment.
 
Thanks to all for the feedback. I don't really know if the buyer will sell after a few years. She is a student who will live there for a few years anyway and perhaps feels rent is a waste of money. Just wanted to get general feedback. Thanks again.
 
Rent is not a waste of money if the price of the property decreases.
 
Camry - Did you know that for the previous six or seven years fortunes have been made by transacting residential properties. And by hundreds of Investors that simply bought off plan and sold, and others who just bought and sold. In the London market, this type of business has been going on for many years. And in case you think you have missed something the transaction costs were paid by those that made serious profits. International Property Investment - sure - it is like anything - if an owner is offered a good profit they sell up and go again.
 
I think there is an essential difference here, as Camry says.

If you decide to sell a property or other asset earlier than you originally planned, because the value has reached a certain target compared to how you value the asset, that is simply exiting the investment.

If you depend solely on capital appreciation/ market price increases over a short term to be able to make a profit when selling a property, that is speculation.

I would suggest that the original poster (small investor, 3-4 year time-frame, and with no third-party rental income) would fall into the latter category and should fully understand the risks that they would be taking at this time in this market. They could easily end up with negative equity, and a mortgage on a property in a location where they do not want to live when the 3-4 years are up. (I'm presuming they have a fixed term contract, or are studying, or want to move somewhere else eventually, otherwise why the time limit?)

Renting is not always "dead money." You have to do the sums yourself based on your own personal situation. Check out something like: http://money.uk.msn.com/mortgages/calculate/rent_buy_calculator.aspx Although this particular one doesn't like predicting -ve house price inflation or http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/mortgages/article.html?in_article_id=430455&in_page_id=8

The financial case for owner-occupation isn't anywhere near as clear cut as you'd imagine at the moment.
 
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