Britain’s best-known landlords begin sell-off of buy-to-let homes

22/06/2015
Fergus and Judith Wilson have sold 100 homes - half to one Chinese investor who they expect to resell them in China
If you rent a house in Ashford, Kent, you could soon have a new landlord after the UK’s best-known buy-to-let homeowners, Fergus and Judith Wilson, sold off some of their huge portfolio of properties.

The Wilsons, who owned around 1,000 homes in and around the south-east town, have sold around 100 to investors for a sum in excess of £25m.
Fergus Wilson said that 50 properties had been sold to a Chinese investor who he expected to sell them on individually in his own country at a profit. Other investors from the Far East have snapped up homes, while some have been sold to local buyers.
Wilson said paperwork on many was going through on Monday and other deals were set to complete over the coming days.
The Wilsons, who caused a storm in 2014 when they sent eviction notices to tenants on housing benefits, announced in July that they wanted to sell up. At the time it was estimated the portfolio would make them £100m, or roughly £100,000 for each property.
Although originally an agent seemed to be looking for a single buyer for all of the properties, the portfolio is now being sold off in parts. Existing tenants are having their rental contracts switched to the buyer.
Wilson has been advertising the properties for sale by private treaty. However, on Tuesday 16 June he will be marketing two homes at auction. He said more might follow if this was successful.
He said recent reports that around 40% of buyers were paying for purchases purely in cash had suggested that an auction would be a good way to reach people, and that he was keen to give locals an opportunity to buy.
Wilson said the properties would have “modest” reserve prices, and if there was only one bidder they would get a bargain.
Selling at auction means you might miss out on a few thousand pounds for a quick sale
“Selling at auction means you might miss out on a few thousand pounds for a quick sale,” he said.
“However, if you are making on every property £100,000 and you think you will lose £2,000 or £3,000 but get rid of them quicker, and without lots of calls from the lawyers asking about that shed a tenant has put up and things like that, it might be worth it.”
Wilson said selling off a vast number of homes in one area had problems attached.
“In Ashford there is nothing available – I own it all. We totally dominate everything – it’s not intentional and we’re not proud of it,” he said. “If you want a three-bed detached home, what we used to call a mini-executive house, there’s not one on the market other than ours. If we put 10 on at once there’s a glut and the price goes down.”
The Wilson have been building their property empire since investing in a first buy-to-let property in the 1990s and are among the UK’s biggest landlords.
Wilson said they wanted to sell because he was 67 and it had been a 20-year-programme which was coming to an end. They plan to hold on to just handful of homes.
He also suggested that current price rises were unsustainable. “Prices always used to go up so a property would double about every seven years, so about 13% a year. I used to say 10% was quite healthy, but when you see them going up at 25% you think it can’t continue.”
Wilson said foreign investments into London were having a knock-on effect on his local market as money moved out of the capital. “You have buyers from overseas paying £1.5m for a home for their children while they are studying over here – people from London who have been there 55 years sell the property and come down to Kent and once they have bought somewhere they still have the other £1.25m left over.”

Fonte:http://www.theguardian.com/money/2015/jun/08/wilson-buy-to-let-homes-sold-25m?CMP=share_btn_tw&utm_content=buffer50b60&utm_medium=social&utm_source=linkedin.com&utm_campaign=buffer

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