Johnny Morris
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Proptech
Countrywide exec joins fintech firm backed by £10m new funding
Start-up Unmortgage backed with £10m is to offer home buyers a 'third way' to property ownership, helped by former Hamptons exec Johnny Morris.
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Latest property news
Stamp Duty rise driving landlords to spend on upgrades not portfolio expansion, says Countrywide
Figures from agency giant reveal yet another unintended consequence of the government's desire to squeeze landlords financially.
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Latest property news
Landlords enjoyed £86,600 buy-to-let bonanza last year
Landlords who sold a buy-to-let property last year made a capital gain of £86,660 on average in the UK and had owned it for just under nine years, it has been revealed. But the capital gains made in London put these national figures to shame. Landlords selling up in London last year made a capital gain of £254,000 on average per property, says Countrywide. Its latest buy-to-let research reveals that, therefore, a landlord who invested in property within London eight years ago will have made three times more money from selling their property than those outside the capital. Eight of the top ten places where landlords have made the largest capital gains from their buy-to-let properties are in London and include Brent, Waltham Forest, theCity of Westminster, Haringey, Lambeth, Pendle, Islington, Kensington & Chelsea and Southwark Buy-to-let gains In these areas landlords who sold up last year enjoyed huge capital gains including, in Westminster and Kensington & Chelsea, gains of over half a million pounds on average. Also, in these areas of London 28% of landlords who sold up last year doubled their original investment. “Even in areas where price growth has lagged behind, most landlords have made a profit…
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Cash splurge surge? Landlords buying without a mortgage spend £21 billion
The government’s energetic attempts to subdue the buy-to-let market have failed, according to the latest rental market index from Countrywide. It reveals that a record number of landlords are re-mortgaging their existing properties to buy new ones for cash. The company says 65% of buy-to-let sales over the past 12 months were cash purchases, totalling £21billion, which is £200 million more than last year and a third higher than in 2007 when Countrywide began tracking the market. Northern and Scottish landlords are the most likely to buy with cash. Nearly 80% of buy-to-let property purchases in the North East are for cash, followed by Scotland at 71%, although in London landlords are much more reliant on debt to buy their next rental property – only 42% of purchases there are cash deals. “Landlords have increased their housing wealth considerably over the last 10 years,” says Johnny Morris, Head of Research at Countrywide (pictured, below). “This means cash purchases are steadily becoming a bigger part of the market.” It’s a developing trend, the Countrywide research shows. Ten years ago mortgaged-backed purchases were twice that of cash sales, but now the tables have been turned. Over the past 12 months buy-to-let purchases…
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Are govt’s landlord tax chickens coming home to roost?
When agents warned the government that its anti-landlord tax measures would lead to higher rents, they were dismissed as scaremongers. But Countrywide’s latest rental index shows that the predictions weren’t far off the mark in London, the South and Scotland. Rents in London were higher by 2.1% in July compared the last year driven by an 18% drop in properties available to rent, and the number of properties coming on to the market from landlords in the South has halved since 2015, helping drive the national average rental increase up from 1.1% to 2.2%. And the rate at which new rental properties are coming on to the market is slowing across some parts of the UK; down 18% in London, -6% in the East of England and -5% in the South. North vs South But other parts of the UK are seeing a dramatic increase in the number of rental properties coming on to the market, including in Yorkshire & Humberside (+37%), Wales (+22%) and the North West (+21%) suggesting that landlords are shifting their investment focus away from London and the South. The research may be good news for first time buyers. In London the proportion of homes being bought…
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Half of foreign buy-to-let landlords have quit UK
The number of foreigners who own buy-to-let properties in the UK has more than halved over the past seven years, it has been revealed. But despite this dramatic drop, they still earn £5.4 billion a year in rent half of which comes from London properties. Countrywide, which conducted the research, says this decline in the number of overseas landlords is down to both a steady increase in tax on property investors, and stalling capital growth particularly in London. “The growth of the private rented sector since 2010 has not been driven by overseas investors,” says Johnny Morris, Research Director at Countrywide (pictured, left). “As well as having to contend with increased stamp duty and the annual tax on enveloped dwellings (ATED), overseas investors also saw the removal of capital gains tax exemptions in 2015.” Countrywide also says the proportion of UK property owned by overseas landlords has dropped from 12% to 5%, a record low. And in Greater London the reduction has been more dramatic from 26% to 11%, the research says, while in prime Central London the proportion has dropped from nearly a third in 2010 to less than a quarter now. Asians largest group Countrywide says the reduction…
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Company landlords surge to take a fifth of the market
The number of company landlords has increased by 6% over the past three months to a record 20% of the market, it has been revealed by Countrywide. The figure is the highest proportion recorded by the company since it began collecting data seven years ago. The punishing reductions in tax allowances that began being phased in earlier this month, as well as the recent extra Stamp Duty for buy-to-let properties are leading many landlords to bring their properties into a limited company structure. “Companies are generally taxed more favourably, particularly with recent changes by government to tax relief, so in many cases landlords can make cash savings by operating through a company rather than as an individual,” says Johnny Morris, Research Director at Countrywide (pictured, left). The trend is clearest in London where Countrywide says 27% of rental properties are owned by a company landlord, he says. Top and bottom The figures also reveal that the increase in company landlords is most evident at the top of the market, and at the bottom. This would suggest that large-portfolio landlords who own multiple properties in the poorer parts of the UK, and the those who own prime rental properties, are behind…
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Number of rentals to outstrip sales for first time in 80 years, says Countrywide Lettings Index
The number of homes rented next year will outstrip the number sold if current trends continue, says Johnny Morris, research director at Countrywide (pictured, below). His prediction is made within the Countrywide Lettings Index, published today, which also highlights increasing rents in the north but slowing growth in the south. “A different type of two speed rental market is emerging, with falling stock and growing demand driving rental growth in many Northern cities at a higher rate than those in the South,” he says. The Countrywide Lettings Index also reveals that rents in Manchester are rising the fastest at 7.1%, three times faster than the average. York, Leeds, Liverpool and Glasgow are the other cities in the high growth ‘top five’ while the slowest growth cities – where many landlords are cutting back rents – include Cambridge and Oxford. Overall Countrywide says rental growth has slowed across the UK over the past 12 months from 2.8% to 2.2% as rent rises have slowed in eight of the UK’s eleven regions (see list, below). Agents will be cheered by Countryside’s activity figures, nevertheless. Morris says September saw “record activity with increasing numbers of lets agreed and tenants choosing to renew their contracts,”…
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