Develop-Mental

There is little denying that the UK has an obsession with DIY, before the economic crisis this manifested itself through massive profits for DIY chain stores, and the same applied during the economic crisis, the British love to do things up themselves.

This doesn’t only apply to putting up a shelf or painting the wall, many thousands of people every year buy houses solely for the purpose of investing in the interior, modernising and updating the facilities, and selling them on at a profit.

About two years ago, this pattern was derailed by the collapse of the buy-to-let market and by the similar collapse of the property price bubble. House prices dropped significantly and may not recover to previous levels for some years to come. The shock of the bubble bursting left many developers in dire financial straits, sitting on uncompleted projects with no hope of making a profit.

Two years on, the market is slowly recovering and the UK is back onto its fascination with home improvement. In certain parts of the country, particularly London, there are some amazing deals to be found, homes have been put on the market incredibly cheap and with the right amount of attention they can make a great return.

Part of this return will come as the markets recover naturally and pull house prices up with it, but the low interest rate also means that some banks like Santander are offering amazing rates on personal loans, this means that in the past where you may have incurred significant interest charges on your mortgage or the loan that you took out to pay for the improvements, now you have to pay significantly less for the same amount of money.

Of course the other side of the coin is that it’s much more difficult to secure credit in the current climate. The banks are shy about lending on uncertain terms because they were suffered such big losses by lending to the wrong people before.

Still, if you are able to secure the money to buy a home and develop it you can make a significant profit.

Category: Property News