What’s renting in Chichester? I’ve had a couple of calls over the new year from prospective landlords asking me what would make a good buy-to-let property here in Chichester. There are many factors to this, but a good place to start is to look at what’s already renting…
There are 180 properties for rent in Chichester as I type, of which 149 are still available to let and 31 are now let agreed. That means just 17 per cent of the recently available property in Chichester on the rental market has been tenanted (compared to 28 per cent in Bognor Regis and 19 per cent in Midhurst & Petworth). Bear in mind though that the market is a little stickier at this time of year, so these figures are far lower than normal.
Those looking for an apartment have the most choice, with 27 one bedroom flats and 37 two bedroom flats available to rent in Chichester.
In contrast there are only 12 four bedroom houses available to rent, whilst my longer-term readers won’t be surprised to hear that two bedroom houses are also in short supply, with just 15 available throughout Chichester.
Meanwhile there seems to be a glut of three bedroom houses on the market currently, with 50 available to rent.
Unfortunately, just 12 per cent of all the three bedroom houses on the market in Chichester are ‘let agreed’. Compare this to the most popular property type (one bedroom flats, whereby 27 per cent of them have been snapped up) and we can see that not only is there an over-supply of three bedroom houses but there’s also a lack of tenant demand.
It’s easy to therefore conclude that the best pick for a buy-to-let in Chichester would be a one bedroom flat.
As I’ve mentioned in previous articles however, there are a multitude of factors that need to be weighed up.
Whilst one bedroom flats will generally provide a better rental return in the short-term they will provide less capital growth in the long-term and will often require more time input to manage, have a greater churn of tenants, whilst suffering from additional leasehold costs.
I am always happy to chat to any existing or prospective landlords in Chichester about what property to buy for investment. I love having this level of information at my fingertips, which enables me to give the very best advice to my clients.
