The Rotherham property market can be tricky to navigate and that’s why so many landlords get in touch with Bricknells Rentals for our expert advice. One of the most common questions we get from landlords (and indeed, homeowners in our area) are which attributes and properties are likely to make their property more attractive when compared to other properties. It is important to know which features will detract from the price of your home.

Over time buyers and tenants naturally develop different wants and needs. These do change. However, despite this, it is clear that in our area location is still the number one factor that impacts the value of property. This is illustrated by this statistic: a property in one of the best neighbourhoods can achieve a price of almost 50% higher than a similar house in an ‘average’ area.

Nevertheless, after location, the next characteristic that has a significant influence on the desirability (and therefore price) of property is the number of bedrooms and the type of property (ie. detached/semi/terraced/flat).

The number of bedrooms for owner-occupiers very much depends on the size of the family and the budget. In contrast, Rotherham landlords have to consider the investment opportunity. We have analysed Rotherham’s housing stock into bedrooms and tenure. First, let’s look at Rotherham homeowners:

Here we can see that more than 75% of homeowners live in a home with 3+ bedroom.

Let’s look at private rented households in Rotherham:

In contrast, it can be seen that only 45% of private rented households have 3+ bedrooms. It’s quite clear that Rotherham owner-occupiers tend to occupy the larger properties with more bedrooms – this would be largely expected due to the demographics of people who own a house.

Investors may be tempted to think that there is an opportunity to purchase larger properties with more bedrooms to attract tenants requiring properties with more bedrooms. However, don’t be duped by the statistics – yes, they do show that there could be a few opportunities in this area, but before you go buying large 4 bedroom properties, remember that a lot of bigger properties in Rotherham just don’t make financial sense when it comes to buy-to-let.

For numerous years buy-to-let landlords have been the lone buyers at the smaller one and two bed starter homes of the market, as they have been lured by elevated tenant demand and eye-catching returns. Some landlords believe their window of opportunity has started to close with the new tax regime for landlords, whilst it already appears to be opening wider for first time buyers. This is great news for first time buyers… but don’t worry landlords, all is not lost, you can still pick up bargains if you do your homework. That’s where Bricknells comes in – please get in touch if you have any questions or visit our featured property page to see our best property recommendations for investors.