moving to sale area- houses are mostly leasehold

[changeapart]

We are moving to sale area of trafford from leeds. We were at acomplete no no decision for leasehold properties but what ever houses we like are leashold. Is that how the market is in sale. We like in order-brooklands, tyntesfield, park road academy and woodheys school so far.

We believe leasehold properties are hard to extentend or change according to our taste, hard to sell in future and less flexibility to rent it out- correct us if we are wrong and and insight would be helpful. Does it really matter if the property is leasehold or freehold in these areas?

Quick check of the land registry sales data for M33, it says that last 2 years sales were 1343 freehold, and only 366 leasehold.

More of an issue would be the ground rent - they used to be virtually a few quid per year, now they charge hundreds if not thousands a year and can be increased - worth checking out for each property - can vary massively.

Leaseholders do manage to get their properties extended, so not impossible. With government changes to landlord tax relief and the landlord regulation/licensing coming in, you wouldn't want to rent it out anyway.

Yes so these numbers do indicate something isn't it.
Yes ground rent do vary a lot from one to other. Houses that have around 85 years are so for now but then when thinking of selling after 10_15 years, it will be hard to sell again ...What rules for renting are you talking about? Dont know anything in that direction 😕

I think you need to do your research. The vast majority of houses (certainly pre war 1920s/1930s stock) in the area is leasehold. But you have made a number of assumptions that aren't quite correct.

Leasehold flats are different and where people refer to ground rent (or service charge) of thousands, thats because there are (usually) communal parts / parts of the building (such as the roof in flats) that are not owned by the leaseholders and therefore the freeholder maintains them (usually at the leaseholders' expense).

The majority of leasehold houses in the area are long leasehold - ours is 999 years from 1939. No problem with the lender (or anyone else) when we came to buy.

Ground rent is £4 a year. No problem in getting houses extended - you usually do have to request permission (although some of our neighbours didn't) and you can be charged a couple of hundred pounds for that. No issues with any changes. Don't get me wrong, you need to check but don't generalise. Our lease has nothing in it preventing us from renting it out either - if you look at how many properties are rented locally, I don't think thats an issue either. The new rules about renting make it quite onerous for landlords and there are much more stringent rules about repairs etc and if you haven't adhered to those rules it will be very difficult to serve notice.

changeapart, I was talking about George Osborne's change of tax relief for landlords mortgage payments to just basic 20% rate. This will make a lot of currently rented (mortgaged) properties unprofitable. Landlord licencing to improve standards and drive out the slumlords. Also since my post we had the autumn statement, all properties bought for rental or second homes will be subject to 3% extra stamp duty, right down to £40,000 properties!! Even if you currently rented out a house and changed your main residence, you would pay an extra 3% stamp duty on that purchase.

They are effectively putting an end to amateur/accidental landlordism.
Oh and Basel III is coming very soon which is the European Union dictating even tougher rules on mortgage lending, especially for BTL mortgages (currently unregulated). You can't rent out a property with an existing residential mortgage - doing so can lead the lender to terminate your mortgage with penalties.

It's all good for first time buyers and owner occupiers who work for a living.

I noticed this some time back when searching for a place in Trafford, we ended up getting a place in Stretford as was cheaper too. Have you considered maybe Altrincham as it has similar house prices and is just as nice. :)