Beautiful art may look like a picture-perfect way to draw a return on revenue.
Or maybe the glitter of gold has caught your eye.
The risky business of buying stocks and shares can certainly add a flutter of excitement if you’re hoping for some capital gains.
With interest rates continuing to hobble along with little satisfaction for savers it is no wonder that cash savvy earners are looking for alternative ways to reap benefits from their funds.
But there is one investment route that has proven time and time again to offer a beneficial return on your money – and that is good old fashioned bricks and mortar.
According to independent research by CensusWide, commissioned by developer SevenCapital, the top five things people want to invest in are:
Property 40.3 per cent
Land 20.9 per cent
Gold 19.6 per cent
Stocks 15.8 per cent
Shares 15.5 per cent
A successful property investment can see you increase your wealth over time through capital appreciation – as the price of your property increases, as well as generate a regular income through monthly rental yields, with limited extra work required on your part.
This means property investments can contribute significantly in helping you to plan for the future – growing wealth to create sufficient funds for your retirement and later years.
It can also be considered an investment to help provide security for your family – growing wealth so that they are looked after during your lifetime or in future when you leave them behind.
A common perception is that you’ll need around two-thirds of your final salary income per year to live on in retirement.
So if you plan to spend around 30 years in retirement and you earn £60k as your final salary, you’d need to have saved:
60,000 x 2/3 x 30 years = £1,188,000.00
If your final salary income is likely to be lower, for example, £30k, the amount you’d need to have saved would be:
30,000 x 2/3 x 30 years = £594,000
When you consider that the new state pension, if you were eligible for the maximum amount of £164.35 per week, would only deliver £256,386 over that time, there’s a lot of savings that still need to be generated.
Savings and investments that offer higher potential for returns are generally considered the key to success. Property, when invested in well, offers the highest growth potential of an investment.
Of course, no investment is guaranteed – all investments contain a risk – but doing your homework on the property market and the various factors that make a property likely to generate good rental income and appreciate in value, will go a long way to helping to shield you from any potential pitfalls and make property investment work for you.
The Birmingham boom is currently making the Second City one of the most attractive property investment opportunities in the country.
As the former leading light of the industrial revolution transforms into a world class 21st century city – with internationally inspiring dynamic developments, HS2, making the shortlist for the Channel 4 HQ and plans to host the 2022 Commonwealth Games underway – the time to invest in property in Birmingham has never been better.
The annual growth rate for house prices in Birmingham has averaged between five per cent and 10 per cent since mid-2015, and has outperformed the wider UK market for more than a year, according to data from the ONS.
Yet Birmingham residential property prices are less than a quarter of those in the capital, while the Second City’s amenities and lifestyle continue to develop – making the city the most popular destination for young workers migrating from London in 2016 – ahead of Manchester, Leeds and Bristol.
But why is property investment so important?
Research by CensusWide, commissioned by property developers SevenCapital, has found that the top reason people in Birmingham and across the West Midlands want to invest in property – or have already – is to make money.
A total of 33.3 per cent of Brummies and 31 per cent of people living in the West Midlands cited this as their primary goal.
Yet across the country this reason came second with 32.8 per cent declaring that making money was their primary objective.
The main reason that people across the nation invest in property was, in fact, to ‘invest for the future’ – with 34.6 per cent of the Seven Capital survey respondents giving this as their primary objective.
‘Invest for the future’ came second in Birmingham and the West Midlands – with a 28.9 per cent score for Birmingham and 26.2 per cent score for the West Midlands.
The survey also revealed that British men and women have different reasons for investing in property.
Across the nation women are more likely to see it as an investment for the future – 39.3 per cent – with making money their second reason, 29.5 per cent.
Meanwhile British men are more likely to invest in property to make money – 36 per cent, with 29.8 per cent citing it as an investment for the future.
So whether you are looking to make money of invest for the future, you may want to look at investing in property today – and Birmingham is proving a popular option.
Are house prices rising in Birmingham?
House prices in Birmingham are rising more than twice as fast as UK prices – average prices in the city were up 6.9% in the year to May compared to a 3% rise for the UK, according to the most recent Office for National Statistics figures
House prices in Birmingham are seeing bigger annual growth than 31 out of 33 London boroughs
Prices in Birmingham are rising higher than those in:
Sheffield (6.6%)
Glasgow (6.6%)
Nottingham (6.6%)
Coventry (6%)
Leeds (4.3%)
Cardiff (3.9%)
Bristol (3.8%)
Newcastle (3.7%)
Brighton and Hove (2.4%)
Liverpool (0.9%)
Stoke-on-Trent (0.4%)
Bradford (0.3%)
Hull (0.1%)
(Source Birmingham Mail)
