First find your hot stock and then it's Kamikaze time.
Incidentally you can do this in tandem with a regular Kamikaze strategy on the same stock. Indeed it could be used to help fund that self-same Kamikaze strategy.
Just as an aside something extraordinary may be happening to rents.
I had Savills in to value my house in Saffron Walden to sell or to rent. We quickly agreed to forget about sales when I told Savills how much it would take to make me even think of selling, even though I recently turned down an unsolicited offer very close to that figure.
So then the rental lady told me how much she thought the place could rent for. My jaw went through the floor and I had to ask her to clarify the figure. For a moment I thought I had been wildly optimistic and this was the annual figure but it was indeed monthly. Her figure was double what I was expecting, even treble the low end. How are you going to find anybody in Saffron Walden to pay that much, I asked? You probably won't, she replied, but there is an incredible amount of money sloshing around in London and Cambridge and that is where your market will be. For somebody who wants a house like this there is very little choice so they expect to pay.
I could see that. The house ticks so many boxes. It's huge, so complicated that you can literally get lost, Georgian, the walled garden is nearly half an acre , it has plenty of parking, it is right in the middle of one of Britain's oldest and prettiest market towns, two minutes from the market square and within easy reach of both London and Cambridge. It has views of the castle, the common, the town and the church. Rent this place and not only do you get a fabulous family home but it is a bit like wearing a Rolex watch, you make a statement about yourself (shameful I know but some of us are not only into this shallow stuff but prepared to admit it). And it's hidden. You don't even know it's there until you head down the drive and see this massive place with its stable block and wildly overgrown garden stretching for ever. Living here makes me think of Miss Havisham in Great Expectations. The bad news is that I am Miss Havisham in this storyline.
Now you know why I don't want to sell (it's such a one-off that nobody knows what it is worth and it is not all good news; something as simple as a patio needs planning permission and is going to cost £100,000+) but also that in this market, renting, not selling is the way to maximise your returns. How ironic that landlords are quitting the market in droves.
Even so I will only believe the rental figure when I have a fat, crisp bundle of notes in my sweaty hand.
Now for the details of my new Kamikaze strategy, which I think could be amazing.
