Finding the ideal place to develop property

Its true what they say about property, location location location. Even those of us who are out looking for a place to do up and develop need to remember this rule.Many new developers find it all too easy to snatch up that run down terraced house because it looks cheap or even worse go and bid in an auction on an impulse.

For developers this is financial suicide. The real trick that the experts have discovered is that there are some easy things that you can do to spot the upcoming areas. Most properties that you find that are cheap are cheap for real reasons. They can be in terrible areas of they can be close to the sort of place that you wouldn't even drive your car through at night. Or they are properties with what our estate agent friends call 'character'. Character really means they have issues that the clever operators would run a mile from.

So how do you go about spotting these up coming areas and finding that house that isn't cheap but represents good value for a developer to make a profit?

First, don't rush too far away from home. Try to stay near the areas you know or live so that you can be near the property whilst working on it and as you will probably know more about the area than some far flung suburb that a friend said was the next big thing.

Next stage is to research the areas you have near you to look for some kept indicators that prices there are likely to rise.

Health
How is the area for local health services?
Doctors nearby? Dentist? Problems finding a new dentist?
How far is the local hospital?
See my tip later for how to find all this out in less than ten minutes flat!

Schools
This is a high priority for many people when choosing a house location. Check the results and locations of the primary and secondary schools. If the school nearest has bad results this is a real red flag for many families or even those couples thinking of starting a family.
What I would also suggest you do is look at the local nursery or creche.

Transport
How good is the local transport systems ?
How frequent is the service that they offer and where does this service go?
Is it easy for the target market you are after to get to the places that they work?

Shops and services
Here's my list of the places that you would also want to check out to see what they are like: -
Leisure facilities
Shops and supermarkets
Convenience stores
Libraries
Restaurants
Take away food
Pubs (Be careful they need to be available but not too close!!)

Parks and play areas
Where's the local park? What is it like? does it have any problems and how well kept is it?

My research tip
Go to the area and to find out the answers to all those little questions like is it hard to find a dentist all I do is go into the local shop. Hope beyond hope that its a middle aged or older man or lady behind the counter and not a kid. Now chat.. they will tell you all you need to know. Its surprising how honest the person in the local shop will be if you say your thinking of moving nearby.

So you feel you know the area now but you need to make sure that you haven't missed the real obvious problems. Industrial areas, busy roads, electricity pylons, aircraft etc can all turn a buyer away, try to make sure there aren't many of these and you'll be fine.
I find that one of the best indicators for me is to go to the town or village center nearest to where your looking and then start to look at the number of empty shops and the average age of the shops that you see. Lots of empty shops means people aren't there, lots of new shops means people are moving to the area. This is a great indicator in my opinion.

So you have found the area that's going to make you a profit, now all you need is the property!

Good luck!