Where to buy to let - Investors Chronicle

Where to buy to let - Investors Chronicle

The ballroom at the Millennium Hotel on Grosvenor Square is packed for Savills' spring property auction. Buy-to-let investors, developers and homebuyers crowd against the walls in the hope of snapping up one of the 165 houses and flats on offer.

Mr and Mrs Patel from Totteridge in North London, pharmacist and accountant by trade, have their eye on Lot 5, a three-bedroom flat in Islington being sold by the Metropolitan Police Authority. They already have a portfolio of 10 buy-to-let properties, all in London, and claim not to have suffered from the recession. "If you're not too greedy with rents, you can be successful," counsels Mrs Patel. "It's better to charge less and have stable tenants."

The couple are less interested in income than in finding a safe store of value for their earnings. Not yet retired, they are funding the purchase with equity, not debt. That may explain their preference for Islington, an expensive area where rental yields are low but capital values protected by tight supply and a smart brand.