Smart move

Andrew Strange

“Louisa’s experience of trying to find a flat to rent shows just how great the demand is from potential tenants at present.”

Louisa Fletcher has risen from relative obscurity to latest property sensation. In a whirlwind 18 months she has become GMTV’s property expert, taken over a weekly TV slot from Location Location Location star Kirsty Allsop and begun writing a weekly column for the News of the World.

And the glamorous new celebrity, who is getting used to interviewing the likes of London Mayor Boris Johnson about housing policy, believes that buy-to-let is in great shape for most existing landlords. How does she know? Because, despite her growing reputation, Louisa is having trouble finding a home to rent with her partner.

Tenant demand

She says: “We’ve never lived together before, so we don’t want to get involved with a joint mortgage just yet. We each have a home so we want to let both of them and find a place to rent, but at the moment we can’t find anywhere for the short term.

“As potential landlords, people are battering down our door because they are desperate for somewhere to rent, while as potential tenants we make an appointment on Monday to see somewhere on the Wednesday but by then it has gone. What does that tell you?”

While Louisa, who is about to publish her first book — Property Uncovered — may have the glamour factor for TV, she also has more than 15 years of involvement in the property sector.

Her journey began when her grandmother left her a £3,000 inheritance. For a 19-year-old earning just £10,000 a year it was a godsend and enabled her to purchase her first property, a repossession in Dorset, for £39,000 back in 1993.

She renovated the property and doubled her money when she sold it a couple of years later. Since then she has continued renovating properties and moving on. She moves about every 14 months and has renovated six properties in the past eight years, doing much of the work herself, from knocking down walls to installing new bathrooms.

She soon combined her fascination for property with her career as an internet programmer and in 2004 launched her own website, providing house-price information across the country.

“I love property: I genuinely do. It’s easy to push yourself if you genuinely love the area that you work in and I find property fascinating,” she explains.

What makes Louisa attractive to media organisations is her in-depth understanding of the ‘technical’ aspects of the property market and her ability to demystify complex subjects, such as economics, house prices, mortgages and Home Information Packs.

Talking the talk

Louisa believes that, while a few landlords who made poor investment decisions may struggle in the current climate, those who did their research properly should have few problems. “At the moment, if you have been sensible about your investments, it is a great time to be a landlord,” she explains. “There is great demand for rented property of the right calibre. Most years 1.1 million or 1.2 million people buy a property. This year it could be as low as 700,000 and that means more people are looking to rent.

“And while the general picture across the country is that house prices are cooling, you can’t say a blanket ‘this is how the market is’. You have to consider a range of other factors, such as the area and the property you are talking about. It’s a very mixed picture.”

Writing it all down

She says: “I wouldn’t say I’m a new Sarah Beeny or Kirstie Allsopp. If only! But I do think there is more than enough room for the three of us to talk about our various areas of expertise. From what I understand, Sarah Beeny has developed dozens of houses and Kirsty is an ex-estate agent and her strength is sourcing properties and negotiating a deal.”

Louisa’s book is aimed at those dealing with property issues for the first time, from finding a rental flat for a child heading off to university to letting out a property. It’s a how-to guide and includes light-hearted chapters on such things as ‘nesting for blokes’ and ‘DIY for girls’.

She says: “It was really fun to write: it wasn’t like work. There’s been some discussion with one of the channels about turning it into a series but we’ll see.”

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