Buy-to-let Britain is dying – here’s where to invest instead

Property investors are selling up for lucrative ventures abroad

Like many people looking for a rock solid sort of investment, Richard White and his wife Laure Isphording bought themselves a buy-to-let flat in east London in 2012.

But by 2018 what they thought would be a straightforward way to bolster their finances was rapidly losing its shine. “We could see the various tax changes down the line,” White says. “We said to ourselves: let’s get ahead of the curve.”

Their solution was a creative one. They decided to make the warehouse flat in Hackney their main home, sell their house in nearby De Beauvoir Town, and re-invest the capital. Disillusioned with encroaching red tape in Britain’s buy-to-let market, they looked further afield for their next investment – all the way to Barbados.

Today, their three-bedroom villa is earning them a respectable annual yield of 5pc, they can take free holidays when it is empty, and over the past five years they have seen capital growth on their initial investment of around 40pc.