Claims that Fergus and Judith Wilson - Britain's biggest buy-to-let landlords - are selling up to the Chinese may have been premature. It now appears the Americans are interested.
The Wilsons own around 1,000 tenanted properties in Kent, with each property on average considered to be worth around £275,000.
Fergus Wilson says that reports of a Chinese buyer are now out of date. "We have had interest from investors in America. There were three expressions of interest from China over the weekend .... We have had interest from Russia, Japan, Dubai, Kuwait, Germany, the US and Canada" he has told the Daily Telegraph.
The couple are believed to want a one-off complete-inventory sale of £250m. Fergus Wilson says a typical property in his portfolio would produce a monthly rent of £1,400 giving a gross annual yield of approaching six per cent.
Back in May the couple revealed that at the start of the downturn they owed £350,000 a month in interest payments, then in July announced that with their portfolio at last worth more than it had been six years ago, they would be willing to sell.
The Wilsons say existing tenants will be protected, with their rental contracts switched to the company or landlord that buys the portfolio. The homes owned by the couple are mostly in Ashford and Maidstone.
The couple are refusing to say what they will do with their windfall, nor how much capital gains tax they are liable for.
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