High Speed Two and Crossrail Impact

Marylebone Flats & Houses For Sale & Rent: High Speed Two and Crossrail Impact: Crossrail will go through Tottenham Court Road, Bond Street and Paddington, while High Speed Two (HS2) will travel into Euston. HS2 would ...

Ealing Semi Detached House for Rent £395pw

Seaford Road, Ealing, London, W13

A well presented three/four bedroom semi-detached house located between Northfields Avenue & Uxbridge Road within close proximity to transport and amenities. The house comprises three bedrooms, large reception/4th bedroom, dining room, fully fitted kitchen, luxury bathroom with skylight, conservatory and a private rear garden, part furnished, available from 9th April.

Ealing House for Rent

The Residential Landlords Association Condemns Bad Landlords

The RLA replied to Shelter’s report on private rental sector condemning bad landlords as described in the report. However, the RLA made clear that those landlords who breach regulations controlling standards are not just ‘rogue’ but are also criminal. They give a bad name to the vast majority who do offer a decent standard of housing and management.

The RLA delivered its own plan in answer to Shelters five point plan calling for;

• A culture change in town-halls to work with the PRS as a responsible supplier of housing
• Wider use of landlord accreditation schemes to promote self-regulation allowing councils to focus on criminal landlords
• Greater education for tenants to enable them to properly hold their landlords to account
• Fair-play for landlords with faster dispute resolution over non-payment of rent and tenant choice for the receipt of housing benefits

Landlord and Tenant News

London Housing Market Demand Continues to Outstrip Supply

London starts the new year again proving it has its own micro-markets where housing demand continues to outstrip supply, reports Rightmove. New sellers in the capital have had the confidence to increase their month-on-month asking prices by 0.8% (£3,453), compared to a fall of 1.5% in the rest of the country (£2,792).

This is a continuation of the trend seen over the last year, with asking prices in London now 6.1% higher than a year ago. The rest of the country recorded a combined fall of 1.7% over the same period.

Miles Shipside, director of Rightmove comments:
“Depending on local market conditions, there are differing pressures on the direction of prices. The lack of property coming to market in the London area over the last year combined with buyer demand has helped to buoy new sellers’ asking prices in most locations. Prices will be receiving a further boost as estate agents compete to attract fresh stock for the year ahead.”

There have been more than 44 million property searches on Rightmove during the first ten days of 2012. While this doesn’t necessarily indicate a surge in proceedable buyer numbers, it does highlight a strong pent-up demand to move and is also a reflection that value-seeking buyers who can proceed are taking extra care to research the market. January often sees the beginning of a ‘spring bounce’ in the prices of properties coming to market, and there is again evidence of this in 2012, where the overall monthly period rise of 0.8% in new seller asking prices was boosted by a rise of 1.8% (£7,605) in the first week of 2012.

Shipside comments:
“As we move into the more active spring market with a shortage of new supply, prices will rise where the local market or a particular estate agent is short of a type or style of stock. However, asking more for your property can only be successful if your target buying audience can raise the necessary funds. The market fragmentation caused by the credit crunch means that success in selling now requires a more careful and complex micro-market analysis, rather than a wishful price-punt to see what happens.”

HMRC Financial Institutions Have Invested £2.2 Billion in UK Property

Lofty apartments in London's prime boroughs, chic chalet's in the finest Alpine ski resorts of France and Switzerland, and 2 bed semi's in Salford. Spot the odd one out? While there may be many reasons making the 2 bed semis in Salford the odd one out, investment potential is not one of them according to British institutional investors, who have invested heavily in British housing stock in the last 12-18 months, to capitalise on the current rental boom, and solidify their investments away from the tumultuous global stocks and bonds markets. According to data just released by Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs, financial institutions invested £2.2 billion in UK houses and apartments in the year ending April 2011, a 189% increase over the previous year. Specialist property companies also increased their exposure to UK buy to let during the period, the data shows that such firms purchased £7.5bn worth of UK rental properties, which is a 27 percent increase over the same period in 2010. Wealthy British individuals are also getting in on the action. They invested a combined £193.8 billion in the year ending April, which is surprisingly only a 24% increase over 2010. The growth is hardly surprising. The financial world is a scary place, and the stock markets are even scarier. The Eurozone debt crisis is making any European investment a high risk strategy, especially now with some reports indicating that banks are putting in place contingency plans for the Eurozone's complete break-up, although few believe this will come to pass. Never the less, this makes British property one of the few safe investments in Europe. Property is far less volatile than stocks, and of course, Britain stayed out of the euro, so, while it would suffer a shock if the Euro collapses, its property market will see a far smaller hit than those in the Eurozone. On top of the long term safety of British property, the rental yields are currently very attractive in the short-mid term as well, with the constrained mortgage market, lack of affordability and housing shortage continually drive up rental demand. The latest data rents and yields are growing across the country. The latest Residential Lettings Survey from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors said that 15% more chartered surveyors reported rental yields rose rather than fell in the three months ending October. This is the 7th consecutive quarter of rising yields according to RICS.

Britains Million Pound Property Market Holding Up

Bloomberg business week reports that Britain had 11 percent more houses valued at 1 million pounds ($1.6 million) or more available for purchase in the third quarter than it did a year earlier, Investec Specialist Bank said in a report today.

About 21,982 such properties were for sale with a combined value of 48.7 billion pounds, up 4.8 percent, according to research from primelocation.com commissioned by Investec, which said the market is “holding up well,” with a “huge” increase in mortgage applications in the category. The average valuation was 2.22 million pounds, a year-to-year decrease of 5.1 percent.

“This market is very international, especially in London,” said Jack Jones, head of Investec’s specialized banking lending team. “This has resulted in some people deciding to opt out of the capital’s million-pound property market and move to the home counties, which is more affordable.”

About 105 of the properties were valued at more than 15 million pounds, Investec Specialist said. Of the total, 44 percent, or 9,704, were in London and had a value of 26.9 billion pounds, with 10 percent in Surrey and worth 4.47 billion pounds, according to the report.

Stamp Duty Exemption Extension

The Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) is jumping to support first time property buyers and calling on the government to extend the existing exemptions for stamp duty.

At present the scheme means that those who have not owned a property previously do not have to pay the land tax to the government, but the scheme will come to an end in March.

The CML believes that getting rid of this incentive will lead to fall in the number of people looking to buy a home, but would not massively increase the government’s coffers.

“The housing market can act as a force for growth in the economy, but if this is to happen then buyers, lenders and builders alike all need a clear message that the government sees them less as part of the economic problem, than as part of the economic solution,” said CML director general Paul Smee.

At present all first time buyers are exempt from paying stamp duty up to £250,000. For everyone else, the tax starts at one per cent on properties between £125,000 and £250,000, three per cent between £250,001 and £500,000, four per cent between £500,001 and £1 million and five per cent over that figure.

First Time Property Buyers News