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Entries in June 2007
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“Can you justify having a completely random mishmash? The answer’s probably no.”
The words of Design for London director Peter Bishop, quoted in Building Design magazine, on his plans to tackle poor design in London's very centre. Three hundred million pounds, he says, would pay for a complete overhaul from Gray's Inn Road to Park Lane.
DfL, launched by London mayor Ken Livingstone in February, is planning an exhibition in 2008, in which it will unveil a joined-up vision of urban design for London, including signage and street furniture. We're hopeful. But we've been hopeful before.
Technorati Tags: design, London
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More in this Category - Linkage
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Everybody wants a piece. Last year, it was Asda. Now, Bricks'n'Clicks appears to have the scoop on a plan by Tesco to enter the online, low cost estate agency market. Tesco themselves are refusing to comment, while the other larger property portals are apparently engaging in a strange mating ritual as they decide whether they want Tesco to pluck their listings or not.
Technorati Tags: estate agents, real estate agents
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... and passes it on to readers.
They're called Group 41 Inc., and their offer, to "anyone, anywhere who owns land", is to design "a custom, high-end residential or commercial structure" that will be "sustainable, modern, and comfortable", and to throw in the design ("up to $10,000") gratis. Oh yeah, and the structure has to be made from recycled shipping containers.
Group 41 Inc. look like an interesting and creative outfit, and this is a bold experiment. The small print:
If you're interersted, drop me a line, and I'll pass on your details.
Technorati Tags: architecture
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Okay, it would be dishonest not to admit I'm excited about being up there at the top...
... but I'm also having a lot of fun exploring this list. A New Build Diary, the architecture thread at MyNinjaPlease, and pingmag, in particular, are heading straight for the Rat and Mouse feed reader, and I'm continuing to explore. Thanks, once again, to the Times for the kind words. Get the full list here.
Rat and Mouse in Times Top 50 business blogs [June 13, 2007]
Why advertise with the Rat and Mouse?
Technorati Tags: blogging, Curbed, London, property, theRatandMouse, real estate, Web, Web2, web2.0
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More in this Category - Linkage
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If you're a Facebook fanatic you'll be pleased to know you can now search for an apartment without leaving the warm and addictive cocoon of your homepage. Go here, load the Nestoria application, and not only will you be able to search for property at lightning speed, but you'll be able to share your searches with your friends and send them details of properties too, all from within Facebook.
I've tested it, and it's very, very good.
Technorati Tags: facebook, Web, Web2, web2.0
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It's for May, and it's a 0.7% monthly rise, leaving annual inflation at 8.9%.
[via Reuters]
Technorati Tags: property, real estate
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When Time Out published its London guide book, it missed out The Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames. So, it attempts to put things right with a 10-point guide to the borough. Oh yeah, and here's the apology:
Time Out did a Bobbitt and cut the flaccid penis that is the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames off the map of the capital.
Well, don't know about you, but we at the Rat and Mouse have had plenty of experience distinguishing the difference between an apology and being called a cock. This - we're confident - falls into the latter category. So, go on, Kingston: what are you going to do about it?
[via This Is Local London]
Technorati Tags: London
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Today's figures are a 1.1% rise for June, more than double May's monthly move, leaving annual house price inflation at 11.1% (up from 10.3%). Already, the talk is of a July rate rise to 5.75% followed by an August move 6%.
Technorati Tags: property, real estate
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And it looks like this:
New York, London, it's a cross-cultural deformity... although something tells me a visit by Apartment Therapy to the Rat and Mouse HQ might cause them a panic attack.
Technorati Tags: design, interiors
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"Affordability and employment, which are long-term drivers, are at long-term averages, demographics are in favor and supply/demand is out of kilter, so I remain as confident as I can be that I don't think residential prices are going to plummet in any shape or form."
Ian Marcus of the Bank of England's Property Forum, quoted by Reuters.
Technorati Tags: property, real estate
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More in this Category - Linkage
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The Daily Mail reports on what it reads as a frenzy of interest in London studio flats, citing a number of west London examples, including a studio in Hans Crescent, Knightsbridge, that was so small that - despite recent advances in nanophotography - Strutt & Parker failed to capture it on camera. Documentary evidence from the Land Registry did, however, prove the studio existed, and Strutt & Parker were able to sell it for £215,000. More here.
Technorati Tags: London, property, real estate
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A survey by BuyProperty4Less - a website offering discounts on new-builds - suggests that the average Brit moves house 12 times, with one in five moving 20 or more times. We tend to have owned five properties, and rented three (presumably the remainder are parents homes). Reasons for moving? Mainly - 47% - relationships. But also work moves and, interestingly, 7% of us move because we can't get along with our neighbours.
Technorati Tags: property, real estate
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If you yearn for better urban planning as much as the Rat and Mouse does, you might enjoy The Slow Home Movement.
Slow Home is a critical and much needed alternative to the standardised world of cookie cutter houses and instant neighborhoods. Suburban sprawl is like fast food, cheap and easy but also unsatisfying and boring. These places are shallow substitutes for homes and neighborhoods with meaning and depth. They are created by big businesses that are more interested in profits rather than people. Like fast food, they are bad for us, our families, and the environment.
Founder John Brown is an architect and estate agent. The website is interesting and functional, with plenty of video, and a "ten steps" programme for building or choosing your slow home:
1. GO INDEPENDENT
Avoid homes by big developers and large production builders. They are designed for profit not people. Work with independent designers and building contractors instead.
2. GO LOCAL
Avoid home finishing products from big box retailers. The standardized solutions they provide cannot fit the unique conditions of your home. Use local retailers, craftspeople, and manufacturers to get a locally appropriate response and support your community.
3. GO GREEN
Stop the conversion of nature into sprawl. Don’t buy in a new suburb. The environmental cost can no longer be justified. Re-invest in existing communities and use sustainable materials and technologies to reduce your environmental footprint.
4. GO NEAR
Reduce your commute. Driving is a waste of time and the new roads and services required to support low density development is a big contributor to climate change. Live close to where you work and play.
5. GO SMALL
Avoid the real estate game of bigger is always better. A properly designed smaller home can feel larger AND work better than a poorly designed big one. Spend your money on quality instead of quantity.
6. GO OPEN
Stop living in houses filled with little rooms. They are dark, inefficient, and don’t fit the complexity of our daily lives. Live in a flexible and adaptive open plan living space with great light and a connection to outdoors.
7. GO SIMPLE
Don’t buy a home that has space you won’t use and things you don’t need. Good design can reduce the clutter and confusion in your life. Create a home that fits the way you really want to live.
8. GO MODERN
Avoid fake materials and the re-creation of false historical styles. They are like advertising images and have little real depth. Create a home in which character comes from the quality of space, natural light and the careful use of good, sustainable materials.
9. GO HEALTHY
Avoid living in a public health concern. Houses built with cheap materials off gas noxious chemicals. Suburbs promote obesity because driving is the only option. Use natural, healthy home materials and building techniques. Live where you can walk to shop, school and work.
10. GO FOR IT
Stop procrastinating. The most important, and difficult, step in the slow home process is the first one that you take. Get informed and then get involved with your home. Every change, no matter how small, is important.
The site's American Canadian but it's just as relevant to the UK.
[via WorldChanging]
Technorati Tags: architecture, property, real estate
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More in this Category - Linkage
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Before we opened our borders to the flood of East European workers, I happened to be at a lunch sitting next to Patricia Hewitt, then Trade and Industry Minister, and I asked her about the likely effects of mass immigration. She gave me a calculating glance, leaned forward and said softly that I might find it very advantageous for my domestic staff situation.
Yep, that happens to me all the time and - I'm guessing - to the readership of the Daily Mail, too... so we know exactly where you're coming from.
Actually, despite its unpromising start, it's an interesting piece... about middle-class crime... paying builders in cash to avoid VAT (I'm not sure that's technically the client's crime), failing to pay the TV license, over-claiming from the insurance. The middle-classes are masters in the art of dressing self-interest up as principles but - according to a new report - things are getting much, much worse. A revolt against our currupt lords and masters? Or a sign of middle-class driven purely by self-interest?
Technorati Tags: property, real estate
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According to Tracy Kellett, of BDI Home Finders, fame costs homebuyers, in particular. In her previous role as an estate agent she claims to have watched a "well-known daytime TV presenter" pay at least £200,000 more than they should purely because the vendor recognised their face and assumed they could afford it. Now a search agent, she's working as the buffer between the vendor and the celebrity. No doubt she's scrupulously discreet... but we'll start working on her shortly nevertheless.
Technorati Tags: celebrity, property, real estate
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More in this Category - Linkage
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Remember, back in March, we reported on this Great Cumberland Place house: ten bedrooms, four bathrooms, five reception rooms, a balcony and a party wall shared with Madonna? It was on the market for £5.75m, and the vendor was property developer Paul Davies. The news is... it's been sold... to Madonna. We can't - as yet - speculate on the price; but Davies is the ultimate shrewd operator, and Madonna is said to have spent eight months negotioting with him and fighting off interest from Mario Testino and Jennifer Saunders (separately... they're not, as far as we know, a couple). Whether Madonna intends to "knock through" or turn landlady isn't clear.
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Technorati Tags: celebrity, London, property, real estate
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On Friday, we reported that Blair will be allowed to move into Chequers, at the taxpayers' expense, while the builders finish off at Connaught Street. Apparently, it'll only be a couple of days. (Haven't we all head that before?) Today it turns out that it's not just the Prime Minister but the Deputy Prime Minister, too, who's reluctant to give up some of the residential perks that go along with the job. It was controversial enough that John Prescott kept his Admiralty House home even after he stopped running a government department. Now - it turns out - he gets to keep it, even though he's no longer Deputy Prime Minister. Read it here.
Technorati Tags: property, real estate
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An extraordinary petition has been sent to Westminster Council, signed by the residents of Connaught Square, suggesting that the Blairs shouldn't count on a warm welcome when they (finally) move into their new home. The Daily Mail appears to have got hold of the text:
Headed tersely: "The Blair Family In Connaught Square", it highlights residents' anger that they will be at risk and have been told nothing about the proposed security measures which could cause chaos in the secluded Square.
The petition reads: "It has been suggested that to protect the Blairs it may be necessary to:
• Prevent vehicles and unauthorised pedestrians entering the west side of the Square, where the Blairs live.
• Turn part of the Square into a gated community, policed by armed guards.
• Prune or cut down some of our magnificent old plane trees for Prevention of Terrorism reasons.
• Have a police helicopter hovering above the Square."
The letter goes on to state that they feel they are being put at unreasonable risk and inconvenience simply to make room for one family, and so the Blairs shouldn't move in. The Blairs - still - apparently plan to attend the Connaught Square garden party. Should be a riot. Literally.
[via the Daily Mail]
More Connaught Square news
Technorati Tags: London, property, real estate
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Rising property prices have encouraged house owners to extend their homes rather than move to bigger premises. Fiona Foster investigates the ugly battles this can cause with neighbours and local authorities, and assesses the impact of the government's new planning strategy.
20:00-20:30. Have a great weekend.
Technorati Tags: property TV
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Building Design magazine have the results of their Smoking Shed Challenge... a competition to design better spaces for smokers following the ban. The winner - the Smoking Tube, by Russian architect George Sneghkin - is described as a celebration of smoking, and is illustrated below. Go here to see all the other entries.
Technorati Tags: architecture, design
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Remember last weekend's Hack Day contest, sponsored by Nestoria? There was a winner... it's called "Pyzeta" and it enables owners of GPS-enabled Nokia mobile phones to automatically browse Nestoria-listed properties in their immediate vicinity. More here.
Technorati Tags: Web, Web2, web2.0
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More in this Category - Linkage
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Figures from HM Revenue & Customs show 2006/7 UK housing sales reaching the highest figures since 1988... with 1.859m properties changing hands. That's a rise of 11% on the previous year. After 1988, interest rates rose, prices fell and sales were cut by more than half a million. What? I'm just saying...
[via BBC]
Technorati Tags: property, real estate
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Liberal Democrat MP Norman Baker wasn't amongst those getting all damp-eyed at the prospect of Tony Blair's farewells, yesterday. Baker's eyes were on the Blair's country residence prize... apparently, the builder's are, ahem, behind schedule readying Blair's Connaught Square home, and it's somehow been agreed that Blair will move into Chequers at the taxpayers' expense (of £1,738 a day). According to the government it will only be for "a couple of days" (£3, 476). And that forecast is from where? Presumably, the builders... and if Blair's colleagues are really that naive, no wonder the PM's managed to run riot for a decade. The house remains sheathed in scaffolding.
[via the Daily Mirror]
Blairs win Connaught Square planning permission [May 4, 2007]
Technorati Tags: property, real estate
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Almost regardless of social class, home ownership has become the ultimate national objective.
So, rich or poor, black or white, property unites us all. Right? No, that's not exactly what the New Statesman's Edmund Conway is driving at. He's writing about the homes-shortage, and how it's affecting every sector of society. It's an interesting article, pointing out how it was relatively rare for Brits to own their homes until the post-WW2 homes for heroes drive... when tax incentives for homeownership got us into the mess we're in right now. Conway points out how recent governments have quietly shifted the incentives back toward the landlords, resulting in a growing and tangible level of resentment from reluctant tenants. Read more, here.
Technorati Tags: property, real estate
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More in this Category - _Other
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Rosalind Russell writes about house price indices and Camden's mysterious rise from rathole to ratpack, in the Telegraph. Sure - the different indices reflect different types of data collected in different ways (and the Rat and Mouse firmly believes in the micro-local nature of house price valuation); but the piece also poses an interesting... to what extent can agents talk a local market up?
Technorati Tags: London, property, real estate
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There's an interesting thread developing over at the Channel 4 4homes forum. A vendor - we'll call him "x" (because it's better than his screen name, which is "pont") - wants to know whether he can pull out of the deal now, even though he's already exchanged. His solicitor is apparently being "unhelpful". No shit. At first, he cites his reasons as the loss of his job. But a little later, he suggests the problems aren't financial... he's "made £220k profit"... which means that if he's worried about meeting mortgage payments while jobless then selling - now - possibly at the top of the market - should be a Godsend. But... "I just still love my house and I just don't want to move". Hmm. And what about this: "Surely I can pull out, nothing is impossible!!" This could end in tears. Watch the thread.
Technorati Tags: property, real estate
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Buy-to-let still healthy [Telegraph]
Buy-to-let sick [Telegraph]
Aggressive skyscrapers surround Tower of London and move in [Newsday]
Interest rates about to bite [The Move Channel]
Governer: debt, "toxic" [Telegraph]
Happy Birthday: Nestoria turns one [Nestoria blog, team illustrated above, moments before Rightmove sniper opens fire]
The Rat and Mouse - it's about your house
Technorati Tags: property, real estate
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According to research by Birmingham Midshires' mortgage division, FTBs are particularly keen on DIY, lavishing care and cash on their purchases from the get-go, with eyes on a prize a step or two up the ladder. Redecoration, new kitchens and new bathrooms top the list of improvements. More here.
Technorati Tags: property, real estate
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More in this Category - Linkage
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Ex-LA Lakers cheeleader, ex-choreographer, ex-singer Paula Abdul might become an ex-American. After hanging out with her American Idol pal Simon Cowell, she's apparently professed a liking for a little London living. More (or less) here.
Technorati Tags: celebrity, London, property, real estate
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From a press release by the Department for Communities and Local Government:
Social housing tenants who consistently get a poor service - such as long waits for repairs or failure to deal with concerns about poor security - will be able to report their landlord to a new, independent social housing watchdog and trigger action to put it right, under proposals outlined today.
And when their landlord is local government?
Technorati Tags: London, property, real estate
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More in this Category - Linkage
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Here's an interesting piece, in which Anne Ashworth urges Gordon Brown to think again about the nondomicile tax break (in which an individual buys homes via an offshore company... replacing a 4% Stamp Duty rate with 0.5%). She points to a "ripple effect", in which the property purchases of the super-rich have caused a chain of displacement... eventually kicking the bankers out to the suburbs and the ftbs out of the market altogether.
Technorati Tags: London, property, real estate
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More in this Category - Gallery
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It's something the Rat and Mouse saw in 2005... homeowners - convinced of a crash - selling their homes, renting and waiting. And waiting. And waiting. And then realising the depth of the hole into which they'd fallen. Of course, the market slowed, but prices didn't fall, and those who'd taken the gamble, looking forward to a much bigger home and full decade of smugness, are still wiping the egg from their faces with Wet Wipes (TM). Now - according to this (and we've no idea at all where they've got their information) - some people are at it again. (Remember, the value of your home can pretty much stay the same as well as fall... a dead market, with rapidly decreasing annual house price inflation, will still spell disaster for the sell-to-renter...)
Technorati Tags: property, real estate
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So, drive a Prius and you'll pay £41.50 to park outside your house. Drive a Hummer and you could pay as much as £207.50. "What next?" asks the Daily Mail.
Technorati Tags: London
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Mark Brinkley, thinking outside of the box, in an interesting thread over at House 2.0:
Imagine every year each adult would be granted a notional housing footprint, say around 50 sq m each, about the size of a one or two bedroomed flat. If you didn’t own property, you could then sell your housing entitlement: if you wanted to own more than this, you would have to buy it from those who were selling. A market would be established, rather like the carbon trading exchanges, where allowances could be bought and sold. The more distorted the balance between the haves and the have-nots became, the higher the value of the entitlements would be. Such a scheme would aim to greatly reduce the attractiveness of owning property purely as an investment. In effect, it becomes a distributive tax, just as how people envisage carbon rationing as working.
Technorati Tags: property, real estate
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It's hardly a crash... annual inflation at 13.2% (up from 13.1% in May)... but, month-on-month, over-heated London property rose slower than the national average (0.7%, compared to 0.8% nationally). The annual figure dropped, too, from 24.8% to 23.1%, and more than half of London boroughs showed a fall. Rightmove point to a market flooded by new vendors, all eager to beat the deadline to avoid paying (imaginary) HIPs fees.
Market report - RICS, market slows [June 14, 2007]
Technorati Tags: London, property, real estate
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The Times carries a fascinating story of uber-developer Mike Spink's huge (and apparently secret) £42m deal which leaves him the proud owner of a lovely - but knackered - 30,000 sq ft mansion called Park Place, in Remenham, Henley-on-Thames. It's the most ever spent on a property outside London... but then it's an utterly unique proposition, packed with history, from countless links with royalty to a recent spell as a boarding school for children with emotional problems. By any standards - even Spink's - this is a giant project. The Rat and Mouse watches with interest.
Spink thinks big [February 17, 2006]
Technorati Tags: property, real estate
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More in this Category - Linkage
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 It's not a London story (the couple are from Cheltenham) but it's interesting. According to this, Colin and Louise Downes, their £80,000 mortgage offer not much use to them, plan to spend £1,000 on a decommissioned bus, and a further £4,000 converting it into a two-bedroom home. A novel idea, if not entirely new.
Technorati Tags: property, real estate
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According to a survey by Alliance & Leicester, private home-sellers using websites to market their properties are finding buyers in an average of less than two months, compared to more than three months via the more conventional estate agency route. The survey featured 2,384 people, 8% of whom had used on online private sales service, 5% had used a local paper, 4% had hand-crafted a "for sale" board and 1% had used eBay.
[via Reuters]
Technorati Tags: estate agents, property, real estate, real estate agents, Web, Web2, web2.0
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The Department for Communities and Local Government denies claims by the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors that a legal loophole in the (forthcoming) HIPs system will allow vendors to dodge paying for a report by simply ordering it when their house reaches the market, and hoping they can sell the property before actually receiving or, crucially, paying for the document. Sounds dubious to us. But, then, so do HIPs.
Technorati Tags: property, real estate
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That's right, our friends at Nestoria are using Saturday's Yahoo! Hack Day in London to launch a competition. The best (as judged by the Nestoria engineering team) mashup to use the Nestoria API will win a Garmin eTrex Vista Cx GPS... because geeks like to know where they are. Good luck.
Technorati Tags: Web, Web2, web2.0
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More in this Category - Linkage
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Nell Gwynn House, Hopton Street - once home, it's believed, to one of London's most celebrated actress-courtesans (and lover to King Charles II) - is listed with Hamptons with a guide price of £995,000. It's an extraordinary little gem, believed to be the oldest in the neighbourhood, and dating back further than implied in the listing. It comes with two bedrooms, a garden and allocated parking. You can download pdf particulars by clicking this.
Technorati Tags: London, property, real estate
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The number of surveyors reporting increases in prices outnumbered those reporting declines by just 23.9% in May, the smallest percentage since April 2006. The ratio of sales to stock has fallen for the second month to 40.9, however new buyer enquiries have leveled (after declining for several months) and some of the sales/stock ratio movement can be put down to a surge in the number of homes reaching the market by sellers attempting to beat the imaginary HIPs deadline. More here.
Technorati Tags: property, real estate
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Time is running out for the Heygate Estate, one of the Elephant & Castle's more troubled locales, due to be torn down to make way for the area's ambitious regeneration plans. But not everybody's delighted. According to the Irish Post (what can I say... I was browsing) one resident, a defiant 62-year-old woman, is refusing to budge. Now it's not entirely clear from the piece whether she actually lives in the famous 60s high-rise itself, or in some neighbouring maisonettes (the row's called Chearsley, I don't know it), but she's quoted talking about the area's sense of community, and the uncertain plans for the current residents' futures. She's not alone. Here's an elegant writer on the subject, pointing out that Heygate is - in its own way - quite a beautiful 60s construction. Perhaps, one day, we'll all miss it, in the same way we'd have missed Trellick Tower, if it hadn't been allowed to languish long enough to become trendy again. And, as Monbiot pointed out recently, the urban poor learnt long ago that regeneration is unlikely to benefit them. The Rat and Mouse has discovered with regard to the Ferrier Estate... this is always an emotional subject.
Technorati Tags: London, property, real estate
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More in this Category - _Other
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It's a Buckingham Place, Westminster townhouse... eight bedrooms, a terrace and a garden (note to non-Londoners: gardens in this neighbourhood are rare as travelers' teeth), and it's weighing in at a hefty £4.85m. It also comes with an elegant bit of history. It was previously owned by JFK's sister-in-law, the superbly named Princess Radziwill, and was Kennedy's London martini-pad of choice during his presidential years. Particulars, courtesy of Knight Frank, here.
Technorati Tags: London, property, real estate
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This is partly to say "thanks" to those who have written in to let us know; but mostly to shamelessly blow our own trumpet. From the Times:
As the bloggerati continue to set the agenda Times Online provides the first full list of the 50 top blogs, corporate and anti-corporate alike.
... plus commentary on the madness of the market, the vagaries of the estate agencies and the filthiest property porn in the capital. We're genuinely grateful and delighted to have been included. Thanks!
Check out the other great blogs there, too. The Rat and Mouse feed reader is bulging.
Technorati Tags: blogging
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The National Housing and Planning Advice Unit recently made headlines with their infamous 20 year house boom prediction. Now - according to this - they've a wacky affordability tool, too, which plots the relationship between supply, income and interest rates. According to their calculations a 1% rise in national income will produce a 2% rise in house prices, but an extra 1% on interest rates can reduce house prices by 3%. Furthermore, an extra 1% in available property can knock 2% off its value. It all sounds suspiciously like logic applied to the housing market.
Technorati Tags: property, real estate
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More in this Category - Linkage
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Fuzzbo - isn't the domain name market a bitch? - is a Googlemaps mashup online private sales website. For £99 and not a penny more... okay, plus VAT... Fuzzbo will upload your property details onto not only their map, but a bunch of partners' too, including Home.co.uk, Hotproperty.co.uk, PrimeMove.com, OnOneMap.com and Nestoria. What's more, you get a real-life for sale board to put up outside your house.
Technorati Tags: property, real estate, Web, Web2, web2.0
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The Olympics will turn us into couch potatoes, produce no long-term boost to local employment and is turning out to be the "catalyst for mass evictions and impoverishment". Monbiot looks at recent Olympic history and finds a shameful track record of social cleansing. He also finds signs for our own acts of shame in Clays Lane in Newham and Waterden Crescent in Hackney... where gypsies and travelers and a long-standing allotment will be swept aside. More here.
London's poor lose out over Olympics [June 6, 2007]
Technorati Tags: London, Olympics, property, real estate
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Graham Norwood talks to somebody who spent £425,000 on a one-bedroom Putney apartment after viewing it for just 15 minutes. Not so unusual: the average buyer spends just one and a half hours on the biggest expenditure of his or her life - less time than they spend researching a computer purchase. In this instance, the story is that Norwood's interviewee works for Garrington Home Finders, Phil Spencer's homesearch company. She wasn't exactly practicing what her boss preaches. So Phil Spencer walks Anne Cuthbertson through a proper home viewing, prodding, poking and getting "in the zone". it's a great read, and useful, too.
Technorati Tags: property, real estate
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More in this Category - Linkage
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According to this in the Times, many of London's council flat and housing association tenants are pocketing a fortune by illegally subletting their flats to the gullible at market rates. The writer herself was caught up in a sublet fiasco, when a housing association official turned up at her Crouch End apartment.
Technorati Tags: London, property, real estate
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It's at the OFFSITE2007 future of construction exhibition in Watford, it's by Kingspan, it's called the Lighthouse and it looks like this:
The headlines are that it's the first building to achieve level six of the Code for Sustainable Homes, making it carbon-neutral (and exempt from Stamp Duty). Solar panels and a biomass boiler power it and super-efficient insulation keeps the heat in. That thing on the top? That's a wind-catcher for summer ventilation. Building costs? Apparently 40% higher than the average home. But that should come down were the Lighthouse to be built in any quantity. More here.
Technorati Tags: design, property, real estate
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It's late but it's accurate - based, as it is, on completions. The headlines are that annual house price inflation for April was 11.3% (up from 10.9% in March), with the London figure reaching 14% (from 13.9% in March). Between March and April, there was a rise of 1.2%.
Technorati Tags: London, property, real estate
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 Simple. Let your wife buy your share from the trustee, then pay the mortgage with your £3m pension fund.
Technorati Tags: property, real estate
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Remember the scandal of the drive-by surveyors, charging up to £1,000 for a compulsory re-mortgage valuation, but failing, even, to shift from second gear never mind stop and get out their cars? According to this, it might even be worse:
But the CML admitted a growing number of valuations are 'automated'. This is where a computer is used to calculate the value of a home using data such as house prices from the neighbouring area, features of an individual property and the sales process. This can be carried out remotely from anywhere in the country, at a cost of as little as £20.
Technorati Tags: property, real estate
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More in this Category - Linkage
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The Telegraph carried this interesting piece about Wow, an online agent with an offline presence. Wow will apparently only operate in neighbourhoods where they have a local agent who knows the local market and can view the property. It's not entirely clear from the website, but according to the Telegraph they've "branches" in west and south west London. They charge a flat fee of £899 (making them a viable alternative when selling a property worth £400,000 or more), and advertise on a host of larger portals, including Rightmove and Propertyfinder. So... a local agent with an online shopfront.
Technorati Tags: London, property, real estate, Web
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And it looks like this:
[via Renthusiast] [Zoomf]
Technorati Tags: property, real estate, Web, Web2, web2.0
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It's called Blockhunter, and it's a particularly elegant example of what are - apparently - being called "intention websites". You don't advertise your home on Blockhunter... you express an interest in selling (or letting) it. On the other side of the fence, potential buyers (or tenants) express an interest in taking it off your hands. Both parties remain anonymous... but are matched up via a very nice implementation of the Google Search and Maps APIs. In practice, it's impressively fast and simple to use... an initial search for tenants in south west London found me nine entries in less than 60 seconds. Downsides? Since it's free (and anonymous) there aren't many, but it clearly relies on the quality of user-generated content. Some potential buyers are registering "blocks" (their personal geographic search areas) that are so huge they're effectively pointless (I found somebody looking for a 2-4 bedroom flat anywhere within a 66,095 square kilometre "block" that stretched from Southend-on-Sea in the east to Tipperary in Ireland in the west... not too fussy, clearly). Also, studio flats aren't served in the drop-down menu. But this is a new website, with an elegant and usable UI, and will improve the more people try it out.
Start marketing your home before it's for sale [March 30, 2007]
Technorati Tags: property, real estate, Web, Web2, web2.0
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Insurers More Th<n have been Yappy tracking... looking for clues that point to an influx of Young Affluent Professionals (commonly believed to be the first sign of a local property boom). The number one clue, apparently, is spending on consumer electrics - in particular, iPods and plasma TVs. Others include home broadband connections and air miles, particularly if racked up on short city breaks. (Apparently, a third fiendish clue of the presence of Young Affluent Professionals is the presence of young people earning £27,000 or more. Right.) That's not all: More Th<n have compiled a Yappy Index, and used it to locate some future hotspots. There are eight London neighbourhoods In the Top Ten, but - like just about every place in London - they've pretty much up-and-come already:
Lancaster Gate (1)
Belsize Park (2)
Ealing Broadway (3)
Frognal and Fitzjohns, Camden (5)
Pembridge, Kensington & Chelsea (6)
Queens Gate, Kensington & Chelsea (7)
Hampstead (8)
Campden, Kensington & Chelsea (9)
Technorati Tags: London, property, puppy, real estate
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One of the really great things about being a property blogger - apart from the money and the drugs and the girls - is being your own boss. Basically, you can do what the hell you like... and it's a daily struggle not to let all that power and influence corrupt. So today - because I can - I'm declaring this Rat and Mouse tech Friday... expect a handful of tech and web-related property stories throughout the day. If you've a tip... send it in. Please.
Technorati Tags: property, real estate, Web, Web2, web2.0
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According to this, Ruth Kelly has agreed to spend 45 minutes in the company of fully trained home and energy inspection scientists, many of whom have spent as much as £14,000 learning how to tick boxes and are now "high and dry". The Rat and Mouse isn't sure of the venue for this gathering of great minds... no doubt they've found somewhere suitable.
Technorati Tags: property, real estate
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More in this Category - _Other
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According to ConveyanceLink - a "conveyancing case management provider - 87% of movers are unHIP... and exactly the same percentage of estate agents don't believe they'll ever be implemented. ConveyanceLink's Michael York (no, not that one) says, "HIPs look like a disaster waiting to happen." Or not happen, I suppose...
Technorati Tags: property, real estate
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They're called the National Housing and Planning Advice Unit, and they predict that by 2026 the cheapest quarter of UK homes will cost ten times the average salary of the lowest paid quarter of UK citizens. This is no scare story - they argued on this morning's Today programme - since the gearing has already reached seven times, up from four times just ten years ago. The new unit is chaired by Stephen Nickell (ex Bank of England monetary policy committee member), who has dismissed talk of a house price crash. As long unemployment remains low, there's still room, he argues, for further interest rate increases, too, with the market simply slowing down for a while.
Technorati Tags: property, real estate
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And expensive. In fact, according to this, the UK's third most expensive neighbourhood after Kensington and Chelsea. Chesterton's "meta-index" (more on that - I think - to come) shows Camden achieving a 2.8% property inflation rate in April, which was more than twice that of the other two illustrious names, bringing NW1 an average property price of £509,157... putting it ahead of Westminster. And it wasn't that long ago the borough was declared fit only for the rats.
Technorati Tags: London, property, real estate
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More in this Category - Linkage
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It's an amazing place - an old farmhouse, apparently, with three acres - in... wait for it... Highgate. Okay, it's a little kitsch:
In the bathroom downstairs we have a Marilyn Monroe doll that sings " Happy Birthday". Actually I think she looks rather like Princess Diana. They said when they were clearing out her stuff they discovered she had an Erasure CD, which I was touched to hear. I am quite into Fifties movie idols, we also have a black and white screen in the sitting room – Audrey Hepburn on one side and Marilyn Monroe on the other – to suit your mood.
But the house - painted in Frida Kahlo-inspired tones - sounds remarkable. Read it here. More about Erasure here.
Technorati Tags: celebrity, London, property, real estate
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A report by a Swiss housing rights group called the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions has warned that the immediate results of sports-related building booms are a pricing out of local people. Although the report isn't purely about the 2012 games (it covers major football tournaments and, bizarrely perhaps, Miss World Pageants, too), the London games are singled out:
Already (in London), over five years before the Olympic Games are due to be staged, over 1,000 people face the threat of displacement from their homes, and housing prices are escalating.
[via the Guardian]
Technorati Tags: London, Olympics, property, real estate
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According to research by Alliance & Leicester Mortgages, 56% of landlords hold onto some of their tenants' deposit after they move out. The top reasons? Property damage (26%), missed payments (25%), cleaning costs (22%). Of course, there's a compulsory Tenant Deposit Scheme in operation now to ensure that everything's fair. Except 63% of landlords in the south east and eastern England claim to have never heard of it.
Let's just revisit those figures before signing off... one in four tenants fall behind on their rent. Am I the only person surprised by this?
[via Money Extra]
Technorati Tags: property, real estate
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Let's get this straight, we're talking about 1,200 sq ft in Eaton Place, Belgravia... home to Roman Abramovich, Roger Moore and Elizabeth Hurley (the square, not the apartment obviously... although there's an image that's going to haunt me). Apparently, Blunkett still has a place locally too. Hm. I can't find the particulars... so if anyone has a link, I'd appreciate an email (or drop it in the comments below). Meanwhile. this is the kind of thing £3m gets you in Eaton Place.
The story - by the way - comes via This Is London - who got this wonderful comment from Alex Stroud of Savills:
"Personally, I would rather buy a wonderful one-bedroom flat than a mediocre two-bedroom flat of the same size. After all, who wants guests to stay?"
London's most expensive studio flat? [March 11, 2005]
Technorati Tags: London, property, real estate
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According to this, in the Independent, metrosexuals are, like Cro-Magnon and Neanderthal, so over. The next stage in British broadsheet-reading man's evolution is the heteropolitan:
... men perfectly at ease with themselves, fathers who prefer nights in with their families to nights out on the tiles; guys who prefer shorts to skirts and whose skin only changes colour if they have been out in the sun.
So what has this to do with a property blog? Here's the Independent's classic heteropolitan:
Designer, author and Channel 4 TV presenter Kevin McCloud, 48, wears understated jeans, smart jumper, hard hat and leather jacket. Only wears make-up when appearing on camera.
(Note to foreign readers... McCloud presents a popular British television show about contemporary architecture.)
Technorati Tags: property TV
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A new survey by GE Money Home Lending suggests that estate agents favour loft conversions (which, they say, add on average £45,000 to a London property) over bathroom or kitchen renovations. If you're looking to completely waste your money on something that adds very little to the value of your home, get a new floor or garden decking, they say. More here.
Technorati Tags: London, property, real estate
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Here it is:
Do you know what it reminds me of? Did you see that episode of The Apprentice when they were asked to design and advertise a trainer? Remember the awful cringe-inducing "street" logo (because nothing says you're street like having it written in public school art class graffiti along the side of your shoe)?
Technorati Tags: London, Olympics
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They say Irina Abramovich is considering blowing £35m of it on a 20-bedroom home in Belgravia Square. But check out the divorcee bitterness comment underneath the story:
Goodness me, Roman Abramovitch (£8bn+) must have had a good lawyer. I wish that he/she had worked on my behalf during my divorce.
Technorati Tags: celebrity, London, property, real estate
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More in this Category - Linkage
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Manchester to license its landlords [BBC]
Propertyfinder estimates post-HIPs screw-up property flood cost vendors £5,000 each [Reuters]
Consumers still a worry to rate-setters [Reuters]
Buy-to-let landlords suffer [Times]
The Rat and Mouse - it's about your house
Thursday morning linkage - cannabis factories issue profit warning, blame house prices [May 31, 2007]
Rat and Mouse international celebrity property round-up - Tyson, 50 Cents, Myers, Hilfiger, Leary, Foxx, Osbournes [May 25, 2007]
Technorati Tags: London, property, real estate
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Get a fake payslip! Apparently, there's a thriving online market.
Technorati Tags: property, real estate
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Approvals have slowed to the lowest monthly figure since April 2006, dropping to 107,000 in april, from 112,000 in March. Go here for a bit of commentary from the Times. The overall picture, however, remains confused.
Technorati Tags: property, real estate
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The Telegraph visits Polish banker Zbigniew Stradowski in his Montevetro penthouse, and listens to him criticise Richard Rogers. it's a strange attitude... pay a small fortune for an iconic Battersea landmark, then completely gut and re-fit it because Rogers apparently got it wrong. Go here to admire an admittedly impressive job, including... wait for it... a "65in high- definition plasma screen in the living room - the biggest currently on the market, Stradowski proudly points out". Hah... beat that, Rogers.
Technorati Tags: architecture, design, interiors, London, property, real estate
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