Robert Peston points out the irony of a Tory rebellion over a move to end a tax policy introduced two years ago by Alastair Darling and return to Lawson-era tax rues. It's good reading. He also suggests that current uncertainty of Capital Gains Tax changes could have a negative effect on property prices. If they just did it, the market might take a temporary hit.
Presumably he's talking about investors with large portfolios? Individual investors selling larger properties aren't going to help out first-time buyers. Those with smaller, first-time buyer-level properties have less to gain by selling now, and might want to hang around to enjoy rising yields. The big question is whether investors with large portfolios will be affected at all, or whether they'll be able to shelter the properties in a company or take advantage of the promised loopholes for entrepreneurs. Back to uncertainty.
Over at US design blog Apartment Therapy, they've voting for the coolest small kitchen... a subject that may be close to some Londoners' hearts. Inspiration here.
It's the Amityville Horror House... home of a real-life killing spree in November 1974, when Ronald DeFeo Jr killed his parents, two brothers and two sisters, and a subsequent (apparent) haunting, which drove out the property's new owners. The events inspired a book, and subsequent series of films. It's a Dutch colonial house in New York State; it's on the market for $1.15m. Buy it now. Be there in time for Halloween. Ignore the horror bus tours.
What?! It's (guess who) Money Week, with a creative and interesting piece, looking at the value of UK property from a gold standard position. Relevant? Meaningful? Should UK property be priced up as if it's an international commodity? Debatable. But - like I said - interesting:
I know - it's from the weekend - but it's interesting and I should have spotted it at the time... FT Adviser takes a look at a Datamonitor report ("Buy-to-Let Morgages and the Rental Sector") about buy-to-let mortgages and the rental sector. It's interesting for two reasons. Firstly, it's bullish (if you're a landlord, less so if you're a first-time buyer), drawing on socioeconomic reasons why the private rental sector will prosper over the next few years. Secondly, there's no mention, whatsoever, of any rush-to-sell, following news of increased Capital Gains Tax. Only this:
An interesting piece in the bearish MoneyWeek, this time about how the onetime debtors' panacea - inflation - isn't going to help anyone out this time around.
This morning's statement of intent by the new government makes it pretty clear... don't expect public sector wages to leap up any time soon; do expect the newly unemployed public sector refugees to seek work from the private sector, thus keeping wages down, there, too.
The surveyors' role in the credit crisis has been raked over often enough... from naive running with the herd to cynical serving of the mortgage machine. Caught with their pants down, then; they're pulling their belts so tight, now, their eyes are bulging. This, from the Daily Mail:
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A strange - and sad - one. A Watford father-of-three, scheduled to appear on DIY SOS on Bank Holiday Monday, has reportedly smashed up his new kitchen, held his wife hostage and then shot himself dead. During filming, Mrs Walters had been diagnosed with a rare neurological disease. Mr Walters apparently described the visit by the show's crew as taking his mind off his wife's illness. More here. The BBC's has apparently called the episode: Dad in Despair.
A reader writes in to the Telegraph for advice. Her daughter got close to exchange, and then the vendor's pulled out. Not unheard of, by any means. (Sounds like a gazump.) But here are the details:
As I said, this happens. But normally there's an agent aggressively pursuing the deal to secure their commission. In this instance, without a good working relationship between vendor's and buyer's solicitors (unlikely, given it took four months to get that far), the buyer's blowing in the wind. Click the link for the Telegraph's advice.
Council of Mortgage Lenders figures show lending on new property purchases down 12% since March, making April 2010 lending the lowest since 2000. According to the CML, the wrong kind of Easter (the kind that falls in April) was partly to blame, but that doesn't explain why gross lending in the first four months of 2010 was lower than in the first four months of credit crunched 2009.
The new Government hasn't wasted any time closing the door on HIPs... from tomorrow, the requirement to by HIP-happy before marketing a home is suspended. It was the sensible thing to do. It was always clear HIPs were going to go; delaying would simply have created uncertainty in the market. More here.
National Association of Estate Agents has a new president. He's Michael Jones, and he's been here before, back in 1992/93. Hello, Mr Jones. Please take the Rat to your people.
According to a survey by online estate agents Hoopla, the top ten reasons for a rejection by a potential buyer are:
93% high local crime rate
91% unsuitable interior layout
87% no outside space
82% too close to a main road
79% poor local schools
78% too close to an airport
54% too close to a pub
42% death in the house
39% too close to a graveyard
31% too close to a council estate
Of all of those, I've got admit the 8th (the death one) surprised me. It doesn't surprise me that someone - on viewing a property and discovering that, say, a previous owner had hanged themselves from a beam - might find other, spurious reasons to walk away from a house that now made them uncomfortable. But I'm amazed so many would admit to it being a problem from the outset.
According to the Property Ombudsman, they're up 27.5% between the last quarter of 2009 and the first of 2010. Letting agents aren't off the hook either, with a rise of 14.7%. The Ombudsman admits he has no explanation for the rise, but is clearly concerned about his workload, should the trend continue.
And just when everyone was telling Cameron and Clegg to get a room, it turns out that libertarian Clegg is about to move in with William Hague. In the spirit of austerity, they're going to be sharing a "grace-and-favour" home. Luckily, Chevening House in Kent, boasts 115 rooms, so it's unlikely they'll be doing each other's washing up. More here.
Zoopla's revealed the UK's most expensive postcodes, and it's topped - less than surprisingly - with W8, where average property prices are in excess of £1.5m. The most expensive street? Kensington Palace Gardens... at £18m a house, on average. Other £1m+ postcodes are SW7, SW3, W11 and SW10. Virginia Water, alone, represents the rest of the country in the top ten list.
It's Anna Tyzack of the Telegraph, beaten around the head in Estate Agent Today, for a series of alleged errors including defining HMO as "High Multiple Occupancy" and creating Gary King, the mutant love child of the NAEA's Gary Smith and Peter Bolton King. Unfortunately, there's no link... and I've had a good look at what's available online, and can't find said article. However, I've read numerous articles in which Tyzack's got these (and more) details right, so I can only think "typo" and "there but by the grace of God..."
Asking prices rose 0.7% in May - according to Rightmove - after a 2.6% increase in April, leaving the annual rate of increase at 4.3%, down from 6%. In London, asking prices actually dropped in the month - despite all that chat about Euro- and Dollar-rich foreign buyers plundering the London market - by 0.4% in May, leaving the annual change at 5.7%. In accompanying comment, the suggestion is that a rush of vendors hasn't been met by a rush of buyers able to proceed.
Yesterday, Rightmove launched a desktop property search application, Rightmove Desktop. It runs on Adobe's smart Air platform and it's fun. Watch a demo and - if you like - download for Mac or PC here. But what's the point? asks The Modern Estate Agent, you can pretty much squeeze all of its functionality out of a visit to the homepage. I think its ability to interrupt your workday with regular updates, should new properties, meeting your description, become available is interesting. But I wonder if its main function - from Rightmove's point of view - is to encourage house-hunters to take their search out of the browser, where they might be just as likely to punch in the addresses of some very compellingrivals, and into a controlled Rightmove-only environment.
The number of home repossessions fell by 7.5% in the first quarter of the year, according to figures by the Council of Mortgage Lenders. They're also well down (26%) on the same period in 2009. The number of households in arrears also fell. The CML is apparently considering revising downwards its forecast for the rest of the year. Let's just wait and see how brave our new Government is tacking public sector pay and employment first.
The Department for Communities figures - based on completions and so more meaningful than others - show a 0.75% rise month-to-month into March, the 12th consecutive monthly rise, leaving annual inflation up 9.7%, the highest it's been since November 2007. In London, prices have risen an amazing 15.7% in a year. Sustainable? How can it be?
Landlords can't be that concerned about Capital Gains Tax increases, if a forecast by independent market analyst Datamonitor turns out to be on the money. DM sees buy-to-let mortgage lending tripling to £25.6bn by 2014. Rapidly growing demand - due to immigration, birth-rate and the need for new households during this period, growing numbers of students and a trend, amongst the young, to rent - is believed to point to a strong privately rented sector in the medium-term. Remember, however, that buy-to-let lending starts at an eight-year low, and DM doesn't see the increase starting until next year.
I almost didn't bother posting this, but here it is... do with it what you will. It's the latest Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors highly scientific report into the mood of the market. Expect a post-election bounce, they say; especially in London, where 55% more agents reckon prices are rising than falling, up from 32% in March. Surely, you can provide a highly scientific report that's subtle to understand. Or a subjective, unscientific report that comes in an easily digestible headline. But as long as RICS insists on bringing subjective, unscientific reports that are tortuous to explain, we'd say, take them lightly.
When I say "we", I don't mean the Rat and Mouse. There wouldn't be much for him to do. I mean the country. He's Eric Pickles, a Conservative MP, and he's had experience shadowing the position, before he became party chairman at the start of 2009. His "thing"? Planning powers brought to a local level. In case you run into him, this is what he looks like:
Expect to see a further increases in the numbers of properties on agents books throughout spring and early summer as landlords and other owners of investment properties who've been considering liquidising their investments jump on the current 18% flat rate of Capital Gains Tax, before the coalition (most likely) replaces it with income tax rates. Inevitably, the landlords are revolting, and demanding exemptions.
Surely someone must be. Even if it's not the Prime Minister.
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If you feel you could be a TV presenter with a capital "P", forward your contact details, CV and photo to this gentleman. Tell him the Rat and Mouse sent you.
A polling day dinner with an estate agent in Westminster wasn’t an upbeat affair, despite the scuttling of known political faces into the private dining room. This agent had no stock, been the same for two years. Nobody selling, tenants not giving notice, market paralysis. Coffee four days later was a different matter. An incredible Monday he tells me. Two landlords been in, they want to sell. Big local developer been sitting on empty properties for years, he wants to shift them. Vendors calling, "Let's talk price reductions." "What's going on?" I ask. "It’s simple," he says. "They’re scared."
Tracy Kellett runs leading buying agents BDI Homefinders. Follow her on Twitter, here.
According to the National Association of Estate Agents we're in for the traditional spring bounce. Vendors rose in March to the highest level for six months, buyers registering with agents rose 7%. Sales, too, have risen. From 6.8 per branch in March to eight. Clearly, there's time yet for political uncertainty to put a damper on things, but - no matter what they tell you - no-one is really certain of the effect of a hung parliament/coalition on vendor/buyer behaviour.
New research by Defaqto suggests that while the number of different mortgage products available has increased significantly in the last year more than a quarter of them are available only to lenders' existing borrowers, with a further 15% limited to their banking/saving customers. More here.
It was March 2009 when they hit their record low of 0.5% and they haven't shifted since. But wait - it's a Monday, we don't do this on a Monday. Apparently, something more important was scheduled for last Thursday.
An agent representing estate agency SW19 has been ordered by a court to pay £15,000 in damages after being found guilty of "passing off" and "copyright infringement". He'd attacked a former friend and colleague by buying the domain name eddisonwhite.com (the actual estate agency owns the .co.uk version) and sending the address to a hardcore porn site. According to some accompanying interview with perp and victim over at Estate Agent Today, the guilty agent had begun by diverting to the address to some soft porn images. When he decided that wasn't nasty enough, he diverted the page to his own agency site. He finally upped the ante by diverting to God knows what...
Richard Eddison, joint owner of eddisonwhite, said: “I am relieved and happy this ordeal is over. It has been difficult for us and all of our customers and most importantly for those individuals who were subjected to some truly awful images thanks to Mr Bennett’s antics."
Eddison is said to have discovered the ruse after receiving complaints that it was hard to see the rooms properly, for the giant naked bodies in the way. A filthy business.
They cling to life like their starring in a horror movie. And - more importantly - so do HIPs providers. Their last hope... a Labour-LibDem alliance, with the LibDems "conceding" on the (relatively trivial) Home Information Pack, in return for more important policy influence. For the housing market in general, I believe it's possible to only speculate. Political uncertainty is said to result in a wait-and-see approach to moving house and taking on greater debt. So a slower property market's a distinct possibility. Most interesting will be the combined effect of the current political confusion and the wider economic emergency. Would a lack of faith in the UK's ability to make decisions make borrowing harder for the Government and bring on those so-called "austerity measures"... and their effects on jobs (and house prices)? An interesting weekend awaits...
Not just visit, but reach it in nine days, 14 hours and 20 minutes, winning the 2010 Polar Challenge, no less, and raising almost £46,000 for Mencap. The agents are from Tates, in West Kensington. Rumours that they celebrated reaching the magnetic North Pole by erecting a For Sale sign have neither been confirmed nor denied. More here.
It's not enough for an outright majority. But it will mean a few more Minis. Foxtons is due to open its 26th office tomorrow, in North Finchley. Commission will, temporarily, be 0%.
Okay, Tory. I know, I know, it's exactly what you expected, but it comes after five Labour votes in a row, so don't get all snarly. So, why the change? Because he's offended by the budget deficit, our money frittered away on a bunch of sickie-taking, pension-hogging clock-watchers, who demand extra holidays if they're poorly on the beach in Corfu. (Okay, I added that last bit.)
With Primelocation data showing the number of UK searches for foreign property doubling in a year, our publisher looks at the dangerous game of foreign property investment during a currency crisis.
The Advertising Standards Authority has upheld a complaint against a Spicerhaart ad claiming Breaking Up Is Easy To Do, and encouraging a vendor who's estate agent "isn't delivering" to "switch to haart without penalty". The complaint was focussed on the use of "without penalty", and pointed out that vendors switching to haart after signing a lock-in clause with another agent, might - in fact - be charged a penalty, only it would be covered by haart until the sale of the property... in other words "deferred". More here.
Net lending fell to £318m, down from £1.85bn, a massive and unexpected drop, leaving it at its lowest since July 2009. What's to blame? Some say the end of the Stamp Duty holiday, which created an artificial divide between one month and the next. Others blame the weather. Either way, it sheds a new light on the so-called "recovery". It's hard to see how a house price recovery can take place against the backdrop of shrinking lending.
That's two mansions in Fitzrovia, adding up to £6m, which he's going to open up into one giant palace. It's funny how a divorce can bring it all together... a fat cheque and some well-deserved creative success.
Holy Moses! Orchids - literally - raised on money. Over at the Primelocation blog, Cheryl Markosky gets to go inside 54 Academy Gardens (£30m) in Kensington, a 6000 square foot duplex with five bedrooms and some grand but modern interior space, poke around and sniff the affluence.
In the five years to 2009: one High Court case against a surveyor accused of negligence over a valuation. Last year: 25. The property price crisis is finally feeding through to the courts, and the lenders are looking for someone to blame. More here. And go here to read why no sane person would want to be a surveyor.
