Kevin McCloud will be taking questions about this October's Grand Designs Live show tomorrow at 4pm (UK). If you've questions you want to ask, start tweeting now to @GDLive_2011.

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What does that involve? First, making sure enough suitable housing is available to meet demand, through a combination of sensitive yet decisive measures to build new homes and keep old ones in useful circulation. Second, detaching the task of housing people healthily and equitably from the task of making people feel as if they're rich. Third, preventing this essential part of our infrastructure from being subject to endless poking by new ministerial brooms.

Lynsey Hanley, in the Guardian, says... enough is enough... it's time for the Government to make the supply of affordable housing and a well-regulated functional private rented sector a cabinet priority.

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The Mortgage Verification Scheme enables suspicious lenders to apply to the HMRC to help verify claims on mortgage applications. It's a voluntary scheme, but according to the Council of Mortgage Lenders, a select few lenders who trialed it did in fact foil a few fraudulent applications. It will cost just £14 plus VAT to test an application. More here.

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We're not kidding.

Yeah, it looks more reasonable when you see it split on a weekly basis.

It's Gordon House, in Richmond... a giant riverside stately home featuring a 47ft-long ballroom, landscaped gardens and more wings than a flock of seagulls. It used to belong to Brunel University. Now, it could turn out to be the most expensive rental property in the 'burbs. Knight Frank particulars here.

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No sooner were we talking about Foxtons under the gun, suspiciously late filing its accounts and - according to some sources - struggling to stay above water than - and several branch openings later - it's posting record profits of £35.4m in the year to December 31, 2010, beating even its top-of-the-market 2007 figures. More here.

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The NHF's chief executive has described the UK property market as, like,  "totally dysfunction"... high prices, strict lending criteria, too little social housing, too little building. As a result, home ownership - the NHF predicts - will start falling dramatically, down to 63.8% in 2021 (from a 2001 peak of 72.5%). Less than half of Londoners will be homeowners by 2012, with the number falling to 44% by 2021. The NHF also predicts massive housing related inflation... inflated house prices (due to a shortage of property), inflated rents, inflated waiting lists for social housing .The answer? Build, they say.

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House prices rose 1.3% in July, according to the latest Land Registry figures, leaving them 2.15% down on their July 2010 position. The South West did best (+2.2%), and the North East the worst (-2.3%, -8.8% on the year). London remains the only region up on the year (1.3%). Low transaction levels remain, with vendors and lenders both nervous.

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Baby-boomers... thanks for the property obsession [Evening Standard]
London rents to continue rising until Christmas [Property Talk Live]
German prefabs... where the quality is [Bloomberg]
An appreciation of Gaddafi's interior design flair [Guardian]

The Rat and Mouse - it's about your house

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Courtesy of the HomeProtect blog.

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A 44-year-old former helicopter pilot committed suicide due to the possible homelessness of his family after the changes to Housing Benefit in November. The Coroner commented:

“What I find particularly tragic in this case is this act appears to be pursued by a man who was not suffering from an illness and appears to have made a considered act in response to his inability to find employment. The fact his housing benefit was about to be cut and the family would be at risk of having nowhere to live, and being ordered to give up his training course because of the Job Centre's rules, would appear to be especially poignant and tragic.”

Suddenly it's all starting feel so much more real.

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We're starting to see some evidence of a series of online auctions of those colourful South Bank, artist-designed beach huts that were part of the (recent) Festival of Britain exhibition. Proceeds to the Pull Out All the Stops campaign to restore the Royal Festival Hall organ. Keep checking here for updates.

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First, it was pornography paid for by the tax payer, now it turns out she's been "borrowing" prisoners from a Redditch prison, taking them off community service and using them to paint her house, without consultation with the prison or ministry of justice. More here.

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Two men, a woman and a child, once again a property owned by someone who's on holiday, once again a bogus tenancy agreement and, once again, beginning with the owners' possessions being chucked out the window. An ugly business. More here.

Now this is what I call a headline [August 17, 2011]

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According to new research by the Council of Mortgage Lenders, more than a quarter of borrowers are either in negative equity or  have less than 10% equity in their homes. The result? They're limited to poor mortgage deals and might find it hard to move. More here.

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The Foxtons founder has his eyes on a parcel of land - currently a Texaco garage - which has been the subject of five previous failed planning applications in the last ten years. According to this, he's hired Rogers Stirk Harbour & Partners to draw up plans for a tower, which may potentially interfere with views from Peninsula Heights (home to Lord Archer's famous penthouse). More here.

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This time, for a £8m home in London. According to the Telegraph, the same old question remains: where's the money coming from? The answer, presumably, is from "consulting", via his Global Council company. Not bad, considering it was incorporated just last November.

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Some new statistics today. According to a Post Office survey (probably conducted by asking people in those long, snaking queues), 53% of would-be house buyers have given up hope. They don't think they'll ever be able to afford a home. Those who do think they'll buy a property see 35 as the age at which it is now a reasonable expectation to buy. The equivalent in the early 1960s? Twenty-three. More here.

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It's the mansion tax he's saying "no" to...in an interview for the Telegraph.

“We as a government have got to understand that middle-class families put a lot into this country and don’t take a lot out,” he says. “It would be a very big mistake to start imposing taxation on the back of changes in property values.”

You won't find many informed people arguing in favour of the mansion tax, if only because of the practical difficulties associated with applying a tax based on theoretical valuation, but I think Mr Pickles is stretching things a little by painting a tax on £2m homes as a tax that punishes the struggling middle-classes.

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Emmanuel Aymes resigned as a senior negotiator in Foxtons' South Kensington office in January and set up London Asia Ltd. Foxtons claims he broke the "covenant" he signed which demands he remains "loyal" to the company for six months after leaving.

They're after more than £300,000 and claim that some of Mr Aymes' clients were pilfered, directly, from the valuable Foxtons database.

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They've reached £1,009 a month, according to LSL Property Services, up 7.1% July-to-July. It's tough on frustrated first-time buyers, tough on long-term tenants, tough on everyone. Except landlords. More here.

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There's a good picture over at the Standard. Forty-four prefabs are bring dropped opposite Hammersmith Hospital - all one and two-bedroom homes - on top of the existing four-storey blocks. One bedroom flats will be let at £794 a month, two-bedrooms at £961 a month.

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That's what's cheering them up at the Centre for Economics and Business Research, anyway. They've just revised their 2011 house price forecast from -1.4% to +1.3%, quoting the above factors, and longterm they're forecasting a 14% rise over the next four years, bringing house prices to a new all-time high (although factoring in inflation rather rains on the parade). More here.

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According to Estate Agent Today it's not just Greene & Co agents who've been using addresses of properties on their books to apply fraudulently for residents' parking permits, it's possibly a scam that's widespread throughout London. In case you missed it, six out of seven agents at Greene & Co's Maida Vale branch have had court time and have been fined for the practise. It's been a bit of a blow for G&C who work particularly hard at their public image. I wonder whether this will qualify for a Mistake of the Month award? I'm also surprised it's so easy. I've always had to come up with all kinds of proof of identity, address, car ownership before being granted a permit.

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The towns with the most £1m homes... a top 100 [Primelocation blog]
Kings Cross Hotel... bought by a US investment company [Evening Standard]
Posh artists' pads [Curbed]
A history of the London riot tradition [Spectator]
MPC unanimous on rate hold [BBC]

The Rat and Mouse - London's property blog

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It's courtesy of the Daily Mail... the tale of immigration officer Julia High who returned from the Proms (my God, it's getting better) to find a family of Romanians in her house, claiming they had a tenancy agreement with the son Miss High never had. She's owned her Leytonstone home for 30 years. When she turned up, they apparently offered her a glass of wine. She appears not to have encountered any problems having them evicted the next day, but they've caused chaos in her house and been through all her things, which must have been very upsetting. More here.

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First, Faye Dunaway:

Faye Dunaway is a defendant in case No. 76667/11 in Manhattan housing court, just another rent-stabilized tenant facing eviction. In a lawsuit filed Tuesday, her landlord claims that Ms. Dunaway, who pays $1,048.72 a month for a one-bedroom walk-up apartment in a century-old tenement building on East 78th Street, does not actually live there, but rather lives in California.

So what? The property's rent-controlled, and under local law someone benefitting from rent stabilisation needs to actually live for the majority of the time in the property. Her relationship with her landlords appears to have already been fractious, with a claim of unpaid rent back in 2009. How's it looking, according to the New York Times her New York neighbours claim to have never met her.

Next, Burt Reynolds:

The 75-year-old actor is being taken to court after claims he has failed to make a payment on his waterfront mansion for almost a year.Lawyers for Merrill Lynch have asked a judge to sell the £1.4million house, set in 4.5 acres, so they can recover the £700,000 the bank says it is owed.

The property has a beach, a pool, even - bizarrely - it's own hairdressers. It's actually a rather sad story, of prescription pain killers, heart problems and a failing career.

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Taking advantage of housing benefit rules introduced by the last Labour Government, jobless Saeed Khaliif, 49, his wife Sayida and their children have been able to set up home in fashionable West Hampstead, an area beyond the reach of many well heeled house-hunters in the capital.

Looks like the Telegraph beat the Mail to this one. The family - Somalian asylum seekers - were previously living in a semi in Coventry, before moving to the £2m six-bedroom detached house in Hampstead. Camden Council won't comment.

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Asking prices in London have dropped 3.4% July-to-August. Nationally, the figure was 2.1%. Accompanying commentary blamed global economic uncertainty; with continuing Euro-debt problems making further falls likely. Year-on-year, national asking prices were down 0.3%, in the red for the first time since September 2009. In London, they're still in the black, up 3.2%.

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According to the Express:

City traders are already speculating that Bank policy makers will halve the current 0.5 per cent rate within the next six months in a bid to kick-start the economy, and experts say this could benefit all homeowners.

The Express appears to be a loan voice; nor is it clear (to me) what they mean when they say "movements on the financial markets show that the City is confident there is a 30 per cent chance that the Bank rate cut will come before February". They best they seem able to do in terms of attributable quotes is from a MoneySupermarket.com. A Deutsche Bank economist won't go much further than "technically possible". Strange piece.

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Or... "Gazump". Buy it now and be ready for the next bull market. If you're interested, ask for Tony on 07836 216463.

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The Acadametrics/LSL Property Services index (a special sauce index combining Land Registry data with data extracted from other indices to forecast what a complete Land Registry England and Wales index would look like... except sooner) shows house prices down 0.1% in June, 2.6% on the year, leaving them at their lowest level in 19 months. An accompanying commentary blames restricted lending and the effect of inflation on wages, and doesn't foresee a more confident market any time soon. Interestingly, take London out of the equation, and house prices are down 0.2% on the month, 3.3% on the year. Go here for the relevant pages.

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Some recent praise for the Rat and Mouse...

Big thanks to Channel 4's 4homes for including us in their "Favourite Househunting Blogs":

And to Quickmovenow.com, for giving us top spot in their "Top 20 Property Blogs on the Web". (Check out an interesting list, including some great US sites.)

Thanks, too, to Giles Milner, who became our 1,000th Twitter follower. Go and encourage Giles to tweet here. Follow the Rat here.

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Nothing to do with a riot... Zoopla's newly updated heat maps are available, illustrating average property price hotspots. Informative and addictive.

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“Are the riots affecting where you live?” Rightmove asked its 13,600 followers as buildings burned, shops were looted and families feared for the safety of their children. “What do you think will happen to house prices in those areas?”

According to City AM, Rightmove issued a swift apology in the face of a barrage of contemptuous responses, only to see its share price rise in the face of falling markets.

Follow Rightmove on Twitter here. Follow the Rat and Mouse here.

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Remember that it costs nothing to put your house on the market so an ambitious asking price costs you nothing - directly. There are over 850,000 today and last month, according to HMRC just 73,000 sold across the UK. Sellers by nature are optimistic - they only have a 6% chance of finding a buyer in the first month and at present only a 30% chance of selling if they leave their house on the market for a year!

It’s the same with indices from lenders like Halifax & Nationwide. Their monthly report is based on the mortgage advances they have made. The biggest is the Halifax and they have a 20% market share. With around 40% of the few sales that are happening at present ‘cash’ deals (ie. with no mortgage involved) the mighty Halifax survey is sometimes based on fewer than 7,000 sales across the whole country!

And excellent piece by market commentator Henry Pryor looks at some of the short-comings of the popular indices, and suggests a cleverer way of working out what a house might be "worth".

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According to the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors UK homeowners are £250bn poorer in property equity since the credit crunch hit. The general message from RICS' latest tortured and confusing survey seems to be that prices are still falling... gently. Low interest rates, however, and fewer redundancies are saving homeowners from the kind of negative equity-fueled misery seen in previous property slumps.

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The epicentre of the violence in Hackney has been around my house. Police in barricades have battled rioters outside the church 50m down my road in sporadic melees. Every local shop for miles has been shuttered. Cars and recycling bins have been set on fire. Helicopters constantly hover above, filming and surveying the unfolding damage. This is not what estate agents were referring to when they described local streets as “cosmopolitan”.

It's a short but interesting piece by the FT's Tony Tassell, and worries about the element of rioting as "spectator sport" he witnessed in Hackney, the cheering (of the rioters) as they attacked the police. Has Hackney, he asks, really changed?

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It's a blue plaque property -  former home to Coleridge and JB Priestley - and Kate Moss's plans for a satellite dish, security cameras, basement kitchen and gym/steam room aren't delighting her neighbours.

The details plans are online here.

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If you're thinking of travelling in or out of the Hackney area, keep an eye on this for the latest.

Hope you enjoyed the last fortnight's interview series. I'm "almost" back in the office, now, and so it's effectively business-as-usual once again for a nicely tanned Rat and Mouse.

Our first morning story...

Seven out of 11 UK regions have been dubbed "first-time buyer black spots" by property website Rightmove, which found that the number of people in the market for a first home has fallen nearly 10pc since July 2009.

Yes, the same post-credit crunch July 2009 that was so awful for first-time buyers. The average proportion of first-time buyers in the market only just past 20% in the second quarter of this year, that's around a half the figure deemed necessary for a functional market. Amazingly, though, London's the exception, with a figure of 41.2%. Do wealthy foreign buyers end up being included in the ftb figures?

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For the final interview in this summer series… welcome Savvas Verdis, founder of innovative Rankdesk, a new tech launch which rates homes for their investment potential. We were delighted that Savvas, with so much going on this week, found the time to chat.

Savvas, before we talk about Rankdesk, I was wondering if you could say something about your own and your partners’ backgrounds. It looks like you’ve enough letters after your names to write a novel.

Well, quite a few of us started in the architecture trade and hence why we take the quality aspect of residential properties so seriously in our ratings. Priya, who is heading our research, has a background in real estate investment analysis and has tried to bring the in-depth nature of commercial property data into the residential sector. I came to Rankdesk following 10 years in a family-run property investment firm. I also teach urban planning and urban economic development at the London School of Economics on a part-time basis.

Rankdesk is pioneering the property ratings industry. Our aim is to develop a standard measure, which will help buyers make more informed decisions when purchasing a property in cities such as London, New York, Hong Kong & Sydney. If we succeed, our ratings system should be as easy to understand and trusted as the star-ratings used to classify hotels worldwide. It's very early days but we are progressing well.

It took us a year to develop our initial algorithm. We launched our Beta test site in December 2010 and have just launched our full product line-up, after great feedback from the industry and consumers.

Click here to read on.

We continue our series of summer interviews with this chat with John Tighe, the man behind interesting, unorthodox online estate agency House Hop. Read on for John's take on launching an agency business while transactions are low, outstanding customer service and a very nice estate agent joke.

John, I was wondering if you could say something about your background? Is it in property, sales, technology? And how/when did you start work on HouseHop?

Actually, my background is in law. Before founding House Hop I worked in the City as a corporate lawyer. Then, in mid-2008, I lost my job. The outlook (and hence job prospects) in the City went from bad to worse during the course of 2008 with the UK officially going into recession and September seeing the collapse of Lehmans, the AIG bailout, and the Lloyds takeover of HBOS.

By December I was pretty frustrated to say the least. I remember thinking to myself “I can’t do another six months like this” – especially since there was no obvious end to the country’s economic problems.

That’s when I decided to launch House Hop. I’d always wanted to start a business and I figured I really had nothing to lose! Plus, it was a way of taking back some control over my life.

As one of Lord Sugar’s obnoxious pals might say… what’s the elevator pitch? What makes HouseHop unique when there are other online estate agencies around?

Read the rest of the interview by clicking here.