A "knight" who bought a title online while still a student has been kicked to the curb by Camden Council, after they'd discovered he owned homes in Bromley, Devon and Buckinghamshire, while claiming to be homeless and living - courtesy of the council - in a flat in Primrose Hill. Sir Barry apparently made the mistake of driving Jaguars in silver and gold.
The house was valued at £2m, but it was about to sold for just over £1m when the "vendor" tried to withdraw the money using a fake driving license. Turns out the "vendor" was - in fact - the "tenant"... the real owner was ex-Olympic yachtsman Vernon Stratton. Not only that... sounds as if he's done it before.
Details, in fact, of "10 hectares of new parklands, wetlands, and open space featuring more than 2,000 new trees and over 100,000 wetland and wild flower plants". For a full rundown of parks, wetlands, play areas and planting, go here.
US home sales data for July shows a 27% annual fall, far more than was expected, leaving sales at their slowest since 1995. The effect on Wall Street was immediate, and UK markets followed. The Footsie closed 78.89 down. More here.
First, it was the Policy Exchange thinktank, with concerns that the Bank of England would be looking to raise interest rates rapidly to keep post-quantatitive easing inflation in check. The PE forecast was for 2.5% base rates by next year, reaching 8% in 2012. Now, Moneyfacts has applied current profit margins, added a little to offset the greater risks the banks would be taking, to calculate what that could mean to the borrower, and painted a picture of 14% mortgages. Do we believe this is credible? Not really. The Bank of England's job - officially - is to respond to inflation, but we all know that it does so with one eye on the property market. And would the lenders really want to devalue their collective assets by cracking the market? We don't think so. Do you? More here and here.
An extraordinary piece in the Guardian claims increasing numbers of low-paid London workers are spending their week nights in satellite London campsites. The suggestions isn't one of shanty towns and misery... but nicely appointed camper vans, well organised sites, public transport into the city, and happy campers. Meet Bob, who works in Hackney, lives on the Lee Valley camp site, but owns homes in east London, Suffolk and France.
In the Telegraph, the thorny and endlessly entertaining issue of house prices. And we're right to care, without feeling guilty. I know, I know... as a society, lower house prices would be to our benefit, and it's not fair that there's a generation priced off the property ladder and forced to dance to the tune of the nation's landlords. But remember the honest, decent families, vulnerable at the moment to job losses, who have bought a property in the last few years, and whose lives could be ruined (no exaggeration, check this out) by falling house prices coinciding with mortgage arrears. There's little pleasure to be gained from their suffering. So - as I said - concern about falling house prices isn't necessarily something to be ashamed of. And yet... how do you square a sentence like this:
It's a shocking piece. The cliché would be to say that it puts the former feature in perspective, but that's all it would be... a cliché. It doesn't... it lives alongside in a bleak commentary on our complex, sophisticated, failing front line between economics and society.
He's Charles Overend, and together with his brother Jonathan and solicitors' clerk Carrol Thompson, he's been found guilty of a massive £4.6m mortgage fraud. He'd secure properties at discount, apply for buy-to-let mortgages at the asking price, while Thomspon would assist in the fraudulent applications. The former police financial adviser was sentenced, today, to five and a half years. Jonathan got one year. Thompson got a suspended sentence and 200 hour of unpaid labour.
I'm back... great holiday, thanks, and I really hope you found something to interest you in the interview series I published while I was away. Nor is there any reason to save interviews for holidays, so if there's somebody in particular you'd be interested in seeing featured in a Q&A, do email me and I'll see what I can do.
Back to the business in hand, and it seems as if mortgage fraud is both the old black and the new black for 2010. KPMG Forensic's Fraud Barometer shows £96m of mortgage fraud, so far, in 2010, compared to a total of £77m in the whole of 2009. Okay... lending was at a low in 2009, so there wasn't much of an opportunity, and one single case, worth £50m, is part of the 2010 figure, but before you go dismissing the data, how about the fact that there've been 166 cases of serious mortgage fraud in the first half of 2010, the highest six-month figure in the Barometer's 22-year history. And go here to read a spokesperson for KPMG explain why he thinks the only way is up.
MoneyMarketing has gathered a number of mortgage industry names who are concerned by the number of foreign cash buyers jumping on exchange-rate discounts and pricing Londoners out of homes. A spokesperson for Barclays:
A Sutton couple is in a war with Benson for Beds over a series of four mattresses that have apparently "collapsed" in a space of less than three years. Go here to read about how 18-stone ian and his cuddly wife Susan can't understand why the mattresses won't last longer.
Starting with... what it actually is. A new survey by Reallymoving.com really suggests Brits are really ignorant about the realities of the property exchange. Thirty-seven per cent didn't know what "conveyancing" meant; 54% thought conveyancers organised the survey; 16% thought the conveyancer negotiated the price of the property on their behalf. Amazingly, that 37% who had no idea what conveyancing was only dropped to 23% when the poll was narrowed to include homeowners who've been through the process themselves. Reallymoving have published a guide in response... here.
What does 40% translate to? More than half a million borrowers, apparently; and Mark Oracle (link above) has a good old laugh at the reason why. Apparently, the Government "pressured banks to sign up borrowers without insisting first on proof of their income"; and when the banks finally got around to the necessary diligence, they found they were dealing with sub, sub, sub-prime loans, in which borrowers weren't barely missing payments... they simply didn't have any money. The danger now, according MO, is a giant wave of foreclosures in the second half of 2010.
Word is that Russell Brand's shifted his Hampstead Village home. No details as to the deal, yet. Meanwhile, Britney Spears' face looks like being a permanent feature in the giant wealth wet dream that is One Hyde Park. She's apparently bought an apartment there so she can reach out to her fans. For (an estimated) £20m she might have reached out and touched them more effectively by buying each of them a house. More here.
A report commissioned under Labour but prudently swept under the carpet predicts worst-case repossession rates of up to 175,000 a year. Grant Shapps, releasing the report (no doubt panicked by the prospect of public sector job cuts pushing repo-rates under the Coalition toward that worst-case scenario) in an attempt to take take some of the taint off the current administration and hand it back to the opposition, assures us that they'll do everything they can to keep interest rates as low as possible for as long as possible. More here.
So Lord Davenport's swimming pool - in his five-storey Portland Place mansion - gets filled with cocktails for guests to row across... in a Courvoisier-sponsored giant punchbowl party... and everyone gets excited. Call that hedonism? Hah, you're all invited to the next Rat and Mouse party, where the bath's filled with Thunderbird.
Apart from, of course, the violence in South Africa, yesterday's news was all about the Somalian asylum seekers daring to live in Notting Hill, in an £8,000 a month five-bedroom property near Stella McCartney. I'm naturally suspicious of this kind of a story - particularly when it's set against the background of tough economic times (which naturally breed resentment, jealousy) - but the details appear extraordinary. According to this, the family had been living in Kensal Rise, but didn't like the neighbourhood, so took advantage of housing rules that allowed them to go to the authorities with details of an available and more "suitable" property. Very sensibly, they chose a £2m property in Notting Hill. The landlord? Apparently a friend of a friend. So what will happen when the Government's £400 a week cap is introduced next financial year? Will they have to move again?
Our publisher looks at mortgages, and how the loans market will once again be centre stage if there is indeed a double-dip, in his guest column for Citywire.
A survey by the the FSA's new Consumer Financial Education Body suggests that three-quarters of borrowers have no idea what an increase of 1% in interest rates would mean to their monthly mortgage repayments. Fifteen per cent didn't know what type of mortgage they had (and so wouldn't know whether they'd be affected); a further 15% didn't know when their mortgage term was due to end. And that, despite more than half believing rates would rise in the next nine months. More here.
And the results... Somalians, British tax payers, a housing charity, a £1m London townhouse... read like a sweaty Daily Mail nightmare.
The family had just arrived in London from Somalia. It didn't take long for them to decide they'd seen enough. They didn't speak much English but they made it clear they weren't happy with the bedrooms on the top floor - apparently they didn't like the sloping eaves... Anyway, this family had brought with them a 'slim fit' dishwasher. But the space we'd left was for a standard-sized unit. Believe it or not, they wanted us to come back, take the kitchen out and refit it with units that matched their dishwasher.
There's plenty more where that came from. Go here for a great read.
We have a building for sale in probably Berlin's number one property hot spot, where rents are very much on the rise. The last time we had an apartment in the same street, 40 people turned up to the viewing. But the building has a brothel and strip club as the two commercial tenants. They've been in the building for 15 years and are quite discreet. The current net yield of the building is over 9%. It's on the market for €1m but we feel the owner will take €950,000-ish. The net rent is just under €90,000 pa. The brothel's paying at pre agreed historic rent levels (when they moved in the area was not so great… now, it's one of the hottest areas to live in Berlin with huge demand for apartments, as it's very close to the canal and parks, and has some really unique and funky bars).
The brothel and strip club have only three years left on their lease and when they move out it may be possible to get the net yield up to around 13%. We just rented a bar across from the brothel for about 40% more than the brothel currently pays, and apartments in the same building for 30% more than apartments in the brothel building, so great potential for May 2013 when the brothel lease ends. The property's in good condition, has balconies and the loft has already been converted into penthouses. It looks like a normal Berlin building, there are no red lights in the brothel or strip club, they just look like a late-night cafe and bar (typical for Berlin).
There are many well know brothels in Berlin, many in very residential areas. It's completely legal and as a landlord it's a good business to have as a commercial tenant as they have excellent cash-flow and no matter how the economy is doing it remains busy (although in the recession two well know Berlin brothels decided to make customers some interesting offers: one "Green madam" gave anyone who turned up on a push bike a discount, the other offered a monthly membership for what is known in Germany as a "flat rate" of around €70 per month for unlimited visits… perhaps she was hoping the punters would follow the gym membership pattern… signing up in January for the year, but rarely using the facilities come August.
So, the question is… do we advise any potential new owner to allow the brothel and strip club to stay in the property by granting them a lease at the new much higher current open market rent (or the rent in May 2013, which could be much higher) or do we advise them to find new commercial tenants? We'd be interested in people's opinions, but please note brothels are completely legitimate businesses in Germany, even in the commercial parts of residential buildings...
Feel free to comment. View the building, and dig that funky music, here.
Guest post courtesy of Berlin investment property search agents, Nilreb.
Okay... 21... that's how many minutes it takes, according to research by ING Direct, for the average UK housebuyer to spend viewing a property before making an offer. It's a fourteenth of the time they'd spend choosing a TV, and around tenth of the time spent choosing a coffee table. Pressure from competition - whether real or fabricated by an agent or vendor - appears to be a significant reason for the rush. More here.
If you know a mortgage broker, now might be a good time to give him/her a call, perhaps pop round with a cake or something. Two-thirds of brokers, according to research by Legal & General, don't expect business to improve from its current sorry state as we move into the traditionally busy summer months. More here.
According to research by Zoopla... money. The average value of a property on a "Hill" is £341,446, compared to £184,546 for a "View". Full rundown below:
Most expensive:
Hill £341,446
Lane £328,378
Mews £294,869
Park £283,069
Green £269,861
Least expensive:
Street £155,515
Terrace £156,387
Crescent £176,942
Court £178,488
View £184,546
No mention, surprisingly, of "Villas" in that bottom list.
The big news was how small the news about the Capital Gains Tax turned out to be. Months of panic and miles of newspaper column inches later, the speculation ended and CGT is still lower than it was at the beginning of the previous parliament. And since it comes into effect immediately, there's no time for speculation about a hurried mass sell-off. The measures laid out in the budget are also likely to hit growth, which inherently put pressure on the Bank of England to keep interest rates low for as long as possible... which is good for borrowers. Higher VAT is likely to combine with the Tories crazy new planning laws and could hit the construction industry in an unpleasant way. (Although expect a busy period of renovations between now and January, when the rise comes into effect.) Housing benefit curbs and public sector unemployment are the most worrying aspects of the budget for the housing situation. Charities and pressure groups are already worrying about an associated rise in homelessness, and a rise in unemployment-associated repos will knock prices, too (although only investors will be able to afford to take advantage).
According to a YouGov survey for the Chartered Institute of Housing, three in five parents with kids living at home fear their children will have to move out of the community when they leave home, due to a shortage of homes or affordable homes. The survey included homeowners, private tenants and tenants in social housing. The CIH urges the Government to back the building of more houses. Good luck with that. Our publisher wrote here about the potential for problems under proposed new planning laws that replace targets with local decision-making. More here.
In the City meeting a broker with one of the biggest mortgage companies in the UK. "How's things?" I ask. "Great," he says. "We've got some super new lenders, new products for buy-to-lets, lots more flexible deals on the table and rates that are pretty damned good." "What about this FSA abolition and the threatened 75% cap on loan-to-values? Isn't that going to mess things up?" "Nah, we're really not bothered," he says. "Won't affect anything, there are ways round." "So," I say, "does that mean first-time buyers and Joe Public can at last go down the High Street with much more chance of getting a mortgage and at a decent rate?" "God, no," he splutters. "I'm talking private banks. I'm talking about lending to people who already have money… people who don't need mortgages.
Tracy Kellett runs leading buying agents BDI Homefinders. Follow her on Twitter, here.
They're the empty-nesters... the middle-aged couples who perhaps moved out of London to bring up the kids, but now find themselves once again footloose and fancy-free. According to Cluttons estate agents, they're returning, buying up London property while they can and enjoying all the cultural delights the city has to offer while their kids stack up the debt. More here.
Ever wondered who would be the UK's preferred celebrity house-sitter? Me, neither. But thanks to a survey of moneysupermarket.com users, that data is available:
Jeremy Clarkson (28%)
Christine Bleakley (23.9%)
Sarah Beeny (23.8%)
Cheryl Cole (14.2%)
Lord Alan Sugar (6.3%)
Wayne Rooney (3.7%)
The results are surprising. Remember, these are people entrusted to look after a gaff while the occupants are away, so catching Bleakley in the shower isn't a possibility. And what possible value will the presence of Clarkson add? To anything? The lovely Sarah Beeny? I suppose you could always leave a note asking her to do a bit of remodelling if she's time.
to inform utilities, friends, neighbours, family members. According to the research, even co-habitants have failed to be informed (although this sounds deliberate to me).
to dismantle bulky furniture (never heard of this... I've always assumed it will be carried into and out of the lorry).
to disconnect white goods if you're taking them with you. Most removal firms aren't qualified to disconnect gas cookers, for instance. (Although, if you're the kind of person who takes the cooker with you, you've probably already thought of this).
to pack. What? Yup, removal firms apparently regularly turn up to find movers just starting to think about packing the contents of the shed or garage or basement.
Things appear to be heating up in court, where the Candies are chasing Qatari Diar for compensation after their deal to redevelop Chelsea Barracks fell apart. Long time Rat readers will remember an explosion of anger on the part of investors and starchitects, when it was revealed traditionalist Prince Charles had had a hand in the business... phoning his pal the Emir of Qatar (cousin to the chairman of QD) to express his disapproval of the plans. The latest is an accusation that emails were deliberately deleted, in an attempt to separate the prince from the decision.
New figures by the Council of Mortgage Lenders suggest first-time buyers are making up the lowest proportion of borrowers since September 2007. In April 2010, they accounted for just 35% of all new loans, down from 39% in March. The typical first-time buyer borrowed 75% of the value of their home.
You know there's something wrong with an economy when a 15th month of record low interest rates raises no eyebrows. Base rates - half a percent - and unlikely to move in the near future.
That's according to a new report by the Office of National Statistics. Average salaries in London are £32,240, the highest in the UK, and Londoners enjoy better life expectancy, too. Interestingly, though, London also has the greatest disparity in income, with the highest 10% earning more than £42, 640, the lowest earning £23, 920. And remember, almost everything (not just property) costs more in London, which puts greater pressure on the London wage.
After "garden-grabbing" by developers proved unpopular in the leafier constituencies, the new government has announced a re-classification of gardens from "brownfield" (which classed them alongside abandoned industrial sites and so made them tempting targets for developers and hard for planners to protect). The Tories argue that garden-grabbing has been stripping towns of valuable green space. John Prescott (and if you heard him squabbling with Zac Goldsmith this morning in the Today programme... who'd have thought they wouldn't get on?) argues that if you've got a garden big enough to build a block of flats in, then you're probably not living in an area that's short on green space. More here.
In a speech to the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, Housing Minister Grant Shapps stages his own personal Ashes to Ashes, ignores the public mood and pretends the Yamaha DX7 is still current and nothing went wrong with the property market:
Apparently, he's inviting the banks and building societies around to his place, to explain to him why they're not too keen on sub-prime. Mmm, where to start?
Our publisher looks at how the Capital Gains Tax debate is throwing up some basic questions about the role of our homes in financial planning, in his guest column for Citywire.
It started with Richmond Borough Council and it's spreading, hyper-aggressive residents' permit pricing. What's this got to do with houses? Imagine how much value a little off-road space, just enough to squeeze four wheels onto, will add to your home. Grass? What grass?
The idea is... go here and click the map to read reviews for your location. Except, there doesn't seem much motivation to go in and negatively review an area, so the database has been largely filled up by local fanboys. Reviews are up to five stars, I can't find any place with less than two (but then Weston-Super-Mare - possibly the worst place on earth - doesn't appear to be there).
71% rated home ownership an eight or above in importance (out of ten)
46% rated marriage as important
44% gave having children the same rating
27% considered an active social life an eight or more
Between the ages of 18 and 24, that 71% rises to 81%
The Rat and Mouse was founded in order to comment on the UK obsession with home ownership, so it takes a lot to shock us. Given recent events - the debt crisis, with property at its centre - we weren't expecting these kinds of results in 2010.
Espresso with a buy-to-let friend. He's near retirement and has a couple of small flats which were bought as a mini-pension fund. "What do you think of the CGT issue?" I ask.
"It's been a worry," he tells me, "but I've been to see my accountant and talked to other landlords. I'm putting the bills at the flat in my name, I've back-dated the council tax and I'm going to flog it as soon as I can as my main residence."
"The thing is", he says, "I wouldn't have minded paying 18%, but who the hell knows what it might be in the future. So, I'll sell now and pay nowt." Where there's a will there's a flipping way.
Tracy Kellett runs leading buying agents BDI Homefinders. Follow her on Twitter, here.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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..."
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.
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:
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.
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...
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.
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.
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.
There's an interesting Investors Chronicle piece blaming the swift residential property recovery for peeing on the recovery fund picnic. According to research in the magazine, attempts to raise £770m to pick up undervalued bricks-and-mortar have failed drastically, raising just 2% of that figure, with two funds biting the dust completely and othesr pushing out closing dates. More here.
With the madness of yesterday's booming Nationwide index - a house price bubble during a slump and a lending famine - still echoing in our ears, the Times this morning declares off-plan purchasing back.
And, of course, there are plenty of other examples cited in the piece. Remarkable courage, in the Rat and Mouse's view, especially as a second economic contagion, starting in the Eurozone, looks likely. Perhaps the hope is that all those wealthy Europeans, desperate to get their money into something more stable, will join the Greeks and start ploughing it into UK property... where there's little room and tough planning regulations.
It was Michael Hurlston of the Consumer Credit Counselling Service, pointing out that misinformed or ill-prepared borrowers buying first homes are the most likely to get into debt problems. He suggested attaching health warnings to home loans, and making borrowers pass an exam first. More here.
It's the combination of higher rates of Stamp Duty and the LibDem "mansion tax" (an 1% annual tax on properties valued at £2m or over) that's being called a roof tax and would apparently cost London homeowners and buyers as much as £3.5bn. Seventy-eight per cent of mansion tax income would be sourced from the capital.
Our client needs a London flat fast , 2 beds, £700k. He's got cash in the bank and wants to do a deal - no messing. What he wants is a challenge but we find one. He loves it. We call the agent, a few questions to ask and our client wants to bring his fiancee for the final okay. No time to lose, we need to rush the fiancee in before it goes. We call the agent to arrange. "He'll call you back," was the response three times... he doesn't. Finally we get him and point out we have called him four times, "I've been busy," he says.I ask important questions about the flat. "Dunno," he says. The fiancee can only make it after work - 6.30pm. Very reluctantly he agrees to the appointment, followed by... "Well, she'd better be on time, I won't hang around." Charming. "But we'll probably have an offer in the morning," I protest. "Fab client, cash and really keen to do a fast deal." "Whatever," he says, "Got loads of those."
Tracy Kellett runs leading buying agents BDI Homefinders. Follow her on Twitter, here.
According to the Mail, it's tape measuring correctness gone mad. Her granny annexe, built onto his own country pad by her wealthy son, exceeded its plans by a metre wide and four metres long. So it had to come down. After a long battle, the council (amazingly, in my opinion) turned up early in the morning with diggers, smashing through his electric security gate, ripping the furniture from the annexe and raising it to the ground. In an attempt to stop the destruction, the old woman apparently jumped onto one of the diggers. I know... rules are supposed to be rules, but it's a massive PR fail. Also, seeing what does occasionally go threw on the nod, when a connected individual "knows the right person", it's hard to avoid wondering what kind of personal beef had perhaps developed between her son and a local official. Pure speculation... but it's how it happens.
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House-building... a good thing. House-building, by Tesco, conveniently around its stores, the home purchases funded by Tesco mortgages (it's easy to imagine favourable mortgage terms on Tesco properties)... sinister. It reminds me of the perspective you get of some medium-sized American towns as you fly above them, really just large consumer machines in which people live, work and mall-spend to feed the corporations. McLives. Initial plans appear to centre around four "mini-villages" in the south east.
Figures from the tax man show sales rising by 13,000 or 22% in March. But it will take a bigger bounce than that before it's possible to call this anything other than a depressed market. In March 2007, sales were more than double current figures.
And they 're not great reading. According to a GfK Financial Research Survey February's figures are only marginally above February 2009's record breaking lows... still under 350,000, a low that, previously, hadn't been seen for 20 years, and 100,000 less than was seen during the lows of the early 1990s recession.
I've a client in from the Middle East and he's itching to spend his £2m on a three bedroom flat in time for summer in London. I have found two flats to show him. That's right, just two flats... better than nothing but still embarrassing. We're viewing the first flat and the client's very keen. The doorbell goes, and six Japanese are at the door, waiting to view. We are chased away, but not before the agent tells us that only the full asking price will do. We linger. The Japanese party leaves as another agent arrives with two Middle Eastern gentlemen. We continue to linger. More agents, more buyers, swan past... countries of origin undetermined, but they're not Brits. I get a call, our second viewing has gone under offer. The agent is in depressed mood. "It's all overseas buyers pushing up prices. Without them the market would be stuffed. At this rate, all us Brits will be living in Deptford.' But on the bright side, I have had a good week. I've gained three new clients... Saudi, Dutch and Libyan.
Tracy Kellett runs leading buying agents BDI Homefinders. Follow her on Twitter, here.
What with all the election excitement, we're becoming a little blasé about the record low 0.5% interest rate, which the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee left unchanged today. It's stayed at 0.5% since March 2009. Some people will feel a draught when - finally - it's on the move again.
Residents of Wells in Somerset sound less than pleased at news that travelers are to receive interest-free loans of up to £50,000 from the local council to buy land on which to park their caravans. One resident, quoted in the Daily Express:
Mendip Council claims it's a way of working with the travelers, and the Rat and Mouse would agree: it is a way of working with the travelers. And if anybody would like to offer the Rat and Mouse a £50,000 interest-free loan, that would be a way of working with the Rat and Mouse.
A closer inspection, however, of the arrangement makes it look slightly different... more like a limited rental period. Eventually the travelers part-own the land from a trust shared with the council. They can stay on the land indefinitely, but presumably, can't sell it for a profit.
An interesting piece in MoneyWeek about how inflation will affect borrowers, and the much-touted view that inflation can simply inflate away debts. Fine if you've a long-term fixed rate, but...
FindaProperty takes a closer look at London's broom cupboard apartments... the tiny spaces selling for substantial sums of money, usually because of their central or sought-after locations. Who's buying them? According to specialist agent:
Here's a chance to meet fellow industry professionals, enjoy a long night of poker in pleasant surroundings, possibly win some money, and raise money for a charity of your choice. Sounds good to me. The evening is hosted by overseas property news website GlobalEdge, it's on Thursday May 20, and you can sign up here.
According to the tax man - who keeps a close eye on this kind of thing - completed sales rose by 14% to 58,000 last month. Is that a lot? Well, the figure was 43,000 in February 2009. But, then again, it was 103,000 in December, which illustrates just how seasonal this business is.
I cheerfully hit the phones yesterday with £10m of someone else's money. I wasn't fussy, would look at short leases & structural problems. No survey, exchange and complete in 48 hours. Before launching into my wheelers & dealers book, I called the agents.
Three seconds into my spiel... "Let me stop you there, I've got 20 people like you and nothing to give them." "The market's really active with investor clients, could sell what you want ten times over... if I had it." "Loads of people are trying to park their cash... the £3m-£4m level is over-run with buyers." Finally, from a very posh Rupert... "I wouldn't bother talking to agents if I were you." Nobody was impressed with my roll of cash, then the phone rings. Derek the Limo driver. "Got a bloke in the back who wants to off-load his place in Holland Park, near Simon Cowell's pad. He wants a fast deal." That'll teach me, should have rung him first – at this level of the property market, it's always the Dereks who've got the X Factor.
Tracy Kellett runs leading buying agents BDI Homefinders. Follow her on Twitter, here.
The leak was more-or-less accurate, and Stamp Duty's scrapped for homes worth £250,000 or less for first-time buyers. However, transactions of £1m or more will be taxed at a higher rate of 5%, a pretty heavy duty which I suspect will be received with some anger by many in the industry.
Disapproval with the idea of the cut at £250,000 had received a certain amount of disapproval even before it was announced. This, from our friend Henry Pryor, this morning:
Firstly, the number of first time buyers (according to a written answer to a question from the Opposition last November quoting the Council of Mortgage Lenders2) is at an historic low having fallen by 67% in the past decade. Nearly 600,000 1st time buyers bought in 1999 which fell to... less than 194,000 in 2008. Next, with interest rates at record lows, it is irresponsible to encourage property 'virgins' to invest in property when rates can only rise from here removing the tiny saving that they make on the 'bribe' they took to buy in the first place? If a 1% saving is enough to convince you to buy a property today then you haven't done your own budget. Finally, whilst many people including the NAEA and RICS have encouraged the Government to look again at changing the 'slab' like system of the current Stamp Duty system - perhaps to a progressive tax, the housing market has bigger challenges. With buyers unable to find the 25% deposits that most of the few remaining mortgage products demand, houses still remain unaffordable to most of those who would like to be described as a 1st time buyer.
I'll bring you a round-up of the most interesting responses in a linkage post, later in the day.
Looks like a Stamp Duty scrap on transactions up to £250,000 is being widely reported as a done deal. Interestingly, this was a Tory proposal, dating back to 2007.
Time Out's carrying the best feature I've read in a very long time on the history and variety of London's social housing, from Shoreditch's Arts and Crafts-influenced Boundary Estate to Bow's (Dizzee Rascal's) Crossways. It's a fascinating piece, and highlights the courage and ambition of planners past.
It's the Government's list of towns with the highest proportion of homeowners at risk of repossession, and Barking and Dagenham's right there at the top. The only other London location on the list of 22 is Newham, at 11. You can see the list here.
I always enjoy it when the IC turns its attention to property, and today's column about the factors driving London's illogical market is no disappointment.
Foreign buyers, who account for 80 per cent of transactions in some areas of the capital, have turned London into a market driven by exchange rates rather than mortgage interest rates. Their dominance has mutated the property market in a way not seen anywhere else in the UK, and many question the sustainability of the London house price boom as a result.
The results of an interesting study, here, suggesting a significant number of young people are putting off starting a family because of house prices.
Four out of ten (41%) young adults will delay starting a family until they can afford to buy a new home... one in four (26%) people aged between 18 and 30 said they would not get married before having their own place to move into.
It's a YouGov survey, commissioned by the National Housing Federation. Interestingly, while the people surveyed were disillusioned with their own ability to afford a property in the short term, they weren't disillusioned with the idea of property as an investment. Forty-two per cent believed property was still the best long term investment, way above cash savings (23%) and shares/pensions (7%).
According to the Times, the Inland Revenue have borrowed the Land Registry books and are trawling through names looking for owners of second homes and buy-to-let properties who may have forgotten to pay Capital Gains on transactions. They're also checking up on people who are buying and selling frequently enough to be involved in property flipping as a trade, and so will be liable to income tax. According to an accountant quoted in the piece, this is a new tactic. More here.
It's very possible they're still lost, heading west into Wales, with no sign of Hampshire yet. If you see them, point them south.
Despite geographical confusion, this is an interesting piece, on the well-trodden path out of London - by the City's wealthy families - into leafy commuter-land, and the "rivers of wealth" heading from south and west London all the way to the Isle of Wight.
There's an interesting FT article here about a growing disagreement between brokers and Nationwide, regarding the lender's new, more complex method of calculating what it's willing to lend on a mortgage. Replacing the old income multiplier system is a complex equation involving net disposable income, cost-of-living, loan-to-value and the cut of a borrower's jib. Nationwide claims it will become more generous, lending up to 4.5 times income. But not according to the brokers. Ray Boulger of John Charcol claims to already have seen a reduction in offers in most cases.
Three hundred pounds a month is the difference, according to YouGov research, between paying the mortgage and not paying the mortgage for 26% of homeowners in the 35 to 44 age group. More here.
The stats, courtesy of Acadametrics, show transactions in snowy, Stamp Duty-filled January at just 36,000, 52% down on December, and back in what estate agents might think of as the disaster zone, the third lowest figure since 1995. More here.
Thanks to the kind reader who sent me this. After no less than 38 bids, this Peak District Cold War bunker - stunning views, land, metal hatch, chemical toilet, monitoring room and siren box - is currently at £19,500. It's not often you see a nuclear blast on a set of particulars.
This is the story that put many of us off our breakfasts this morning:
And it turns out to have been a hoax. Jim Rogers has denied ever suggesting that the pound is about to go into an irrevocable meltdown, and described the whole affair as "outrageous". However, Citywire spoke to Rogers' longtime friend, Vince Stanzione, who says the quotes are legitimate. The latest - it seems - is here, where it appears Stanzione himself is responsible for the leaked quotes. Apparently, there was a "mix-up" and quotes attributable to Stanzione were attributed to Rogers. If I was Stanzione I would be a little upset that this is enough for a collective sigh of relief. Do his opinions not count, or something?
Once upon a time, the only people who used buying agents were celebrities looking for £5m-plus houses... Now, though, even we little people are paying as much as £3,000 upfront for someone to sniff out and secure us the house of our dreams. At which point we have to cough up another 2.5 per cent of the agreed purchase price (£50,000 on a £2m house).
If Christopher Middleton's idea of "we little people" involves buyers of £2m houses, then it looks like I used to write for the wrong broadsheet.
According to this, the London-only Metro bank, currently seeking FSA approval, has been laying claim to properties in readiness for an April launch. The new high street bank will open with branches in Earl's Court and Holborn, but already has properties in Borehamwood and Fulham Broadway. Interesting.
... asks the Telegraph's finance editor, Ian Cowie, in a piece one would assume was aimed at putting the newspaper's post baby-boom in a sanctimonious rage, were it not appearing on the paper's blog. Pull your neck in, FSA, he says. To the banks: lend up to 100%. To the borrowers: borrow... to 100% of the value of your home and five-times your salary. Oddly, though, he also expects house prices to start falling again when interest rates begin to rise after the election. Presumably, he has a view on employment, too. If he's actually saying, trust the borrowers, they know their limits... isn't the UK awash with evidence to the contrary? Read it, here.
According to the British Bankers' Association, approved loans for home purchases were down 23%, month-on-month, following the end of the Stamp Duty holiday for properties worth up to £175,000. Annually, however, loans were up 40%. More here.
Following a Facebook campaign, a statement by the National Trust suggesting it might find funds to buy it, interest from Andrew Lloyd Webber, it turns out Abbey Road Studios aren't for sale, nor have they ever been. In fact, according to EMI, the record company turned down an offer last year, and is looking for an investor (for "a revitalisation project"), not a buyer. A case of mixed messages, or another example of high-speed modern media getting to the story before it even exists?
Credit-ratings agency Moody's warns of a brand new credit crunch, later this year and into 2011, as banks start to pay back 2007 and 2008's Government loans. The message is that the bail-out was a temporary fix, the pain is yet to be felt. Mortgage lending will be tight, as banks continue to struggle to raise money in the markets. For some building societies, things look bleak indeed:
It started on Facebook... a simple little invite to a few friends, meeting at a Mayfair mansion they didn't own. And it ended up with 2,000 revelers having their party ruined by police in riot gear, concerned the property was actually going to collapse, due to the number of people clinging to its exterior and climbing onto its roof. More here. According to the Guardian:
Perhaps they should start their enquiries with the Guardian, where the two organisers are interviewed at length.
Fox said: "I've never seen that many people, except at festivals. As we were leaving the police said 'it's all kicking off you'd better get out of here'. They didn't know we had organised the party and were responsible for this chaos around us."
Doh! The organisers believe that the property's co-owned by HSBC, and the event was intended to be part protest, part squat, part old-fashioned rave. Could this be the start of a new chapter in the ongoing Mayfair squat story?
On Radio 5 Live, John Healey responded to today's repo-figures by suggesting being repossessed was an okay option for some households. Some people, he said, might not be able to keep up mortgage repayments even if they were renegotiated by the lender. The suggestion that these people would be best served by being kicked to the curb is puzzling, particularly in a country which doesn't allow borrowers the right to throw back the keys and walk away from a loan. If they're in negative equity - which they will be - they'll still be in debt. What could Healey be thinking? More here.
Arrears and repos declined in the fourth quarter according to Council of Mortgage Lenders figures. Ten thousand, two hundred properties were repossessed, 13% fewer than in the third quarter, and 2% fewer than in the fourth quarter of 2008. 2009's figures, as a whole, were more encouraging than either the CML's start-of-the-year or most recent forecast. They were, however, considerably higher than in 2008 and, we might add, a 14-year high. Forty-six thousand homes were repossessed across the 12 months. The last time we saw that kind of repo-action was in 1995.
Steer away from the developers' press releases, and there's some interesting information here about the "new Nappy Valleys... the areas most popular with the current wave of expectant parents who can't afford life in Clapham or Wandsworth. Apparently, middle-class mums-to-be are going east, with Cambourne, in Cambridgeshire, rivaling China and India for its birthrate. Figures are backed up by BBC stats naming the county as having the highest population increase in the UK in the last quarter century.
The Committee of Public Accounts has said that both banks will fail to meet their legally-binding commitments to lend a total of £39bn (RBS: £25bn; Lloyds: £14bn) by the end of this month, a commitment they made in return for substantial public support two years ago. The public's stake in RBS is an astonishing 84%, and yet there seems little that can be done to force the banks to lend. Indeed, if - as Lloyds claim - demand has been limited, it could be argued that the targets were set too high. The figures, incidentally, are for a mixture of business and mortgage lending. More here.
Toby Whittaker, who ran the controversial Dylan Harvey property investment company that lost millions of pounds of other people's money, including cash belonging to a few famous names (most famously footballers Steven Gerrard and Ryan Giggs), was beaten up in front of his family and robbed at knifepoint last week by six masked men. It's a complicated story. Police are said to be investigating the possibility that the robbers may be connected to the hundreds of furious investors, some of whom are chasing Whittaker in the courts. However, they're also investigating Whittaker himself for an alleged insurance fraud following another, earlier, burglary at his house. An ugly business in so many ways. More here.
A let-to-buy mortgage... a product by Nationwide that is aimed squarely at "reluctant landlords" forced, by the market, to seek tenants because they can't find buyers. It's been a grey area, with many reluctant landlords continuing with their normal residential mortgage and failing to inform their buildings insurers of the change... which is extremely risky. The Nationwide let-to-buy mortgage will put things on a property footing. Oh, yeah, and it will cost more.
Internet users in 15 US states are trialing an Adwords Comparison Ads system by Google, in which the search engine delivers mortgage product information from participating lenders in return for a fee if a user requests a quote. Its caused concern in the UK market, that a similar scheme, here, might damage smaller lenders who don't sign up (with its giant share of the search market, Google can quickly "define" a sector); might damage the already broken mortgage brokerage sector; might damage established price comparison sites. More here.
It's Andrew Emelife - formerly trading under Loans4Assets.com (nothing to see, there... it just forwards to the FSA's own site) - has been banned after being found submitting three fraudulent mortgage applications (for himself, his business, a customer). For the purposes of his mortgage application his annual salary was £188,000. For the purposes of the Inland Revenue, it was £15,000. More here.
Instead, they're being offered expensive (to arrange and to service) fixed loans, and in some instances no longer have access to the best deals, after falling house prices have changed their loan-to-value ratios.
The Financial Services Authority's proposed ban on self-certification mortgages (dubbed "Liar Loans") is being challenged by the Council of Mortgage Lenders.
It's a tough job, defending fast-track loans after recent events, but the CML appears to be saying that an outright ban might be discriminatory, effectively condemning many self-employed people to an inadequate and inappropriate mortgage system.
Okay - now don't get me wrong - I'm as horrified as the next man at the stories you hear about homeowners defending their property from thieves, and then finding themselves locked up for assault, while the thieves are free to drive around in their white Saxos. But this?
No human rights? Currently, the law says a homeowner is allowed to use "reasonable force" to protect themselves and their property. If I was Mr Cameron, and I was worried about the current system, I'd be looking for some clarification and assurance that what the people's definition of "reasonable force" is the same as the judiciary's. I wouldn't, however, be campaigning for the legalisation of "unreasonable force" or the removal of human rights. Because isn't that a bit... silly?
Sale-and-rent-back schemes target homeowners who may be vulnerable to repossession, offer to buy their homes off them at bargain-basement prices and keep them in there as tenants... a prospect that can be attractive to stressed families facing homelessness. Problems, however, have included a shortage of guarantees about the length of tenancy... some tenants have found themselves kicked to the curb after the property has been sold on to a third party investor. New FSA rules, coming into effect at the end of the June, include:
a ban on "emotive" advertising
a 14-day cooling off period
a ban on cold-calling
a minimum tenure of five years
Who'd argue with any of that?
UPDATE - APOLOGIES IF YOU'RE GETTING AN IRONIC GOOGLE AD ABOVE... I'LL LOOK INTO FILTERING
Man alive! Three weeks at £75 an hour?! If I was a potential buyer I'd rather have the option of the discount and paint everywhere rich tea biscuit myself.
With mortgage fraud endemic before the credit crunch, the FSA has been rethinking its approach to broker regulation. In other words, a bit might be a good idea. New proposals include an "approved persons regime" and the mandatory recording of all telephone calls between lenders, brokers and clients, the keeping of records for three years. More here.
An amusing story to pass the time... the author of the influential NewYorkShitty blog has been waging something of a one-woman campaign on a developer planning the demolition of a local landmarked property. Her blogging resulted in Stop Work Order, which the developer traced back to the blog, and its author... his own tenant.
The mixed use development totals more than 18,000 sq m (circa 194,000 sq ft) of retail, leisure and offices including the cabaret, the Locomotive nightclub, fast food restaurant Quick, a O’Sullivan pub as well as 80 flats.
Three thousand, seven hundred new homes in the capital, with building starting in the next six months. That's according to Barratt chief Mark Clare, who's been making some rousing comments about the strength of the London market. Barratt has been focusing on houses rather than flats, and has seen sales rise as a consequence.
Shelter have described as "a shocking discovery" data suggesting as many as 6% of UK households have been using credit cards to stay ahead of mortgage payments and rent. In Scotland, the figure's as high as 8%.
It's an American article, and it's very interesting... making the point that quick killings in the entirely illusory (residential property-based) debt market were much more attractive than difficult decisions funding technology start-ups in a post dotcom-bust era. But look where it got us. (Nowhere.)
A Daily Mail journalist is dispatched to Notting Hill's Wycombe Square and Prestbury (Up North)'s Withinlee Road, two of the most expensive streets in the recent Halifax survey, and told to knock on a few doors, find out the kind of person who lives there. Not much luck in London... nobody's in, and if anyone had been in, they'd presumably have had their security guard take the Daily Mail journalist down, take him down to China Town, and send him home with a limp. Up north, things are different. They're... and the piece actually uses this word... "real". Real people like Andrew Flintoff, Wayne Rooney and Noddy Holder (imagine that New Year's party... pretty bloody real, I'd imagine). Conclusions? None really. Other than both roads - interestingly - feature mainly new properties. And the journalist prefers it up north. Read it here.
After causing the recession with their reckless, irresponsible borrowing, homeowners are now threatening the recovery with their reckless, irresponsible saving.
You just can't help yourselves, can you? Paying off your debts like a bunch of fiscal delinquents. Don't you know you should be borrowing, spending, borrowing, spending... ?
The Confederation of British Industry predicts a rise in interest rates early next year, in its quarterly economic forecast. And by the end of the year, expect rates to reach 2%, it says. It points out that 2% is historically still "stimulatory" (does it do anything for you?), and doesn't predict anything like normal interest rates (5% or so) in the foreseeable future.
Political correctness gone mad, isn't it? At Christmas, of all times... but hopefully, thanks to the Mail, the powers that be will eventually see sense and get some tax-aided bankers or expense-fiddling MPs and their privately educated kids in there soon, before the thought of those foreigners living in bigger houses than our own completely ruins everybody's holiday.
Back in May, 45% of agreed sales were to first-time buyers. In November, that figure had shrunk to just 19%, according to the National Association of Estate Agents. And we've still to see the end of the Stamp Duty holiday. First-time buyers are one end of a chain... without them, fewer chains, fewer sales.
Advice UK, Shelter and Citzens Advice have criticised lenders for resorting to court too quickly, instead of treating repossession as a last resort. (We wonder whether the - perhaps, temporary - fight back of the property market is perhaps proving too much of a temptation.) The Government's Support for Mortgage Interest scheme is aimed at people who have been made unemployed and - 13 weeks after a claim - starts paying interest on loans up to £200,000. But it operates a standard interest rate of 6.08%... less, say charities, than what many sub-prime lenders charge. More here.
I don't know where to begin. If you were going to sell a giant communications company the rights to name your family home for 12 months, how much would you ask for? If - like the snows - you'd be happy with, ahem, £250, please get in touch, because I've every confidence you and I could do business. Astonishingly:
According to the Office for National Statistics - which would, I guess, know - while 12.8% of women between the ages of 25 and 29 are living at home with their parents (a figure which already surprises me for being so high), the figure for men is a giant 24.5%. Astonishing.
Robert Jordan - ex-chief of the above and chairman of Jordan's lettings agency has published his first crime novel. It's called Time's Up For By To Let, and it features two murders, a fraud and an attempted blackmail. We want to know... where did he get his material? More here. Buy it from Amazon here.
We mentioned Foxtons' late accounts on Monday... now the story is Charcol, also more than a month late and following two near-death experiences in which directors had to pump millions of pounds into the company.
Like the idea of a mutually-owned mortgage lender big enough to rival Nationwide? There's chatter about The Yorkshire (second largest in the UK) and The Cheslea (the fifth) merging into a super-mutual with two million, seven hundred thousand members. The Chelsea needs the deal the most, after getting into hot water with two failed Icelandic banks. Watch this space.
And the story - here - of Walthamstow's Shabbir Chowdhury... £105,000 a year in genuine salary, £3m of fraudulent mortgage loans, 12 properties across London and (the icing on this particular cake) £45,000 in benefit fraud.
The Mirror describes an interesting close call, highlighting just how imperfect our own land registry system is. Go here to read how fraudsters came so close to landing a property by simply instructing their solicitors to deal directly with a firm of solicitors who were not, in fact, instructed by the vendors. A mortgage was raised, the property transfer very nearly completed.
Forty-two thousand, two hundred and thirty-eight loans are almost twice the number of loans granted homebuyers in October 2008, and they're the highest monthly number since January of the same year. Re-mortgages remained low... as borrowers failed to be intimidated by SVRs. Figures courtesy of the British Bankers' Association.
Fancy a bit of that? Then grab it fast... before it flies past your ear in pieces. Interestingly, while security is obviously "a concern", the economy is less of one. Kabul is officially recession-proof, as it's almost entirely driven by UN money. But good luck to anybody who might eventually have to deal with bureaucracy and land registry. If you can't feel secure buying in Spain...
Council of Mortgage Lenders data shows October lending up 5% on October, but down 27% on the year. The stats are less interesting than the details... a decade-low drop in remortgaging, caused by low SVRs and tough equity restraints, a pick-up in new loans.
One for property nerds (one or two might read this blog)... In Nantucket, famous from a million limericks, there's a tradition called "the mortgage button". Apparently:
Not only are these scrimshaws philosophically attractive, reminding everyone involved that we're talking here about a loan for a home, not an investment or an equity release of the first of 15 properties that mortgage will extend to, they can be aesthetically attractive too. Check the link for pictures.
Launched today, ArgosCompare is said to be hooked up with 4,000 mortgage brokers, and may prove to be a major player in the busy price comparison sector, if it can leverage its vast daily contact with consumers.
If MPs don't really have to learn their lessons, and bankers are back on the gravy train before the industry's even started paying off it's debts, then why shouldn't borrowers expect a bit of old-school recklessness? That was presumably the thinking behind this in Saturday's Times:
The piece highlights the "most accommodating" lenders, and shows how to have commissions/bonuses included in "salary", how to borrows up to six times salary, how to achieve a 90% mortgage, how to have your loan fast-tracked. Any mention of caution and responsibility and how we got into this mess? That would be so 2008.
Of 721 respondents to an ISPreview.co.uk survey, 75% wouldn't buy a house - no matter how perfect in every other respect - if it couldn't achieve 1Mbps in broadband speed. More than half would pay more for a house with a faster connection. Okay, I know, ISPreview readers are geeks, the kind of people who spend their days using their fast broadband connections to answer questions about how fast is an acceptable broadband connection. But - still - you're looking at the future... when broadband provision is considered a utility as important as gas, electricity, water. More here.
Two million pounds is the asking price for Hitler's birthplace. Except Braunau-am-Inn councillors are concerned that the wrong kind of buyer might be interested (exactly what is the right kind of buyer for such a property?) and they're opposing its sale to a private individual. I'm just amazed the property wasn't pulled down years ago. Surely that would have been the right thing to do, rather than leaving a shrine to Nazis. More here.
That eye-catching statistic comes from Credit Action, and it's accompanied by this one... 2,553 people are being made redundant every day, which bodes badly for the UK housing market. More here.
According to research by Evaluate Technologies, 20% of lenders are charging non-refundable booking fees of as much as £999. The key term here is, obviously, non-refundable, especially at a time of increasingly rigorous vetting. More here.
The Kelly Report is irritating MPs again. The chatter this morning... MPs whose local station is within 60 minutes of Parliament will be banned from claiming any financial assistance for a second home. Others will wave mortgage interest claims goodbye, and be given an option of claiming for rent instead. MPs will also be banned from employing family members. On the face of it... all very sensible, and proper closure on the lucrative property investment sideline MPs have been enjoying and the voters haven't. But is this a case of cutting off one's nose to spite one's face? Paying MPs' rent will almost certainly cost us more. The cost of employing outsiders to work odd hours - and providing them statutory working conditions - may well cost us more, too. On the former... why not buy up enough London property, now, while it's as affordable as it's been in some time, so the State can turn landlord, instead?
We didn't need telling - anyone watching the convictions/bans roll in couldn't help but notice the East London link - but last week the Financial Services Authority named the area as problem, after banning the second East London broker in a fortnight.
London's NFT pocket book goes into its second edition. For those unfamiliar with the title, it's a little black book: part street map, part Lonely Plant, part Yellow Pages, in truth probably aimed at the very people warned off by its title, but useful for re-locators too. Its 152 area maps are marked with icons representing supermarkets, restaurants, cafes, post offices, libraries, banks, nightlife etc... handy if you discover you've an unexpectedly free hour. "Parks & Places" gives you an insider's view of the classic tourist/weekend info, Time Out Around Town style. There's a sports section, a transport section, a useful section for students considering the London colleges as an option, plus a very nice cross-referenced mini-review section giving a bit more information about the POIs marked on the maps. Here, you'll find some gems, including "Great secondhand music shop, seemingly staffed by Grouches on Mogadon" (we like the "seemingly", since - presumably - it can't be proven); "The toilet's in the kitchen!" (now that's useful to know before setting foot inside... is it even legal?); "Authentic Japanese queue. Worth it for the food."; and "Little-known outdoor market" (South Bank Book Market? Little known?).
Yes - you can probably get the technical information on your smartphone of choice, but you're unlikely to browse in the same way you will with a little analogue book. (If you absolutely prefer digital, check out Apple's app store for an iPhone edition, out now.) I've already discovered places I didn't know. And the Rat and Mouse particularly recommends it to re-locators checking out areas before a viewing or that all-important offer.
Published November 1. Pre-order it here. Oooh... free party invitation here (tell them you read about it on the Rat and Mouse).
Eight years ago he attempted to throttle her. More recently, he bit her, held a pillow over her head, and shouted, "Die, you bitch". But, in court, he claimed he never wanted to kill her. (How would anyone get that idea?) Full story, here.
At first they said they wouldn't, then we heard rumours they would, now - it appears - they've confirmed they're going to... they're going to buy homes affected by the third runway project.
Adrian Reeman, who's 59 and suffers from Asperger's Syndrome, has created a painstaking impression of the interior of the palace in his flat in Southampton, despite never having seen the original. He explains... his flat needed redecorating, and he got carried away.
... presumably that means that a generation of self-employed borrowers who did secure loans during the SC days and who haven't missed a payment in the years since, will run the risk of being left floating on SVR mortgages, helplessly watching interest rates rise? So how does that reduce defaults, exactly?
Extrapolating from that and the current state of the credit market, a single first-time buyer would need to be on something like £93,000 to buy in. Unfortunately, not everybody in the capital is a high-flying property blogger, and the average London wage is just £26,000. Hmm, says NHF... problem. Pointing out overcrowding, they're calling for the eminently sensible building of more affordable housing.
Of course, first-time buyers don't buy "average" homes, they buy starter homes. No-one, however, would deny there's a problem.
In Exmoor, according to the locals, the villages are dying. House prices are inflated by competition from the London wealthy; and houses are left empty for most of the year. Furthermore, when they're being used, the owners lack charm.
No, really. Don't get the locals started. Because - according to this - there's a bit of armed struggle in the air. Somebody's shooting fashion and restaurant gazillionaire Richard Caring's stags, and leaving them to die slowly. The Daily Mail's Jane Fryer asks around the village, and although nobody actually knows anything, there's a spooky, post-Wicker Man, post-Deliverance sense that the community's turning against Caring. It's an interesting piece.
Council of Mortgage Lenders figures for August show the number of new loans dropping 5% from July, but up 29% on the year. So what's that? Good or bad? There were 53,000 loans taken out by either first-time buyers are movers. The long-term average (over seven years, before the crisis hit) is 100,000.
He was living in the flash new Docklands, and visiting his substantial London property portfolio from the comfort of his Porsche, back in the 80s. Last year, he was found dead in a flat in Weston-Super-Mare... arguably the very last situation better than being alive in a flat in Weston-Super-Mare. It's a sad story, of cannabis-induced schizophrenia, cocaine and crack addiction.
Michelle Young - wife of multi-millionaire property tycoon Scot Young - has been served a possession order on the £10,000-a-month Regents Park rental where she and her teenage daughters have been living since the marriage broke down. Mr Young has - apparently - ceased making payments, after claiming to be penniless due to the recession. Mrs Young - apparently - is threatening to squat. So to speak.
According to a comparison website called Broadband Expert, more than half of potential buyers believe a property's broadband speed should be included in the HIP. More than three-quarters believe the figure should be listed by the estate or lettings agent. More here.
Do you remember, back in April, (and if you do remember, then you're not getting out enough) we wrote about the Devon widow taking Barclays to court to try to weasel out of test the fairness of a 1998 agreement to pay back 75% of any appreciation on the property's value on sale? These mortgages were called Shared Appreciation Mortgages. She liked them at the time, for their tiny interest rates. Now that one was costing her almost six times the loan amount (and everyone was getting tiny interest rates) she wasn't so keen. The latest is that more than 300 borrowers have been granted a Group Litigation Order by the High Court, so they can try to sue Barclays and Bank of Scotland collectively.
According to the NAEA - for whom the concept of homeownership starts, obviously, in the dream rather than nightmare category - falling house prices have done nothing to make the prospect of a property purchase more likely for struggling first-time buyers. In fact, large numbers of Britons are simply losing interest in the whole idea.
Because, apparently, it matters. A survey of 3,000 homeowners by Sandtex paints suggests that owners of blues houses are likely to be the most economically successful, earning, on average, £38,000 and taking at least two foreign holidays a year. If your house is green, you might want to consider a change. You're likely to be earning £13,100 a year. For more of this nonsense, and a rundown of the full rainbow of earning potential, click this.
According to the BBC... possibly, not very. In Hackney alone, 129 blocks haven't had the legally required fire safety checks, bringing the total in the capital to almost 500. More here.
In an interview with the Shooting Times, he asks, where have all the village shoemakers gone? and - with absolutely breathtaking insensitivity and hypocrisy - blames second home owners. He also says there are too many people about... not the wisest comment to make in a Shooting Times piece perhaps. More here.
A lack of family homes in the capital and an ageing population... hmm... what to do? According to this, the Mayor thinks he might have he answer. The plan is to offer council tenants of 55 or over £100,000 properties by the sea or in the country. Age Concern seems less than impressed, pointing out that older people have an emotional attachment to their homes, and that moving away from a familiar support system results in a situation in which "people suffer physically from stress and can even die". What's unclear, is whether there's any element of compulsion here. If it's just a cash offer, what does it matter?
Regular readers will know we've been following the case of Thanos Papalexis since November. He's the British property developer accused of arranging the murder of an unwanted tenant who was getting in the way of a lucrative property deal in Kilburn. Yesterday, he was jailed for life, and described as "The Devil" by his victim's sister.
One in five admitted to "serious problems" with their neighbours, the second year of worsening relations after a decade of improvement. Surely not a coincidence that its timing matches the stresses and strains of the economic downturn?
The lender's making £500m available to borrowers with just 10% deposits, to satisfy what it describes as very strong demand. According to the bank, property prices have bottomed... possibly a dangerous assertion, particularly at a time when interest rates are so low. More here.
The point - made by wood-toucher Jonathan Prynn - is that some people... those who stand to profit from the current trivial interest rates... in other words, those in a job and with decent equity... a having a riotous recession. Restaurants, theatres, football clubs, they're all doing nicely, thanks, apparently, to the J-Lo-Mos.
Including Bow Street, Abbey Road and Covent Garden... original street signs complete with Westminster Council authentication certificates. The council is replacing them with anti-graffiti models. The Ebay sales are said to offset the cost.
Or is it The Pink Panther? Nobody knows, but there's plenty of speculation (my favourite... "that's just what Finnish people look like"). The rest of the particulars, here.
The campaign to save James May's lego house is gaining ground, with 2,565 fans on Facebook. Quick recap... it's a two-storey house, created - with help from the public - by man-boy TV presenter James May. Legoland was going to buy it, but - perhaps scared off by a possible W-shaped lego house price crash - they pulled out of the deal, and the whole edifice will be torn down today if a new buyer can't be found. More here.
Read this one closely... some areas reporting 200%, nay 300% rises in sales, from a year ago... when things were like this. What's three or four times nothing? A gold rush?
According to a survey by the Building Societies Association, 58% believe now's a good time to buy, with only 15% anticipating a further house price fall. More here.
Dragons' Den's James Caan is teaming up with Hitachi Capital to offer high loan-to-value mortgages to borrowers, via his Look4aproperty.com website. How crazy could Caan's loans get? We're hearing, 95% crazy.
What profession would that be? Oh yeah, the beating men for money profession. But now that looks uncertain, after she was accused (and cleared) of blackmailing a doctor, on whom she "performed a sex act" while he injected her face with Botox. Two questions. What sex act is it convenient to perform while somebody's injecting your face? What kind of a super-doctor can do both of those things at the same time?
(And I've heard from somebody who knows that the butler really resents having to wear the black dress.) It's a big celebration of the Candys' wealth, over at Bloomberg.
In the Telegraph, a warning, courtesy of City lawyers Wedlake Bell... if you're trying to "wiggle out of" a relationship with a new-build that now - without the economic beer-googles - looks less than attractive, you can run, but you won't necessarily be able to hide. A recent judgement suggests that foregoing a deposit isn't a legal option. You do, in fact, need to buy the property, with damages stretching to the difference between the deposit and the value of the property at the time contracts were exchanged. Yowza.
Players will apparently begin with $3m (Monopoly dollars). But - if the news reports are right - landmark properties (Downing Street, Pennsylvania Avenue) will be affordable from the off... a mistake, in our view. Watch this space.
The £125,000 to £175,000 sector's Stamp Duty holiday ends on December 31, but Abbey points out that means an effective end date of September 30 (it takes an average of three months for a deal to go through).
There's a real estate project management student working on a dissertation about prefab living... a possible solution to the housing crisis. He'd like your opinion. If you fancy spending a couple of minutes answering a few questions online, and helping somebody do something interesting, go here.
Remember Chek Whyte, of Secret Millionaire fame? (For a quick reminder, watch him here.) According to this, the property developer is officially bankrupt, as of Friday. Interestingly, he's been here before... in 1996. You've got to marvel at the man's drive. Where next?
The Wilsons - the ex-school teachers who built up a £70m buy-to-let empire that pushed them into the Sunday Times Rich List - are cashing in. We reported that they were in the early stages of a sell-up less than a year ago, but that they intended to drop property gradually. Not so now... this time they'll put their 700 homes up for sale in one go. The Times reports that they've already had interest from investors interested in the entire portfolio. They're looking, specifically, for investors in order to offer some kind of continuity to their tenants.
If your mortgage is modest, it might not be right for you... it comes with a £1,199 arrangement fee. And if it's immodest, it might not be available to you... you'll need a 40% deposit. For customers with a 10% deposit, there's a two year discount currently reading 3.89%.
(We like the pronunciation guide for cretins.) Basically, it links a bank's cash reserves to its right to lend at a given loan-to-value ratio. Low cash reserves equal demands for high deposits. The piece describes new proposed changes that may push deposit demands towards 60%... for anybody looking for a good deal.
Remember the story of the appearing/disappearing distressed property company that Grant Bovey was/wasn't setting up following the failure of his buy-to-let empire, Imagine Homes? Well... he was, and guess what it was called... Distressed Property Company. (It must have taken Bovey and gang of helpers at least a month to have imaginized that.) Never mind, at least this one was a sure-fire success:
A shrinking financial industry, crappy weather, rising taxes and stealth taxes for non-doms, more and more Americans are, according to Bloomberg, heading home, leaving puffy, shiftless Brown's Britain for cool, ambitious Obama's America. At Tibco Software Inc. (no idea), Andrew Wesbecher describes turning off the lights on his way out.
Yeah - with rates of profit on fixed mortgages at a 21-year high, the banks are proving themselves very capable of organising their own bailout. The thrust of the Telegraph piece is about concern that - should base rates return to more typical levels - we may find ourselves paying upwards of 10%, as lenders, under pressure from the FSA to build their balance sheets, try to protect current rates of profit. Would that happen? Would it prove profitable to drive borrowers to default?
British Bankers' Association figures show lending for homes up. Mortgages for new homes were up in July, leaving them 76.7% higher than in July 2008. Remortgages were up a little on the month, but down on the 2008 figure by 42%. The value of the total lending for residential bricks and mortar, however, was way up, 79.1% higher than in July 2008.
She's Grace Nmadibechi Ada Ukala (leave me alone, spell check), and she's been fined £70,000 for submitting five mortgage applications for herself using false income and employment information, for failing to declare income to the tax man and for misusing company money. Is that all? Apparently. She was an FSA-approved broker, working for Goldsparkle Consulting Services Limited. More here.
A quarter of borrowers are now on standard variable rate mortgages, and "plan" (the keyword, here, since there was a time when a borrower on SVR meant somebody who hadn't got around to negotiating a new deal) on staying that way, according to research by Unbiased.co.uk. When bass rates rise, things will change. but - for now - with many SVR's looking competitive compared to fixed rate mortgages, and no sign that bass rates are about to go anywhere fast, it looks like a decent option.
That's two million "homeowners" either in negative equity or with less than 10% equity in their existing home. Why aren't people moving? That, says Ray Boulger, is the answer.
Down - according to research by MoneyExpert.com - from 137 (long-term fixed deals, 10 years or more) a year ago to 39. Want a mortgage fixed for its entire 25 years? Last year, there was a choice of 18, now... just one (thanks, Kent Reliance Building Society).
Yeah, well the later findings aren't up to much either. Two-thirds of advisors failed... some failed to ask enough questions, some failed because they didn't even ask about the potential client's income. Some failed to disclose fees. It's funny, because you wouldn't have thought there was anything complicated about equity release advice, would you? It's simple. Don't do it.
The data comes from Moneysupermarket.com, and it's a sign of how far we still have to go before the property market becomes rational. Has the tightening of lending criteria undone what falling prices have achieved, resulting in a tantalising glimpse of a purchase for the first-time buyer who doesn't have stinking rich parents? With everybody some people suggesting this may turn out to be a small window of opportunity, can we blame the frustrated first-time buyer from doing what they have to do to secure a mortgage? Lenders might. (Read the T&C carefully before supplying a commercially borrowed deposit.) The other concern... what happens when interest rates begin to rise from their current artificially low level?
And he's doing okay. Sales were up 15% in June, according to HM Revenue & Customs, at the highest level in 12 months. Seventy-five thousand properties changed hands for £40,000 or more. It's still way down on the decade's average, but it shows June - traditionally a busy month for movers - didn't disappoint.
The game will also come with an electronic screen, offering up "live" financial data (although how that data feeds back into the game, I'm not sure... via interest rates perhaps?). Interesting. Not nice, but interesting.
It's 17% up in June, according to the Council of Mortgage Lenders, reflecting a seasonal pick-up in market activity. Before anybody sparks up a cigar, gross mortgage lending through the second quarter remained unchanged on the first... the lowest since early 2001.
It's political correctness gone mad! So what can you do? Apparently, "the key is to seek legal advice and avoid doing anything rash", like shooting them.
And I think I - for one - am convinced (if slightly unimpressed... were that my swimming pool let's just say it would take longer to swim a length). There my be other candidates, but in the meantime I'm forwarding this to the original poster, and saying thanks to the Rat and Mouse reader who tracked it down but for some reason doesn't want to be named.
A great story... here. Italy's finance police, the Guardia di Finanza, have apparently used Google Earth to nab a tax-evading businessman who under-reported the value of a villa he sold to avoid tax. Using Google Earth satellite images, and armed with details of an unusual penis-shaped swimming pool, they tracked down the property and compared its value to those of nearby properties, thus uncovering the fraud. The link, above, features a photo of a swimming pool, but they're not (and we're not) convinced they've found the right one. If you can do better, let me know and I'll pass on any information... a victory for the Rat and Mouse's eagle-eyed, cock-pool hunting readers.
Also among the recommendations: enforced "downsizing" for single tenants, perhaps to rooms in shared houses, and five-yearly reviews of personal circumstances, and the demolition of the some of the boroughs housing estates. Labour MP Andrew Slaughter has accused the Tory borough of "social cleansing". Council officers have denied contributing, other than by providing facts.
Following yesterday's calls by the National Association of Estate Agents for the Government to apply a bit of "duress" and help get lenders lending, today two of the UK's biggest builders have warned that the it's the mortgage industry holding back a property recovery.
One exception appears to be Nationwide, who is also making headlines with its 125% mortgage. A return to the crazy mortgages that caused all the trouble in the first place? asked Radio 4's Today Programme this morning. Possibly... although it's strictly a "niche" product... with a high interest rate and aimed at clients who are in negative equity but need to move house. More here.
According to a National Association of Estate Agents survey... very tough. The figures, released today, suggest 22.5% of homeowners have been unable to find a new deal. Peter Bolton King - leader of agents - continues to harangue the Government, demanding it forces lenders to lend. More here.
The plan, according to the FT, is to float, later in the year, under the name London Residential Opportunities. They're looking at 330 properties across 15 sites.
Here's a strange one. Colin and Collette - immediately that sounds as if I'm making this up, but I'm not (they are) - design their own Lancashire palace on a computer, print it out and use it to get planning permission. Now that the property's built, however, it's bigger than they'd specified, and they might face having to tear it down. So how did it happen. Apparently, the computer automatically scaled the blueprint down when it printed it out. Hmmm. The council isn't convinced, and points to 15 other discrepancies.
Seven of London's boroughs are in the country's top ten for noise complaints. Which means you're either noisier than the rest of the country, or quicker to complain. Westminster topped the list, confiscating five sounds systems and issuing an ASBO, followed by Haringey and Tower Hamlets. In my experience, neighbours are split into either perps or complainers... and rarely cross the line. Which one are you?
That's right, since January the Government's £200m initiative has helped a total of six families, up from two in just an entire month. Your domestic economy is safe in their hands. More here.
Labour MPs Ann and Alan Keen have a main home and an expenses-aided second home less than ten miles apart. They don't seem to have been spending much time in their Brentford main home, however. If they had, they might have noticed the squatters have moved in.
And these must be the most popular squatters in London.
Joe's back now - he has just popped into a neighbour's house to use the internet and download details of Ann Keen's expenses. He is not impressed. Another neighbour knocks on the door with some milk. "Good on you," he shouts.
Here's a strange one... 1980s right-to-buy legislation including a covenant excluding selling a property on to anybody who doesn't have ties to the region... in this case, Dorset.
There's been chatter, in recent years, of similar covenants returning, in a bid to stop second home buyers pricing locals out of rural beauty spots. While this former council property languishes on the market, its value diminishing, I'm sure the Collins's will be keen to tell all just what good such a covenant does for the local community.
HM Revenue and Customs report a 7% rise in the number of residential properties sold in May, bringing the monthly total to its highest since October. This follows yesterday's report by the British Bankers' Association, claiming a steady six-month rise in mortgage approvals.
Don't be offended if every day isn't Valentine's Day between you and your lender. You're in good company. According to an interesting piece in the Daily Mail, some lenders are paying borrowers as much as £25,000 to get rid of them.
Ah yes... paid to be somebody else's customer... the sign of a healthy mortgage sector. You're most likely to be made the offer if you're in negative equity (obviously); in which case... jump at it.
A terrific piece in Citywire... about how purchasers of £500,000 plus properties can avoid paying Stamp Duty. There are a number of systems, but what they share is a nominal "middle man"... a company that pays "85% of the purchase price", leases the property to the buyer with an option to transfer the freehold. Because, technically, the property hasn't actually changed hands, no Stamp Duty is payable. It's complex, involves lawyers who'll take up to 50% of the duty saved, but it's real and according to Citywire, it's happening.
Manhattan's East 5th Street residents, caught up in an ongoing feud with Cooper Square Hotel (a trendy white media palace encroaching on the vanishing NY keep-it-real grit of the 5th Street tenements), have decided to air their dirty washing.... hanging soiled pants on a washing line mere inches from the noses of the hotel's residents. According to experts, the brown stains "were not authentic", but message was clear.
Turn up to a viewing at an expensive house in your best togs, boasting about your homes in Jamaica and Barbados, make a cash offer, ask if you can rent in the period up until completion because you've sold your previous property, and then move in claiming squatters' rights. Hmmm, crafty. But who could pull that off?
A couple in their 60s called Richard and Hazel Jerome, apparently.
Council of Mortgage Lenders figures show a 16% increase in lending for new homes in April, bringing the figure to its highest since October (although still 28% lower than this time 2008). Interestingly, affordability among first-time buyers also continues to improve. The average ftb loan is now 2.96 times income... but includes a hefty 25% deposit.
Quite frequently, according to Property Portfolio Rescue (one of those cash-for-your-home companies). Here, they claim chains are falling apart left, right and centre, due to offers being withdrawn for no apparent reason at the very last minute. The idea, they argue, that it's becoming easier to get a home loan is illusory.
A survey by PropertyLive - the National Association of Estate Agents' property portal - suggests one in five will take a viewing simply for a snoop... with neither the intention nor the means to purchase a property. More here.
Another day, another drip of positive data. Mortgage approvals are at a 12-month high, after April showed a third consecutive monthly rise, according to the Bank of England. April showed an 8% rise on March, 27% up on the six month average.
The BBC is reporting that Jacqui Smith is about to announce her resignation (as Home Secretary)... the highest profile casualty of the expenses scandal.
.... as cash-strapped parents turn from private education and go looking for the best the state has to offer. The data is from PropertyIndex.com, and comes just as private education has started to shrink for just the second time since the early 90s.
More data by National Association of Estate Agents property portal PropertyLive... this time showing that almost seven in ten wannabe first-time buyers have given up hope about being able to afford to step onto the property ladder. Eagle-eyed readers (and sub-editors) will have spotted that if they've given up hope, they can't be wannabe ftbs... but we know what they mean. NAEA-sponsored... the data appears to be directed toward the Government... a disguised call for help in loosening lending criteria.
The article goes on to cite the new Lloyds 95% mortgage - which accepts a 5% deposit on the basis that 20% of the loan value is held in a Lloyds savings account... effectively an insurance or guarantor element which can be provided friends or family - as an example of a new breed of innovative mortgages set to launch on top of the new interest rate stability. Watch this space.
Mark and Karen Ball's £1m "dream home" - three storeys, gym, sauna, triple garag - began to crack apart just days after completion. The problem? Dodgy foundations... a perfect metaphor for something... the Commons, the economy perhaps... but at 6pm I no longer have the energy to decide what. Anyway:
Council of Mortgage Lenders figures show a 29% rise in lending for March, with 40% borrowing by first-time buyers. Buy-to-let lending, however, crashed... down 70% in the first quarter, compared to the same period in 2008. It accounted for just 6% of all mortgage lending.
According to the Council of Mortgage Lenders, it's a 50% increase year-on-year, from 8,500 homes in the first quarter of 2008 to 12,800 in the first quarter of 2009. Pre-repos, loans with more than 2.5% of the balance in arrears, were up 62% measured over the same period. Sounds bad? The CML were actually fairly bullish about the figures, and are expected to revise downward their headline-grabbing 2009 prediction of 75,000 repossessions.
New figures by ratings agency Moody's suggests 3.55% of landlords are at least three months behind on mortgage repayments... a significant rise from 0.95% this time last year. The data suggests landlords are finally catching up with homeowners in the arrears race. At the end of last year, the Financial Services Authority revealed that 3.4% of all mortgages were in arrears.
A couple of weeks ago we reported on the pitiful failure that is Government's Mortgage Rescue Scheme... five months in, one person helped. Now, the Times reports that the Bates family - trotted around by the Department for Communities and Local Government in a PR exercise designed to attract attention away from the crumbling economy - has had its own application rejected.
I suppose that's the value of the license fee... the BBC has the resources to uncover proper, top-notch idiots while the rest of us have to make do with hear-say or, at best, D-list idiots. This one - after losing work and consolidating his debts during the early days of the crisis - ended up with a £250,000 mortgage, negative equity and a Champagne headache. Stay tuned for the BBC's Propertywatch programme (May 11-14, BBC 2, 8pm) for more.
Gordon Brown switches designated second home ten days after Blair's resignation, to throw gardener's and cleaner's bills relating to his Scottish house onto the public purse.
Hazel Blears claims for three different properties in a year, claiming home entertainment equipment from Selfridges, claiming mortgage payments then pocketing £45,000 profit on a property and charging the taxpayer so she could stay at an award-winning £211 a night hotel.
The improvers:
Douglas Alexander earns £141, 866, we pay £928 to have his chimney relined.
The piss-takers:
John Prescott charges us hundreds of pounds to fix and then re-fix a toilet seat.
Margaret Beckett attempts to claim £600 for hanging baskets at her constituency home, while living in a grace-and-favour London property.
Harriet Harman's damage limitation exercise on this morning's Today programme (listen again, here) included admitting that "I know it looks bad. We've already agreed we need to make a change". Harman and Brown are desperate to push through changes to the rules so that they're seen to have acted. They want to shift the argument from individual MPs and their personal ethics and onto the system, as if it's only right and natural for MPs to push rules as far as they'll go before warping. We need to make it clear to them that simply changing the rules isn't enough. We want MPs to be held accountable for their personal decision making, their personal ethics. Don't just change the rules, change the MPs.
Go here for the Telegraph's extraordinary catalogue of Cabinet members' greed, deceit and cynicism.
One and a half thousand Bacchus vines planted in Enfield marks the launch of Forty Hall Vineyard, a new vineyard aiming to supply consumers within a ten-mile radius with a wine to define the London terroir. Cheeky. Fragrant. Cockney. Profits will be used to promote sustainable urban agriculture. More here.
The question of which property is a principal residence runs deeper than simply how many thousand pounds can be scooped from the public coffers in so-called "expenses". Jacqui Smith's controversial claim that a room in her sister's flat was her principal residence (allowing her to claim more expenses on her larger family home Redditch) appears to be contradicted by Redditch Council... where she's paying council tax as if it's her main home. We wonder whether she'd thinking ahead... to the Capital Gains Tax sting she may (and should) encounter when she comes to sell her Redditch property?
Sutton council is to teach children to be street wise, by building a "virtual south London street", complete with shops, cafes, dealers, gangs, paedos... all of the facilities usually associated with south London. Children will be bussed in from as far afield as Kent and Berkshire, where they'll navigate the street - which will have a giant video screen at one end - and then leave with medication for any trauma. The council has been criticised for spending £8m on the scheme, when schools and council homes are dilapidated and there's a big Icelandic hole in the financing, but the Rat and Mouse can see how the Welcome To South London project might have a combined future as a tourist attraction. More here.
The entire electorate gathered together today to toast the overwhelming success of the Government's Mortgage Rescue Scheme, which was launched last January, after it emerged that the scheme had helped a homeowner. New figures from the Department for Communities and Local Government revealed that the scheme - which was designed to help 6,000 people - had, so far, received 452 applications, one of which was successful.
But it was a case of right house number, wrong road. When Mr Parrott did finally gain entry, he found the bailiffs had emptied his fridge (greedy buggers) and turned off all the utilities. It's an odd mistake to have made. I always thought you had to have an Oxbridge degree (or Ivy League equivalent) to be a bailiff. Anyway, click through to the story, and enjoy the comment left by Peter Jones of Amersham... surely not the first time Falling Down has been mentioned on the Daily Mail's comment section. It's political correctness gone mad.
Estate Agent Today has an interesting story about REDC, the big, pile-'em-high US auction business that hit the UK before Easter warning us that "some Brits may well be overwhelmed by the event". If the event was so overwhelming, asks EAT, why won't anybody from REDC give any results?
Sandeman's MD of Essential Information Group, arguably the single source for up-to-the-minute property auction data. We wonder whether REDC's reticence might have something to do with this. We'll watch this with interest.
It doesn't seem like such good value now. A Devon widow is taking Barclays to court to seek an amendment to her 1998 agreement to pay pack 75% of any appreciation in the property's value on its sale. The mortgage will have cost her almost six times the loan amount.
According to the Sunday Times, the Government's preparing to sell off Northern Rock. Except, just the good bits. The bad bits - the stupid loans - we all get to keep:
Yeah... because those are just the kind of shares I can take a pride in owning. They're also, apparently, headhunting a banker to run the bad bank book.
"It defies logic that during the worst recession for a generation the government should ignore some very simple practical solutions laid on a plate in front of it that would cost practically nothing and would have helped the property industry to recover more quickly from the effects of the recession and get back to doing what it does best for society namely building and managing the places we need for business, shopping and leisure."
Michael Coogan, director general of the Council Of Mortgage Lenders:
"The most important element of this Budget for the mortgage market over the long term may prove to be the new asset backed securities guarantee scheme. This potentially offers an opportunity to restart the capital market funding for mortgages that will be a crucial factor in delivering an adequate supply of mortgage credit."
Gillian Charlesworth, RICS Director of External Affairs:
"The Chancellor has recognised the need for assistance to the housing market as essential to helping Britain’s economic recovery. Government action to support mortgage lending should help translate buyer interest, which has picked up in recent months, into actual sales. Additional funding for HomeBuy Direct and extending the stamp duty holiday should also encourage those wishing to get on the housing ladder. Measures announced by the Chancellor will help move towards a sustainable and vibrant housing market for the future."
Liam Bailey, Knight Frank:
"The sad truth for the government is that there are very few significant policy leavers open to influence the housing market. The only one of note - interest rate policy - is now exhausted as a means of kick starting activity. The announcements in today's budget are generally welcome - but set against the scale of the problems in the housing sector they are quite small. Their effect in stimulating activity, whether in terms of sales or in building more homes, is likely to be relatively limited. The positive impact will come in terms of sentiment."
Ian Potter, operations manager of The Association of Residential Letting Agents:
"Yet again Gordon Brown’s administration has wasted an opportunity to improve the quality of stock of lettings property by failing to incentivise landlords through tax relief on labour and materials. Not only would this have helped to stimulate the market, particularly in the construction sector, but it would also have provided the greater standards of rented accommodation that this country desperately needs.”
Peter Bolton King, CE of the National Association of Estate Agents:
"The housing market is the engine of the UK economy and it is likely that this Budget will be remembered as largely ineffectual given the magnitude of the problem. There is very little here for first time buyers, who need more encouragement to climb onto the property ladder – which will get everything moving. Mr Darling has used a water pistol to try to put out a fire.”
various moneys for energy efficient home building and renovation of armed forces housing
-£175,000 Stemp Duty holiday extended to end of year
I know... crap, isn't it?
But the real housing budget isn't about housing at all. With this morning's unemployment figures showing a steady and alarming increase, and Darling's revised "growth" forecast at -3.5% for 2009, it's all about jobs. No job, no house purchase. No job, no mortgage repayment. No job, rental arrears. It's that simple. The real question is whether the jobs and training initiatives announced... £1.7bn for Job Centres, more training and work experience placings, more sixth form education places... can make any kind of a dent in dole queues.
That won't make everything alright. I want to see the MPs who thought it was acceptable to ignore ethics and focus purely on what they could get away with taught a lesson. I want them humiliated and then replaced.
It was a a month ago that the Rat and Mouse brought readers' attention to the passing of the Homeowner Mortgage Support Scheme deadline for lenders to sign up. We'd heard stuff. What kind of stuff? The kind of stuff that suggested so many major lenders were planning on kicking the whole scheme to the sidelines that it was going to be as effective as a bicycle with square wheels. Today, a mere four months after the emergency scheme was announced, it goes live. Except, without the support of Barclays, HSBC, Nationwide, Abbey or Alliance & Lester. Never mind, Government-owned Lloyds, RBS and Northern Rock were all keen...
Officially - according to the High Court - it was fraud. Property developer Alan Beesley had planning permission to build a hay barn on land near commuterland Potter's Bar, and from the outside that's exactly what it looked like. Inside, however, it was a luxury home. Beesley apparently planned on remaining in hiding for four years, after which they'd be legally immune from planning law-related eviction. Full story, plus great photos, here.
See, we can all be estate agents. This man wants you to find London sites for new Travelodges. In return, he'll pay you £500 per room. Oi, the glamour.
It's long been said that the time and care taken over viewings is diminishing, but how about this? Ray and Christine Buckler look around a house in Somerset, decide they want it... and only later discover a fire engine in the garden.
There's an interesting piece in Estate Agent Today, posing questions about the legality of recent REDC auctions. The rules are that lenders must obtain a reasonable value for a repossessed property... since, in the UK, the previous owner is liable for the difference between the outstanding debt and the what was raised by its sale. According to data from rival company WhiteHotProperty.co.uk, the auction houses are typically bringing in 30% less than can be achieved. REDC has a reputation for shifting property fast, and charges the buyer a 10% commission. The suggestion is that canny landlords are factoring the 10% into what they pay. Read the full piece, here.
Bumping along the bottom means just that... bumping. So there are bound to be occasional ups as well as downs. Their significance is relative to historical data, not just last month's. So, news from the Council of Mortgage Lenders that there has been a 4% rise in new approvals in February isn't bad news; but - with remortgages still -60% and new loans -50% from where they were a year ago - it's hardly good times either. First-time buyers are, its generally agreed, what makes a healthy market move. Included in the CML report... ftbs are contributing average deposits of 25%.
What's the story? Ten minutes ago, The News Of The World was reporting that, following the failure of his buy-to-let empire, Grant Bovey had started a new business... buying "distressed" homes on the repo market. Clearly, it's not the best PR move considering his wife has a TV career based, one might argue, on appealing to the credit crunched, many of who's homes might be in repo-danger right now. Interestingly, It's still showing up on a Google news search.
That's 18 to 34-year-olds living rent-free with parents, other relatives, friends. This time last year, the figure was around half a million. Now - according to research by Abbey Mortgages - it's 1.6m. And there's a further 300,000 aged 35 to 54.
The MPs' expenses row has taken a turn today with some attention to MPs who have the use of grace-and-favour properties. Geoff Hoon came under the spotlight first, and the latest name to be hitting the headlines is none other than the Chancellor's. Darling spends time at 11 Downing Street (note to foreign readers: the traditional Downing Street property that comes with the job), and claims expenses for a second home in his Edinburgh constituency. There's just the question, however, of his own London flat, designated for the purposes of expenses his principal residence, which he rents out at a profit. It's all legal. But is it ethical? Should - perhaps - the earnings from the flat off-set the money he claims in expenses? Summary, here.
Meanwhile, the Daily Mail wonders whether hanging might be "too good for them". Distasteful?
HSBC has announced the launch of an independent whole-of-market mortgage brokerage service... which means you might walk into an HSBC and be recommended an HBOS product. It's in association with Charcol, and it's to be trialed 19 branches. The cost of independence will be £150.
Wait... I know this... is it they both achieved double starred firsts from Cambridge University? No? Is it they both launched estate agencies and sold them for hundreds of millions of pounds? No? Charlie Brooker doesn't like them? That's probably true, but who does he like? The answer is... they're both to blame for the current economic meltdown. The Times's Sathnam Sanghera picks five alternatives to Fred Goodwin if you've got a little spare hate jangling around and you're looking for somewhere to spend it. At Number Three:
In May 2007 the founder of Foxtons banked an estimated £370million when he sold his estate agency to the private equity group BC Partners at the height of the property boom. Nothing wrong with that, of course - a smart entrepreneur with good timing. The objectionable thing is the misery that Hunt caused in the process of making his fortune.
Misery? Really? He frustrated some buyers and made some vendors (the ones paying his wages) wealthier than they might have otherwise been. Yes - like every estate agency - Foxtons contributed to keeping an unsustainable property market unsustainable, and they made life tough for their new recruits. But - come on - greedy vendors and fresh-out-of-school loadsamonies in flash suits. Not what I'd call victim material. More surprising, though, at Number Four:
When people are losing their jobs, struggling with mortgages, swapping Waitrose for Aldi, the last thing they need is someone who has never really had to work (de Botton's late father was a Swiss financier who apparently left him a trust fund of £200million), pretentiously encouraging us to ask such questions as: “What do I get from work apart from money?”; “What makes work pleasurable?”; “Why do we daily exhaust ourselves?”.
Okay, I can see your point. But that's really painting de Botton as an irritation rather than a cause of actual injury. By the way, at Number Five, the writer blames himself... all of us... and although a little harsh (apparently not a homeowner) comes closest to the truth. It's a good read.
