I don't want reproduce the picture, because it's a scoop and I'll probably get sued, but click this for a nice close-up. It's a picture of "Housing Minister" Caroline Flint's Cabinet briefing notes, caught by a photographer as she waived them around while entering No. 10. "These things happen," she said, afterward. They do - but they shouldn't, especially with economic confidence at an all-time low, the market ruled by sentiment, and fear currently a knife-edge from panic. The notes revealed that Government officials expect house prices to dip 5%-10% "at best" this year, and stated "we can't know how bad it will get" (which - if you think about it - is kind of obvious, but Flint still needed it written down). Really, it's another fumble... another moment of clumsiness that will cost British people, none of whom will have voted for a Government of teenagers led by a damaged class bully. The Rat and Mouse has no party political agenda whatsoever (but rather takes the view that the very act of running for a public position is enough to demonstrate unsuitability). In this instance, though, it's time Gordon Brown and his mediocre but oh-so arrogant cabinet called an election.

Technorati Tags: property, real estate

"I've just gazundered a 70-year-old lady who is undergoing a hip replacement,'' said Blavier, 39. ``You can't get a scenario to make you feel more guilty. But this is not my hobby. It's what helps me make a living.''

Oh, that's okay then, mate. Except, technically, it's neither an excuse nor the whole truth. (Sports massage therapist Blavier actually makes his living rubbing the thighs of people richer than him.) The quote is from an interesting piece in Bloomberg on the subject of gazundering. As our publisher recently noted, gazundering's ethically complex, the result of a system that applies business transaction rules to home transactions, and trusts both parties to behave like gentlemen. So when you match a poorly geriatric with an avaricious masseur, ugliness is almost certainly guaranteed.

Technorati Tags: property, real estate

According to Government figures, more than 30% of new London homes are being built on former gardens. Although this isn't about people building mini-homes on their lawns (the majority of cases are developers knocking existing houses down and replacing them developments that extend into the former gardens), it's still not a good trend for quality of life in the Capital. More here.

Technorati Tags: London, property, real estate

Business is booming in the repo sector, with new figures showing that home repossession orders increased by a fifth in the first quarter of the year (compared to the same period in 2007). They're also up 9% on the previous quarter. The figures come courtesy of the Ministry of Justice, and they'll be received with much interest, as the first clue to how over-stretched homeowners are coping with the downturn.

Technorati Tags: property, real estate

At 5%. Few people expected back-to-back cuts; but there's a lot of talk of a cut to 4.75% next month. More here.

Technorati Tags: property, real estate

Thanks to the Rat and Mouse reader who alerted me to the new flat-pack homes apparently available through Argos... although I can't find any sign of them in the online catalogue. According to this, in the Sun, they start at £11,000 (plus £4.95 delivery) and can be erected in a day or two.

[photo from the Sun]

Technorati Tags: design, property, real estate

2007 was the year the ‘lifestyle farmers’ bought more land than actual raised-on-the-dirt farmers. If you read the Sunday supplements you know the type, migrating London fops inspired by Blur’s Alex James to add a little country rosiness to their families’ cheeks without going the whole ruddy, tractor-face mile. Then and bigger City investors with bonuses to burn who – apparently – tend to make their country purchases on the hush-hush. Lifestyle farmers grow vegetables and chop wood for their stoves, but allow local farmers to raise animals on their land while they stay out of the rain and knit chickens.

Our publisher, on the one property sector still booming, in his guest column for Citywire.

Technorati Tags: property, real estate, theRatandMouse

HIPs provider LMS has been keeping a close eye on what's happening between agreement and exchange. The answer, it seems, is quite a lot, and not much of it's very good. In London, it found a cancellation rate of 24%, and those who do get to exchange take an average of 68 days to do so.

[via FindaProperty.com]

Technorati Tags: London, property, real estate

According to the Bank of England, lenders might be over-estimating sub-prime losses, and what they should be doing, instead of sitting on their hands, is lending. If they don't, they're contributing to a self-fulfilling prophecy, as house prices slide and debt loses its value. More here.

Technorati Tags: property, real estate

‘Gazunder.’ He did his best Simon Callow impression. ‘That’s a quaint word.’ I explained, there’s nothing quaint about its meaning 1) n. a pot for lazy Brummies to pee into when it’s too cold to get out of bed 2) v. pretty much the same practice, aimed at a vendor during an ailing housing market. For the purposes of this column, we’re discussing the second. And gazundering is back.

Our publisher, on gazundering, in his weekly column for Citywire.

Technorati Tags: property, real estate, theRatandMouse

As a symbol of an era now passed, Inside Track does pretty well. A property investment company and seminar school that promised property riches and a live on easy street, it taught buy-to-let landlording and off-plan property flipping to a generation of get-rich-quick clients who knew only a rising market. To be fair, some of its early customers might have done very well. But those days are over. As is Inside Track, which went into administration this morning. And according to this, today brings a bit of a double whammy for Inside Track boss Jim Moore:

In 2004, his marriage to Kim broke up. The couple have since been arguing over a settlement. Today, a court will announce that the former Mrs Moore has been awarded £15m.

Technorati Tags: property, real estate

How, exactly, did Labour peer George Foulkes manage to rack up £45,000 in overnight expenses to stay in a London flat he inherited, mortgage-free, from his mother? The expenses cover a two-year period. During the same two-year period Foulkes - according to this - managed to buy £600,000 of property in cash deals. He's quoted in the Sunday Herald thus:

Foulkes said yesterday: "This is beneath contempt. I have stayed there since 1980. I still have costs in London. I claim for having a flat and overnight stays, including food, travel and taxis. On whether he planned to reduce his overnight costs in the future, he said: "I don't know. Let's hope the cost of electricity and other things is maintained at the current level."

The London flat doubles as a business address for a directorship that nets him £50,000 a year. Presumably, then, that particular business isn't claiming utility-related expenses when it files tax returns.

Technorati Tags: celebrity, London, property, real estate

They've downed tools and walked off site, and they'll return when there's a sunnier economic climate. Sales have apparently fallen by 24%, and Britain's biggest housebuilder can't see the point in building. Persimmon boss Mike Farley was clear, though, to blame lending rather than simply falling prices. More here.

Technorati Tags: property, real estate

It’s a valuable lesson for all politicians. If you decide to hitch a ride on a bubble when it’s on the way up, make sure you remember to bring a parachute for when it inevitably pops.

It's the question asked by John Stepek, in an interesting blog piece over at Moneyweek. We put up with Brown's more cretinous traits when we were being placated by easy credit and our houses were doubling in value every few years, argues Stepek; now that we can't indulge our expensive, credit-fuelled hobbies any more we've time on our hands to see Brown for the ditherer and incompetent he really is.

Technorati Tags: property, real estate

... try commercial.

Technorati Tags: London, property, real estate

That's right, of course; except down, according to the British Bankers' Association, by 50% March-to-March, to their lowest level in a decade. They fell from February by 18%. More here.

Technorati Tags: property, real estate

John Paulson isn't queasy about making billions from people’s misfortune; in fact, he’s said to have kicked up a fuss when Bear Stearns drew up plans to bail out lenders, claiming market manipulation. Does that sound like you or me? It doesn’t sound like me. I experience a tiny pang of guilt every time I win a poker hand. It might sound like you though. David Jones, chief market strategist at IG Index, tells me the spread betting specialist has recently experienced something of a dramatic run on wagers on the Halifax house price index.

Our publisher, and his weekly column, over at Citywire.

Technorati Tags: property, real estate, theRatandMouse

And - perhaps surprisingly considering a) the bank must be fairly busy right now b) the letter writer's illiterate - he gets a reply. Here are some highlights:

Under what remit is the bank of englands job to prop up an over inflated housing market?? I now feel compelled to support the Euro currency and want no further involvement in sterling, above that I have to have. At least the Euro has sensible polocies and a more accurate measure on inflation... This is incompetence at the heighest level.

Add a giant sic to the above and you get the gist. The bank's response is pretty much a press release, but at least it's a response. Read the whole thing - including a comment thread that pretty quickly degenerates into one person calling another gay - here. And, seriously, all credit to HPC's waitingfor hpc for having the gumption to go straight to the source.

Technorati Tags: property, real estate

I've always believed that, when it comes to nature, value's in the eye of the beholder, but - according to the capital asset value for amenity trees (CAVAT) system, it's calculated by its size, health, historical significance and the number of people able to enjoy it. A platanus or "plane tree" in Mayfair apparently does rather well from CAVAT, and has just been named Britain's most valuable tree, with an estimated worth of three-quarters of a million. Apparently, it's six feet wide, and Victorian. We're making enquiries regarding its exact location, because we'd love a photo...

Technorati Tags: London

Meanwhile, yesterday's Observer reported on "Chancellor" Alistair Darling's enthusiasm for mortgage holildays... a chance to, you know, just get away from that boring monthly repayment grind and enjoy a few months in the disposable income sunshine, living it large. First, it's pass on the rate cuts! Now it's give your borrowers a break! If our "Chancellor" didn't have the timing of a comic genius, the banks might have lost their respect for him...

Technorati Tags: property, real estate

They've pulled all their buy-to-let offerings, in a day that has also seen them tightening up their residential lending criteria, and reduce the number of available residential deals. More here.

Technorati Tags: property, real estate

It's a possibility, according to a report by independent investment bank Reynolds Partners. They've been looking at the state of British utilities providers and - after a period of expensive buyouts - discovered a level of debt that could, in the current climate, make unforeseen repair programmes difficult. Here's chief John Reynolds, quoted in yesterday's Observer:

'I think that it is only a matter of time before there is a major shock and we find that a utility can't afford to restore power to homes, hospitals or businesses. At that point the regulator would have to allow bills to rise to pay for the damage, or customers will have to wait longer than they should for normal service to resume, or both.'

Technorati Tags: property, real estate

If you've watched a news today you'll be aware that the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has written 112 letters to 112 building firms alleging them of bid-rigging which is a contravention of English law. Remember -

No assumption should be made at this stage that there has been an infringement of competition law by any of the companies named in the SO. The 112 parties concerned now have the opportunity to make written and oral representations which the OFT will take into account before making a final decision as to whether competition law has been infringed, and as to the appropriate amount of any penalties the OFT may decide to impose on each of the firms concerned.

However, since the OFT's published the list, the Rat and Mouse thought you might like to see it. It includes some well-known names.

Technorati Tags: property, real estate

There's an interesting piece over at Bloomberg. It doesn't tell us anything startlingly new: people got greedy and over-extended themselves, now they're in the shit, the inner-city apartment builders who relied on them are in the shit, and the lenders and surveyors and various other facilitators who walked the tightrope between stupid optimism and fraud might turn out to be in the shit, too, soon if people like Richard Lee get their way. Lee leveraged £150,000 up to £5.3m of property in - it appears - all the worst places. All his property's now owned by the bank, after losing 40% in value.

Lee and 85 other investors plan to sue the developers, lenders, appraisers and solicitors involved in their property transactions. Lee's attorney, Hammad Ahmad of Max Gold Partnership in Hull, England, said the lawsuit will probably be filed in about two months.

Read it and weep/laugh (delete, depending on your personal view) here.

Technorati Tags: property, real estate

According to this in the Telegraph, the Halifax is preparing to push up rates on its most popular mortgages by as much as 0.5% tomorrow, leaving two-year fixed rates at 6.12%. Longer term fixes (three and five years) will be unaffected.

Technorati Tags: property, real estate

Research by mortgage brokers Mform shows that average arrangement fees have almost doubled in the last 12 months... £1,132 for a 3-year fixed rate, £1,478 for a 2-year fixed rate. HSBC, who stole the headlines recently for offering to match the terms of expiring fixed rate deals, are doing so at a premium, with fees up to £5,000.

Technorati Tags: property, real estate

It's the negative equity map of London, compiled by the Evening Standard, using Experian data. First off:

The map itself seems to reflect the fast-rising house prices of the last decade, with most constituencies falling in the low or below average risk categories. There are just three labeled high: Hackney & Shoreditch, Poplar & Canning Town, Barking; and a little cluster of above average in the east and south east. Taking all this into account, what's to explain the bizarre "reader view" left below the accompanying piece?

Do you ever look at these comments and just think... I could have been sitting next to that person on the tube tonight.... or, worse, he/she might have been driving it?

Technorati Tags: London, property, real estate

It's located at Bowl Court, in Shoreditch, a vacant four-storey building in prime London real estate land that - according to Indymedia - has been deliberately gutted by the owners to deter squatters... toilets smashed, windows smashed, hole in the roof etc... and its part of a weekend of squat-related action, matching people to places and other people. More here.

Posh squatters - they're back [November 13, 2006]
When property was theft in Brixton... [January 19, 2006]

Technorati Tags: estate agents, London, property, real estate, real estate agents

In a response to yesterday's rate cut, Deloitte adviser Roger Bootle predicted that rate cuts will only end when base rates reach 3.5%, sometime in 2009. Allan Monks from JPMorgan Chase suggests a further half a per cent cut by this summer. More here.

Technorati Tags: property, real estate

A little earlier, we wondered whether today's interest rate cut would reach borrowers interested in fixed rate deals. We knew what the answer would be; we didn't know we'd receive it so quickly. Already, both the Nationwide and Alliance & Leicester have announced plans to increase rates on their fixed rate deals by as much as 0.32%.

Technorati Tags: property, real estate

It's a quarter point cut to 5%. Will borrowers see it? I'd be surprised, despite growing political pressure. Will savers? But of course.

Technorati Tags: property, real estate

Because it's interest rate day. Most appear to be predicting a quarter point cut; although an economist on last night's Newsnight claimed even a 0.5% cut would only leave us "back where we started". With the pound where it is, would a 0.5% cut be impossible?

Technorati Tags: property, real estate

In case you haven't heard... just when the rest of the market has practically shut its doors and retired to the snug, HSBC is offering to match borrowers' current deals. They estimate that three-quarters of customers will pay less than a grand to arrange mortgages; and they're preparing for enquiries to rise threefold. Hmm. The Rat and Mouse would be surprised if that doesn't turn out to be on the low side. Clearly, HSBC will be cherry-picking the safest customers... but surely this is also a big bet on the side of interest rates remaining low for some time. More here.

Technorati Tags: property, real estate

Abbey National has removed the last major 100% mortgage from the market, effectively ending the era of the stupid mortgage. The Times, and others, fear the effect this might have on the market. The Rat and Mouse has sympathy for recent 100% mortgagees who face SVR repayments when their deal comes to an end, but can't, in all honestly, mourn the death of the stupid mortgage.

Technorati Tags: property, real estate

Technorati Tags: property, real estate

Over at property search engine Primemove they've been tracking the fortunes of 18,500 homes on the market since August 2007, and the results are fairly shocking. Just 20% have been sold (or been withdrawn from the market for other reasons), suggesting that "80% of people who put their property on the market since the Northern Rock crisis have yet to find a buyer". Primemove chief, Henry Pryor, is in characteristically outspoken form:

"Whilst we have been urging caution for the past 12 months, lenders have been arguing that things were not too bad and their indexes have been suggesting that house prices have continued to slightly rise - even into the new year. Frankly "liar, liar, pants on fire". I don't believe a word of it and it does a huge disservice to sellers and to the rest of the market when those responsible for funding house purchases not only deny that the scale of the problem but compound it by withdrawing their products so that even if someone finds something to buy they now find that some banks don't have a single mortgage product to sell!"

Pryor calls on the newly nationalised Northern Rock to repay the tax payer by "getting back to work" and offering mortgages to buyers. "There seems to be money to pay bonuses," he points out.

Technorati Tags: property, real estate

... despite the fact that, according to PropertyWeek.com:

The TV king regaled the audience with his own `awards’, recounting his experiences of meeting a galaxy of stars before hosting the event.

Christ... no credit, the arse falling out of the market, being told you're a has-been and now a night of Parky's celebrity moments. It's enough to make you toss the keys to your Cayenne to the nearest vagrant, loosen your giant tie-knot and head for the cheapest bar. Anyway, winners included HSBC for Deal of the Year (sale of Canary Wharf) and Francis Salway of Land Securities (Property Personality of the Year... an award which I'm still holding out for, by the way). For a full list, go here.

Technorati Tags: London, property, real estate

Over at the Telegraph, Angela Pertusini meets Michael Holmes, developer, editor-in-chief of Homebuilding & Renovating magazine and author of this. He talks to Pertusini about how he got from buying his landlady's place in Maida Vale to his current (rather odd) mock-Georgian house (with "modern" glass extension) in just 13 years. Not all of it - for me, anyway - is entirely comfortable reading...

... he is someone who is completely unable to resist a deal, to ignore an angle: when his father died recently, instead of selling his home, he immediately applied for - and was granted - consent to demolish the house and build two new ones on the plot. A developer paid handsomely for this uplift.

But perhaps that's just an example of why I'm not cut out for the life of a property mogul. Tthere's no denying his skill, courage and energy; and what he has to say about micro-markets can't be said often enough. Go here for the piece.

Technorati Tags: property, real estate

Total lending's down a third between February 2007 and February 2008, but remortgaging - people seeking new deals to replace ones coming to an end - was up 5.5%, suggesting it must be harder than ever for first-time buyers. More here.

Technorati Tags: property, real estate

HousemateHeaven.com - a housemate listing service for city sharers - is appealing for nominations for London Best & Worst Housemates. It's a competition, the nominations close on April 28, and if your nominee wins a category you'll earn yourself a bottle of wine. Which could - I guess - be seen as some kind of compensation.

I lick my cheese [November 29, 2007]

Technorati Tags: London, property, real estate

For every method of skinning a cat, there are 20 ways of measuring residential property prices. Few of them will relate, much, to your house.

The publisher's column, over at Citywire.

Technorati Tags: property, real estate, theRatandMouse

First-time buyers must - and I stress must - be treated with as much care and solace as ickle baby bluetits that have just fallen out of the nest. They have to face off not only the big bad birds that are already on the housing ladder, but the horrid estate-agent squirrels and the nasty tomcats of buy-to-let land, always ready to crush their hopes and feathery ambitions in their rapacious jaws.

Screw 'em, she says, life's tough. Read it, here.

Technorati Tags: property, real estate

We've been here before... back in 2004/2005, when developers would wine you, dine you, possibly get on their knees and unzip you, definitely pay your moving costs, throw in a car, an Arsenal season ticket if you'd only sign on the line that's dotted. According to this, in the Telegraph, it's incentives time again, including part exchange deals on your own home (careful), other chain-busting schemes, move in for £99 initiatives and guaranteed rental incomes for landlords. We're not at the plasma TV and all you can drink in an hour at the local Slug & Lettuce yet, but there's time. Rat and Mouse advice (based on 2004/2005): pay more attention to what the new-build might really be worth, and go for the (substantial) discount. That's if you want to risk buying at all right now.

Technorati Tags: property, real estate

In addition to the Citizens' Advice Bureaux survey story - making headlines on BBC news today - there are figures by credit reference agency Experian offering a regional view of debt. The most indebted place in the UK is, apparently, Richmond-upon-Thames, followed by Putney, Kingston-upon-Thames, Windsor and Wandsworth... suggesting there's a bit of an issue over in south west London.

Technorati Tags: London, property, real estate

... where homeowners can smugly watch the rest of the country gripe and gazunder through the market correction. Ah, yes, west London... right? Where we fight for the right to walk more than six pooches at a time, and where are Range Rovers phone home if a chav looks at them funny. Right? Wrong. Where the hell's Tenby?

Technorati Tags: property, real estate

According to a survey by TripAdvisor, we're the dirtiest city in Europe. And not in a good way. We're also the priciest, and second most unfriendly (those bastards in Paris won that one). However, we have the nicest parks.

[via The China Post, of all places]

Technorati Tags: London

Well I - for one - am impressed. Before yesterday, I didn't think it was possible for anybody to take so long to say so little. One MP leaked to the Rat and Mouse that Darling's aids handed out little doodling pads and pencils shortly before the speech. On the television coverage, I saw one backbencher with a PSP.

With the content, I was less impressed. Here was an opportunity for the government to look closer at stamp duty and, with house prices falling, really provide an opportunity to first-time buyers to jump on the property ladder. They didn't take it. Shared equity is just that... shared with the government... and the UK's key workers, while important, are only a small proportion of those struggling to buy homes or live near enough to where they work. It will be the failure to properly refocus stamp duty that will be seen as one of this budget's greatest disappointments.

Technorati Tags: property, real estate

• Shared equity housing schemes announced to aid key workers
• Shared ownership (less than 80% of the home) means zero stamp duty
• More building
• Long-term fixed rate mortgages encouraged... at this point, though, it's not clear how

Many were expecting a more realistic movement on stamp duty. Expect disappointment. Back with more, later...

Technorati Tags: property, real estate

Go to the Daily Mail page, here, for the photos. Basically... before: couple of spider plants, sofa, mirror; after: 50 ultraviolet lights burning through £100 of electricity to hot house £100,000 of cannabis.

Thursday morning linkage - cannabis factories issue profit warning, blame house prices [May 31, 2007]
You read it here first: Rent-To-Grow [April 3, 2007]
Merton's Mary-Jane farmers get smoked out [March 16, 2006]

Technorati Tags: property, real estate

According to the Sunday Times, they're a couple of Home Counties sisters called Fawn and India Rose... their names and locations symbolic of a successful movement of hundreds of millions of pounds from furtive masturbation to middle-class respectability in just two generations. The piece also tracks down a few other possible heirs.

London property tycoon and King of Skin dies [March 3, 2008]

Technorati Tags: London, property, real estate, real_estate

Last summer I reported the appearance on the market of the Solent's landmark No Man's Land fort. It turns out things haven't exactly gone smoothly. Knight Frank were instructed to market the remarkable property for £4m, after the owner's financial backers went bust. However - according to this - the said owner isn't prepared to move out without a fight. He's attached upturned tables to the helipads and locked the doors. If Knight Frank want to conduct any viewings, looks like they'll have to bring the Navy.

Technorati Tags: estate agents, property, real estate, real estate agents

Bank base rates remain at 5.25%. More here.

Technorati Tags: property, real estate

Work began yesterday and will continue until March 8, when the Newspaper House - in Gillett Square, in Hackney - will stand for a day before being sent off for recycling. The idea is to draw attention to the daily waste caused by London's free newspaper racket. More here.

Technorati Tags: London

Paul Raymond - owner of Raymond's Revuebar, swathes of property in Soho and west London and a host of upmarket magazine titles such as Razzle and Men Only - died yesterday, according to this. Born Geoffrey Anthony Quinn, he is rumoured to have been a billionaire. A devout Catholic, according to his Wikipedia page, he invested his considerable wealth in a series of important cultural achievements, starting with Carry On Sergeant in the late 1950s.

Technorati Tags: London, property, real estate

You know you want to. RottenNeighbor.com is a new public service website with a twist. Use the embedded Google map to tag your irritating neighbours, and explain why you hate them. Join the message board to discuss further. It's being marketed as a real estate site, aimed at helping potential buyers avoid nasty surprises. But surely there's a conflict of interest here. I wouldn't want to advertise my noisy, abusive neighbours to potential buyers... and so risk either driving down the price of my property or discourage nice, new, fragrant people from moving into the area. Or am I being picky? Anyway, it's a US site, and the London map is surprisingly sparse right now. You know what to do.

Technorati Tags: London, property, real estate, Web, Web2, web2.0

Alliance & Leicester, Coventry Building Society, Abbey National and Godiva Mortgages are all scrapping their 100%+ mortgages this week, leaving just Northern Rock and Birmingham Midshires in the stupid mortgage game. So, if you're shopping for a 125% mortgage, you'd better wind up your hat propeller and move quickly.

HBOS under fire for 125% mortgage [November 7, 2006]
Super-mortgage leads news agenda [November 1, 2006]
Your big fat 100% mortgage [March 6, 2006]
Hollingworth defends the 125% mortgage [February 10, 2006]
Endowment crisis - we're more stupid than anyone thought [February 6, 2006]
Great new crazy mortgage [June 16, 2005]

Technorati Tags: property, real estate

According to the new edition of the Lonely Planet Guide to London, the future of fun is to be found east, with Hoxton, Brick Lane, Whitechapel et al officially ending the West End's part time dominance.

[via Guardian]

Technorati Tags: London

Brent and Harrow Councils are getting tough on residents who park their cars in their front gardens without permission. How tough? This tough. They've taken to putting up bollards in the middle of the night, in some instances actually blocking in cars that have already been parked.

Technorati Tags: London, property, real estate

Reports of the return of sell-to-rent began to appear toward the end of 2007, and over the weekend they made front page property news in the Observer. According to Rightmove research, the practice - selling, hopefully, at the top, renting for a while while prices drop, and then either buying back in further up the ladder or taking a profit - is picking up pace. The Rat and Mouse can only applaud bubble-sitters' courage. Few financial decisions are as risky, or real-world calculations as tricky... taking in the cost of storage, rents (which can go up and down), the costs of selling and buying, the value of time, inconvenience and risk, all multiplied by however long it might take for prices to start to drop and then assuming it's possible to buy in just before everybody else does. The chances of getting all this right are low, and the Rat and Mouse has seen shrewd people brought down by this tactic. Exciting, though. Best of luck.

Technorati Tags: property, real estate

Reports of the return of sell-to-rent began to appear toward the end of 2007, and over the weekend they made front page property news in the Observer. According to Rightmove Findaproperty (apologies, see comments below) research, the practice - selling, hopefully, at the top, renting for a while while prices drop, and then either buying back in further up the ladder or taking a profit - is picking up pace. The Rat and Mouse can only applaud bubble-sitters' courage. Few financial decisions are as risky, or real-world calculations as tricky... taking in the cost of storage, rents (which can go up and down), the costs of selling and buying, the value of time, inconvenience and risk, all multiplied by however long it might take for prices to start to drop and then assuming it's possible to buy in just before everybody else does. The chances of getting all this right are low, and the Rat and Mouse has seen shrewd people brought down by this tactic. Exciting, though. Best of luck.

Technorati Tags: property, real estate

The facts appear to be: serving prisoner manages to take out nine buy-to-let mortgages, using the prison as his official address on the forms. The FTAdviser has an unnamed source, who reveals that the lender in question is located in the north east and is currently in crisis. Northern Rock, however, denies it's them. It appears to be a breaking story, scooped from local IFA gossip, and the local police apparently haven't yet received a complaint. In the context of a growing mortgage fraud crisis, this could be interesting.

Technorati Tags: property, real estate

Breaking story, here.

Technorati Tags: property, real estate

Government figures reveal two years of falling owner-occupancy, with 2007 representing a particularly dramatic fall (the largest on record) from 70.3% to 69.8%, the lowest rate since 1998. London saw the biggest falls, by 6.3% between 2001 and 2006, and there's absolutely no reason to doubt that trend hasn't continued. More, courtesy of Citwire, here.

Technorati Tags: London, property, real estate

After 15 years, according to a judge. Djabar Babal has been awarded squatter's rights to his £200,000 Stockport home, after failing to pay anything on the property since coughing up just £40 sometime in 1993. So is the rule good news for people struggling to pay their mortgages? Not likely... it may mean lenders acting quicker on defaulters, for fear they'll lose everything if they hang around. More here.

Technorati Tags: property, real estate

... Pointing out that only 40% of first-time buyers in 2007 managed to escape the tax by buying under the £125,000 limit. More here.

Technorati Tags: property, real estate

From 5.5% to 5.25%. More here.

Technorati Tags: property, real estate

According to new research by the National Housing and Planning Advice Unit buy-to-let investment has had only a 7% effect on house prices in the last five years, throwing into doubt the assumption that the availability of buy-to-let mortgages has been an important factor in first-time buyer misery. The major causes of rising house prices and unaffordability have, the report suggests, been rising interest rates and higher numbers of households. The research follows similar finding by Capital Economics. Furthermore, both CE and NHPAU (NUPOW!!) believe that buy-to-let has had a positive effect on the quality and quantity of available rented accommodation. You might not like it, but that's what they're saying. More here.

Technorati Tags: property, real estate

Thanks to the Rat and Mouse reader who alerted me to this cracking tale of right honourable greed. Tory man-and-wife MPs Sir Nicholas Winterton and Ann Winterton have managed to get their trotters on £165,000 of Commons expenses for a £700,000 second home with zero mortgage. How've they managed that? They've taken the home out of their own name and into a "family trust", benefiting twice... avoiding any future inheritance tax when the property would have been left to their kids, and claiming £30,000 a year in "rental", tax money paid into the family trust to benefit their kids. Clearly, there's nothing illegal about this. But is it right? Sir Nicholas - challenged by the Standard - can't see why not:

He said: "I am not dishonest. We don't own the flat, because once it is handed over, it becomes the property of the beneficiaries of the trust [his children].
"I see nothing unethical or wrong in it. It was agreed by the Commons Fees office – I happen to rent a property that I bought outright."

Let's hear that again, Sir Nicholas:

"I happen to rent a property that I bought outright."

One of two things is happening here. He's either being disingenuous. He can see the problem, but chooses to pursue self-interest at the expense of ethics. Or, he really can't see why buying a house and paying his own family rent from the public purse is a problem. Either way, is this a man suited to making law?

Technorati Tags: celebrity, property, real estate

"Sod London house prices" and "Screw working in Staines, hello Adelaide" are among a number of new South Australian Government slogans, designed to attract Brits who might be considering a move to Australia, and to further enforce national stereotypes that portray Australians as crude. The campaign - which starts today - will claim a four-bedroom detached house on the beach will cost as little as £195,000. According to this Australian news source, the campaign will be aimed at chefs, butchers, physiotherapists, dentists and dermatologists.

Technorati Tags: property, real estate

It's a paper by The Centre for Policy Studies and it suggests that a UK household pays, on average, £7,800 more in tax each year than in 1997. Disposable income is down from 71% of gross income to 67%. That's of gross income, which, frankly, surprises me. If I'd had to stick the disposable income tail on the donkey of gross income I'd have put it somewhere lower. The report - by the way - is called Why Do We Feel So Broke? And the CPS is chaired by the ex-Head of the Prime Minister's Policy Unit 1995-1997. So, an academic, neutral piece of research it isn't. If you want to read it for yourself, you can either feel even more broke by ordering a paper copy for £2.50, or you can download a pdf by pointing your mouse here and clicking one of its buttons.

Technorati Tags: property, real estate

Not if, like Heenal Lakhani, you don't mind storing up a bit of bad karma by snapping up repo homes at bargain prices and selling them on at a profit. Be prepared, though, for some unpleasant surprises. The properties Lakhani buys are cold, damp, a mess. Later in the piece, the Times talks to somebody who chases mortgage debt for lenders. Clearly he sees the extreme side of things when the lender-borrower relationship breaks down... with tales of trashed properties, kitchen units ripped out, windows smashed, doors removed, "and worse... much, much worse". We think we know where he's going with that.

Technorati Tags: property, real estate

If you ever watch television dramas set before 1960 you'll know that up prior to that date all working class women - and especially Scousers - spent exactly 70% of their time scrubbing the front steps. After 1960, the availability of free school milk and cheap paperback books meant that front step scrubbing markedly decreased, and a swathe of Liverpudlian women discovered they could walk erect. But we're still - apparently - obsessed with keeping up with the Joneses. A survey by fish4homes reveals 51% of DIYers are motivated by neighbourly competition, compared to a mere 14% concerned with safeguarding or increasing the value of their property. Londoners, however, are the least concerned with appearances, spending an average of just 30 minutes a week on their frontage.

Technorati Tags: London, property, real estate

The secret of über-developer Lois Gosling, as revealed to the Telegraph:

"People earning huge sums want top products."

Gosling has an enviable track record, turning mammoth profits on swish properties in no time at all. As well as paying attention to the kit, she apparently works fast, claiming to go from first viewing to detailed plans, costs, finance and purchase in less than two days. She's currently selling Cornwall Gardens in Kensington, Queens Gardens in up-and-coming W2 and Langham Mansions in Earl's Court Square. If you're a budding property developer the Rat and Mouse recommends you read the Telegraph piece so you can see what you're competing against... well-connected, well-financed pros with cheap credit and ready-to-move crews.

The Lancasters - some prices revealed [January 17, 2008]
Hookahs, hookers and Tony Blair get lucky... it's Bayswater time [November 19, 2007]

Technorati Tags: London, property, real estate

In a new report, Shelter demands that lenders offer help to homeowners struggling to meet repayments, and reveals that calls to the charity from the mortgage-stressed increased from 10,000 in 2006 to 80,000 in 2007. What a difference a few percentage points make. According to the report, too many borrowers are being forced into sale and rent-back schemes or further loans. More here.

Technorati Tags: property, real estate

New loans for house purchases were down 38% in December (compared to December 2006) levels, and totaled just 42,088... the lowest figure since records beg