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.
It was March 20... the deadline for lenders to sign up to a scheme touted as the solution to what may turn out to be a repo-crisis in the UK. The program was announced by Gordon Brown last year, and supposed to become active in January. He claimed that lenders were enthusiastic. But it turned out they weren't so enthusiastic they wanted to actually, you know, sign up, and so the date was put off until April. So - now - with the deadline for sign-up gone - where are we? Officially, we don't know, because the Government refuses to say. But the rumours are that less than 50% of lenders are on side. According to sources, and if anyone wishes to correct us on any of this please drop us a line or leave a comment, the following lenders are not part of the scheme:
Abbey
Barclays
Nationwide
Skipton
Yorkshire
Kensington
GMAC
Is this another Government initiative that's announced loudly, swept under the rug quietly?
His parents had just paid for a new roof on their big Berkshire home when posh son Rory decided to make a Google Earth statement by painting a 60ft penis. Pictures, and full "story", here.
She was "live" about a half hour ago, speaking on the subject of second homes, following the Government's rejection of MP Matthew Taylor's recommendation to trial a scheme in which planning laws would stop rural homes being turned into second homes. Now, the Rat and Mouse has never played a part in any of the shrill attacks on Allsopp we see in the property press. In fact, we can't help liking her. It was hard, however, to accept her argument, this morning, that the responsibility for keeping properties within a rural community lies with the individual vendors. If somebody needs to move - especially at a time like this - it seems naive to suggest that they're going to accept a decent offer only if it's from somebody who can guarantee they'll live full-time in the property. It doesn't strike us as constructive, either, to lay the blame for any failure in this regard with the local community. That sounds like a recipe for bullying, conflict, the kind unpleasantness we saw in rural Wales during the 1970s. For an alternative take on the issue, check this out in the Telegraph, which poses the pressing question... who can afford the hassle of a second home anyway?
Poor investment returns and a fall in subscription fee renewals are being blamed for a general salary freeze at the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. Eighteen people are also being made redundant. More here.
The list of local MPs claiming public money to pay for second homes within spitting distance of the family base is growing, including husband-and-wife team Alan and Ann Keen, dubbed Mr & Mrs Expenses, who have taken home more than £87,000 each. More here.
Figures from the British Bankers' Association show an increase in the number of new home loans in February, up to 28,179 from 24,278 in January, but still 31% lower than in February 2008. Net lending was up, too, but the total of all advanced mortgages fell off a little to £9.2bn, its lowest since June 2001.
A few thoughts about (Un)Employment Minister Tony McNulty, whose filthy fingers were found fiddling with taxpayers' money over the weekend. There are two issues here... one of legality, the other of ethics. Was taking £60,000 to spend on Mummy and Daddy's house in his Harrow constituency, a few minutes from his own W6 home, legal? Possibly... under self-imposed rules that favour the greedy. (But possibly not... according to Hammersmith MP Greg Hands who has lodged a complaint, pointing out that McNulty didn't regularly stay overnight in the property.) More importantly, though, was it ethical? There are several clues here. One is that McNulty admits to having felt "some discomfort" about claiming the money, although clearly not enough. There's also the fact that he stopped claiming in January, the very month Jacqui Smith was outed as a sleazy hypocrite, for taking £116,000 to pay the mortgage on her family home, while redefining chutzpah by insisting she actually "lived" in a room in her sister's gaff. Clearly... and I mean clearly... his actions have been unethical. If he had any sense of shame, whatsoever, he'd resign. If Brown - son of a preacher man - had any integrity, whatsoever, he'd fire him.
This was back in 2004. Four men - between the ages of 62 and 71 - proved they still had it in them by selling the Candy Brothers 47 acres in Berkshire that they didn't own. They took £6.5m and ran... well, walked quickly.
It's an interesting Observer piece, about a possible precedent set by a mortgagee who failed to make mortgage repayments, unfortunately had his home repossessed, but fought back in court, winning compensation on the basis that he received unsuitable advice and was mis-sold the mortgage. Had he taken action earlier, he might even have avoided repossession. The piece quotes professional negligence lawyers, who see an increase in this kind of activity in the future. More good news for lenders. Click through to the Observer page to read a checklist of possible bases for complaint.
A Financial Services Authority report has examined the likely state of homeownership should prices fall 30% from their peak, and revealed that such a scenario will leave two million in negative equity. Unless you're forced to move house, does it matter? The report suggests that households in negative equity are likely to reduce consumption, and thus further harm the economy. Of course, this is an endless chicken/egg debate, but the Rat and Mouse believes it's far more likely that the state of the economy, and particularly employment, has more of an affect on house prices (and thus bricks-and-mortar equity) than vice versa. Homeowners who stay in work can pretty much weather most problems... especially with interest rates so historically low.
Another report, by Which?, suggests that 35% of mortgagees are worried about losing their property. Interestingly... that's compared to 60% who are concerned about a job loss.
So the news this morning is that for six months after its multi-billion pound taxpayer rescue, Northern Rock continued to loan £800m in high-risk mortgages. The findings are from a National Audit Office report, which directly blames the Treasury for failing to carry out due diligence. Have these high-risk mortgages been significant for the lender? When examining the bigger picture, are they in the foreground? The Northern Rock 125% "Together" mortgage is apparently responsible for 50% of its arrears and 75% of its repossessions. And so... we're left to wonder what "due diligence" isn't being carried out right now, and we continue to sleep walk from crisis to crisis, with an unelected PM hopelessly out of his depth.
According to research by Lloyds TSB, falling house prices are likely to fuel a long term trend toward single living, with two million more single households by 2019. The trend began in the 1970s, but suffered a temporary 21st Century stall when house prices and rents made it practically difficult.
The number of mortgages in arrears by around three months (or 1.5% of the loan value) rose in 2008 by 31%, according to the Financial Services Authority. Astonishingly, in the last three months of 2008, 16.5% of all new mortgages were self-certified. Surely there's a happy medium between this madness, and an incompetent unelected government deciding to hammer the final nail in the residential property market by forcing unrealistic loan limits on the industry? Apparently not. There are new repo figures, too, and they're not any prettier. Repossessions rose by 68% last year, to 46, 750.
And stop smoking. And stop buying expensive coffees. And get used to tap water. And stop buying takeaways. And cancel their gym membership. And sell the car. And switch energy suppliers. And search online for discount vouchers. And then... then... they might be able to meet the new, tougher deposit criteria on that property which will be worth 10% less by this time next year. More here.
The 298-page report to clients by investment bank Numis Securities was written in February, but it's creating some eye-popping newspaper headlines in March. The key points appear to be... house prices remain 17% to 39% overvalued but (because of the nature of property bubbles) could drop a further 55% in an over-correction cause by buy-to-let panic selling... the Government monkeyed up the VAT drop and continues to monkey up the economy with an ill-advised policy of pushing banks toward inappropriate lending... and the clincher:
The bankruptcy of the UK is a very real probability as the UK Government is trying to stimulate a greater debt burden in a grossly indebted economy. We believe the scale of the macro imbalances in the UK means there is no prospect of a recovery in 2009 and we expect the UK to be mired in a deep recession through all of 2010
Mortgage brokers... they've almost less to keep them busy than estate agents. And so they're closing. We heard yesterday from a Rat and Mouse tipster about lay-offs over at Foxtons-linked mortgage brokers Alexander Hall, and a plan to move out of its posh Lombard Street head office. Now, there's news that Chase De Vere Mortgage Management and Cobalt Capital are shutting up shop altogether. That leaves just Alexander Hall and Savills Private Finance of the original five brokers in the once-powerful Concordia consortium. The news continues to beg the question, is there currently a role for the mortgage intermediary?
Before we go and start ushering in the weekend with the help of dry martini and queen olives, there's just about time to once again express our gratitude to our sponsor. Primelocation offers buyers and sellers an international reach, and its portal is a mine of useful information, including useful guides for homeowners, landlords and movers. It also, of course, features property from 4,000 leading estate agency firms. The Rat and Mouse needs the support of forward-looking organisations like Primelocation if it's to continue bringing you your daily dish of property news and gossip, so we hope you'll support them in return, by using the search box in the top right hand corner.
If your firm is interested in advertising on the Rat and Mouse (stop press: 200,000 page impressions in January), or if you've creative ideas about how we might work together, contact me here.
In the meantime, remember... the financial infrastructure might be collapsing, but it's never the wrong time for a party. See you Monday.
Base rates are now at a record-breaking 0.5%, and the bank will be printing an extra £75bn. The message? Borrow now; fail to pay back later. More here.
They're called Real Estate Disposition Corporation, they're an auction house specialising in repos and they're coming to the UK. They're also, apparently, noisy:
I'm sure we'll be okay. We've all seen THE PRICE IS RIGHT.
REDC also has a reputation for stacking high and selling fast, and has contributed to recent rises in volume in the US market. The HotProperty piece (linked above) makes the fair point that - with a good proportion purchases coming from professional buyers looking to flip for a profit - the danger is that these properties might turn into an untouchable tier, constantly being thrown back onto the market and hampering any real recovery.
Three thousand homes, made available at subsidised rental rates... with the opportunity to buy, for a price minus-rental paid so far, later on. More here.
Foreign readers, if you've found this message, please help me. I'm trapped on a small island just off the European mainland, with an unelected Prime Minister and an economy that's heading down the toilet. Meanwhile, the Deputy Prime Minister is hinting at a future in which the Government will pass laws that have the sole purpose of punishing individual citizens, in order to curry favour with the tabloid-reading masses. Please, have a heart... send help, invade, anything... SOS, SOS, SOS...
If the plan was to create some attention, it worked... this story's creating some headlines this morning. A GfK document is claiming that almost four million UK homeowners (one-in- are in negative equity. That's a figure way in excess of, in fact, pretty much double, any previous estimate, and it's twice the negative equity peak of the 90s crisis. Does the figure hold water? According to this, it's derived from interviews with 60,000 respondents. I don't know enough about the data business to judge whether that's a large enough sample (there are approximately 12m mortgage payers in the UK) but I do know that - given we're only in the early stages of a national job loss cycle - it's potentially very worrying.
A report, today, by the E-Homebuying Forum suggests merging conveyancing lawyers and estate agents into one single concentrated disliked profession. Its "Blueprint for the Future of Homebuying" seeks "Faster Certainty" in the homebuying process, by a combination of "Greater Transparency", "Greater Efficiency" and "Greater Commitment". Other specific suggestions include estate agency regulation, wider use of automated and electronic systems across the process and legally-binding pre-contracts with financial penalties. We like the last bit, but we're worried about the first. Estate agents are employed by the vendor, and their job is to sell a property. Lawyers are employed by the buyer, and part of their job is to warn the buyer why - on occasion - he shouldn't buy the property. You can read the document here.
It's a £2m mansion in West Sussex, inherited from her mother. The woman, who has never had a job, but also owns a B&B which creates income of around £30k annually, took out a £1.2m mortgage on the property in 2005, to spend on a property development project. She's been unable to make repayments, and her lenders have attempted to evict her. She plans to sue them for reckless lending. After all, it's only fair. More here.
Time for a round-up of news from the trough. First off, it appears that former deputy leader of the Tories and a man reputed to be worth £27m has been asking us to cough up some cash to help him have the moss removed from the walls of his five-bedroom home in two acres of Wiltshire. If you feel that's money well spent... good for you. Elsewhere, fellow Tory MP Chris Grayling is said to have claimed more than £100,000 from the state to pay for a London flat just 17 miles from his family home. The £104,183 claim is across six years, during which time the flat increased in value by as much as £200,000. It appears the property might be little more than an investment at the taxpayers' expense, since Grayling's neighbour didn't recognise him when shown a photograph. On the other side of the political divide, has Foreign Secretary David Miliband been caught out juggling properties to avoid tax? It certainly looks like it. Finally, let's hear it for Jacqui Smith, who is furious about all the accusations of greed. Okay, she did take £116,000 of taxpayers' money and spend it on her family home. But, if she'd have felt really greedy, she could have grabbed a further £58. Oink, oink, oink. Now tell us how the greedy bankers need to be punished.
The Rock owes only £9bn, so - obviously - it's time to start lending. Alistair Darling is said to have given the go-ahead to £14bn of home loans over the next two years.
Last year's repo-stats are in... 40,000 repossessed homes in 2008, which turns out to be slightly lower than the Council of Mortgage Lender's predictions. Interestingly, though, the crunch appears to have finally fed through to the buy-to-let market, with landlords in arrears outnumbering homeowners generally.
Primelocation offers buyers and sellers an international reach, and its portal is a mine of useful information, including useful guides for homeowners, landlords and movers. It features property from 4,000 leading estate agency firms, and the voice of Terence Stamp in its ads... which makes me happy. The Rat and Mouse needs the support of forward-looking organisations like Primelocation if it's to continue bringing you your daily dish of property news and gossip, so we hope you'll support them in return, by using the search box in the top right hand corner.
If your firm is interested in advertising on the Rat and Mouse (stop press: 200,000 page impressions in December), or if you've creative ideas about how we might work together, contact me here.
Foxtons founder (and flipper, moments before the crash) Jon Hunt has apparently proved his knack for timing is more than fluke, by shorting troubled developer Hammerson by the order of 1.3m shares. The exact timing isn't known, but movement in the Hammerson share price suggests he's had plenty of time to make a killing.
So our Home Secretary claims her big constituency home - the one she shares with her husband and kids - is her second home, and that she actually lives in London, in a room in her sister's pad. Despite this admirably cost-saving arrangement, she claims £24,000 a year in expenses. It's all - she insists - perfectly legal, and - of course - it is. Which is the point. It shouldn't be. And our public servants should be judged on what's ethical, not just legal. This - for your pleasure - from July 2008:
It's Bank of England data... 31,000 approvals in December, up from 27,000 in November, but still the second lowest on record, leaving 2008 58% down on 2007.
Today, the Woolwich unveils a one-year 2.29% fixed rate mortgage. If you've decent equity in your property (you'll need 40%), and your mortgage is big enough to justify the £995 fee, it looks like a good bet. More here.
That's what we, at the Rat and Mouse, call trust. The banker is, of course, ex-Lehman boss Richard Fuld. The house is a Florida mansion. The reasoning... clearly an attempt to protect assets from furious shareholders. The wife? Not complaining. More here.
The Council of Mortgage Lenders reports December mortgage lending at its lowest level since April 2001. Meanwhile, Revenue and Customs data show December completions 41% lower than December 2007. More here.
It was never going to be straightforward. But exactly why the proposed BBC relocation programme, from London to the regions, is back in the news I don't know. As far as I can tell, none of the details are changed... perhaps it's because of the increased risk the taxpayers will be shouldering by buying properties at 95% market value and then guaranteeing to cover the differential if agents flog them at a loss in a falling market.
The announcement this morning of the Government's latest scheme to help struggling mortgage payers stay in their homes effectively sees not-for-profit housing associations attempt to beat the sell-to-rent-back companies at their own game. They will buy your house; you stay in it by renting it back.
Right. But there's an element of confusion here. The Government's £200m will - apparently - pay for a mixture of purchases and temporarily loans (which the homeowner can pay back at a more financially secure time). If it's the latter, are housing associations really set up to process and run loans? If it's the former, what happens in ten years' time when potentially thousands of ex-homeowners wake up to the realisation that the Government now owns what used to be their increasing asset, and which the Government picked up at the bottom of the market during a temporary dip?
Foreign buyers are taking advantage of the weak pound to secure some impressive London property bargains. In fact, if you're Japanese, you're looking at prices 50% below where they were a year ago. Posh agents report cash-rich foriegners pushing deals through in days.
Meanwhile, head over to This Is London to read the real life case studies of a bunch of brave people (one from Sweden) who feel now's just the right time to buy property in London.
A likely story... he was just doing an Elvis like we're all tempted to once in a while. Other claims include spectacles stolen by magpie and the theft of a large and valuable collection of sex toys.
It's a 0.5% cut, bringing the base rate to 1.5%, its lowest since the Bank of England was founded in 1694. Sensible? I honestly can't see any way in which this works. It's like backing into a corner, using a manoeuvre that's been failing consistently for most of last year. The big question... where next?
Robin Ellis converted big London houses into fantasy-homes - swimming pools with depth-adjustable floors, car-lifts and other rich-boy toys, before his company automatically retracted itself into administration shortly before 2008 became 2009. Now, the Standard takes its life in its hands with some alarming allegations regarding Ellis's way of doing business. More here.
However, 1.8m immigrants arrived in the Capital over the same period... resulting in the current situation in which - apparently - one in three London workers comes from overseas. The flight of indigenous Londoners is blamed on high property prices... if you want to own it, you need to leave London. But if you want to rent it - and don't mind being crammed into a small conversion with half a dozen other immigrants - London's great. Note that this research ends in 2007. It will be interesting to see whether rising unemployment sends eastern Europeans back home, unemployed Brits back to London.
Of course, we've still our 2009 predictions post to come... we'll do that nearer New Year's Eve. But right now... the 2008 facts are coming in thick-and-fast. Like... London's been hit hardest by the house price downturn. A Hometrack survey shows London's down 10.1% on the year, compared with an 8.7% national average. Those numbers sound conservative to me. We'll know something like the truth after the Government reveals its December completions figures in a month or two. Meanwhile, Globrix claim that - in the UK's most stagnant market, Rochdale's - one in four homes remain on the market after 12 months. Elsewhere - and this is slightly counter-intuitive given the dramatic recent cuts in interest rates - homeowners paid off a record £5.7b of mortgage debt in the third quarter of 2008. Presumably, this is about falling house prices and tricky loan-to-value demands from the lenders. Still... kind of mature, isn't it? More facts and figures as the year draws to an end. And hold on - of course - for those all-important 2009 predictions.
That's according to a survey by uSwitch. And it's alarming because a repayment "holiday" only increases the debt (the interest doesn't go on vacation), and puts the problem temporarily on hold. Our current economic woes, however, look anything like short-lived. More here.
Here's a strange one. The Addymans say they've a £226,000 loan in place with Natwest, that they're completely up-to-date on their payments, their payment history is impeccable, and yet they've received a letter from their lender telling them that the loan is to be withdrawn and if they can't pay back the £226,000 in full within a week, they'll begin repossession proceedings. Why? The bank apparently won't tell them. Nor will it enter into any dialogue about the case whatsoever:
With the head of the IMF warning that possible consequences of the recession could include civil unrest, now would - clearly - be a terrible time to give paid thugs bailiffs the right to thump the poor. Right? Doh!!
Bailiffs are expecting a big increase in business over the next year as tens of thousands of Britons experience financial problems during the forthcoming recession. The new rules, allowable under legislation already passed by Parliament but not yet enacted, would give bailiffs the right to restrain or pin down householders.
Oh yeah, and there's also consideration being given to allowing bailiffs to break into homes, even when they don't believe the owners are present.
According to a survey by the Building Societies' Association, 46% agree or strongly agree that now's a good time to buy a house, up from 34% in September and 27% in July. More here.
The soap opera ran from 1982 to 2003. Now, the set - a cul-de-sac in Liverpool's West Derby district - is due to be auctioned, with a guide price of just £650,000. Allsop will be swinging the hammer, but their next catalogue isn't online yet. In the meantime, more here.
To make a mint like Rosie's (bought the Acton flat for £200,000 in July 2006; sold it, after a side return, for £325,000 just as Lehman's went under), avoid the kinds of areas popular among bankers and City workers. Go where the money is... look for nurses, teachers, social workers.
At last... the Council of Mortgage Lenders reacts to the ludicrous contradiction at the heart of Government policy. No irresponsible lending, says Brown... except now, of course, to help me through the next election.
That's Sir David Frost. Other slebs associated with the fund include Sir Alex Ferguson, Simon Cowell and... wait for it... Grant Bovey (as if that weren't a clue there might be rocky times ahead). Here's the website.
Who, this time last year, would have imagined I'd be writing... as predicted, a base rate cut of 1%? It's down to 2%, its lowest level since 1951. The cost of borrowing is now half of what it was at the start of October. Astonishing measures, astonishing times.
Royal Bank of Scotland borrowers in arrears will now be allowed a six month head start, before the bank sends the repo-men in pursuit. As unemployment inevitably rises, it will be seen as good news by most, and is likely to become a common policy among the lenders. According to the BBC's Robert Peston, it will be seen as less than good news by the estate agents, who have apparently been relying on the disposal of repos as a revenue stream. It's not clear to me how (in reality) a month or two added to the normal period of grace is going to dry up the repo-market. More here.
Most of the purchases are repos, none were for more than £100,000. Two years ago, they were changing hands around the £200,000 mark. And we're supposed to believe only fools are buying now? At this kind of discount, and assuming you're in a position to afford the debt and find the tenants, there's surely not much risk. It's all - as it always is - about the deal.
Brown, Darling, Mandelson puff their chests out and talk about forcing the lenders to pass on rate cuts. Northern Rock - now Government owned - raises rates.
A Government science think tank is "thinking" about home MOTs... regular energy efficiency tests including penalties and incentives linking council taxes to emissions. A report is due shortly.
Research by LV= Insurance suggests that, nationally, we each recognise 14 neighbours by sight. The thrust of research is that we're not as neighbourly as we could be; but looking at that figure I'm positive it's much lower in London. Do you know 14 of your neighbours? Some London-specific data: 42% felt there'd been an increase in local street crime; 12% thought that crime had increased twice as much as in other regions of the UK.
Alistair Darling's panic measures included a few nods to the homeowner... perhaps most notably, an agreement from the biggest lenders to allow homeowners three months in arrears before taking court action. The plan has already attracted criticism for not including the smaller, specialist lenders... the lenders with big books of sub-prime mortgages, the ones most likely to be in arrears. But - more importantly - where's the real the content? Perhaps I'm wrong about this, but can somebody point out the larger UK lender who issues repossession proceedings when a borrower is just one or two months in arrears?
Alistair Darling's panic measures included a few nods to the homeowner... perhaps most notably, an agreement from the biggest lenders to allow homeowners three months in arrears before taking court action. The plan has already attracted criticism for not including the smaller, specialist lenders... the lenders with big books of sub-prime mortgages, the ones most likely to be in arrears. But - more importantly - where's the real the content? Perhaps I'm wrong about this, but can somebody point out the larger UK lender who issues repossession proceedings when a borrower is just one or two months in arrears?
There was a time when it was hard to find an estate agent who'd experienced a deal collapsing between exchange and completion. The rapidly changing economic climate have changed that... and the thrust of this interesting Sunday Times piece is that we're not just talking about off-plan new-builds (we all knew it would happen there), but everyday residential deals too. Looks like the lawyers will be kept busy at least.
Let's play Match The Quotation To The Pundit. They're all quoted late in 2007, talking about their predictions for house prices in 2008.
1 - The effect of the credit crunch will dissipate slowly, meaning that those seeking to obtain finance in the first half of 2008 may struggle. However, the employment picture should remain firm throughout the year, helping to prevent significant numbers of repossessions and the subsequent influx of supply into the market.
2 - I predict the net result is that house prices will fall a little in the first half of the year - by up to 5%. But by June, the fall in bank rate and an easing of the liquidity squeeze will stabilise the market, although it will still be very difficult for sub-prime borrowers. In the second half of the year, transaction levels will improve and prices will partly recover, ending the year down 2%.
3 - As affordability constraints are eased and demand continues to outstrip supply, the long-term future is set to be bright and we expect the housing market to return to its previously higher levels by 2009.
4 - Based on the information currently available, 0pc inflation is our best estimate of the most likely outcome, but there are plausible risks in both directions. The main downside risk is that continued financial unrest or a US recession cause the economy to slow even more sharply than expected, leading to a more significant rise in unemployment, higher levels of forced sales and lower house price expectations.
5 - We expect house prices to fall 5% next year and by a further 8% in 2009, wiping out the gains of the last 18 months. The long overdue housing market correction now appears to be underway.
Now match the quote to the pundit: a) Nationwide's Fionnuala Earley b) RICS's Simon Dubinsohn c) Capital Economics' Roger Bootle d) John Charcol's Ray Boulger e) Spicerhaart Financial Services' Steve Cox
And remember, it's just a bit of fun.
It's also time to thank our sponsor and search partner Primelocation.com - portal for more than 4,000 leading estate agents - for their help bringing you your daily dose of London property news. And to wish our readers a great weekend.
Over at the Telegraph, that's exactly what they're doing. Suggestions range from Simon Cowell to Gordon Ramsay to Montgomery Burns. Somebody nominates George Soros, which appears to make a lot of sense.
Over at Rat and Mouse HQ, we can remember when Will Anderson began his ambitious eco-home self-build in the heart of Clapham. In fact, I have a feint recollection of a diary, running in - I think - the Independent. Anyway, it was completed a couple of years ago, and now the Guardian is giving us what we've wanted all along... the house, in pictures.
Standard variable rates... once the "punishment" rate you paid if you'd been too flakey to sort yourself out a nice fixed rate mortgage or tracker. But not any more:
So that's easy then. Just move to a new lender and go onto their SVR... no fees, no problem. Not necessarily. Lenders are apparently refusing new borrowers access to an SVR loan, or charging, as bank base rates drift down.
