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A few days ago it was this. Now, Albert Edwards, head of Société Générale's global strategy team, with these words:
I believe it truly is a moronic policy that stands head and shoulders above most of the stupid economic policies I have seen implemented during my 30 years in this business.
George Obsorne, propping up the market, encouraging debt and setting new records for stupidity. Don't say he's not leaving his mark.
Technorati Tags: property, real estate
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A rare sight… falling prices in a wealthy London enclave. The latest Knight Frank index shows prices easing in Knightsbridge (-0.3%) and Belgravia (-0.2%), although average central London prices are still up 3.2% on the year. There's been some talk of a bubble, and if you want to know why, the average central London property price is now up 58% on the March 2009 market low. Interestingly, transactions in the first four months of the year rose, but concentrated in the sub-£2m bracket, suggesting higher stamp duty rates are having an impact. Accompanying comment confirmed anecdotal evidence of greater caution in the market. More here.
Technorati Tags: property, real estate
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Not really.
Apparently, a Labour government - were it to pass plans for a National Landlord Register - would stop anyone convicted of a serious crime from becoming a landlord. Fairly uncontroversial? Er, no.
Technorati Tags: property, real estate
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First this. Now it's the Standard, with a hard-hitting attack on George Osborne's efforts to continue propping up property prices.
The Funding for Lending Scheme and Help to Buy scheme are among the stupidest policies ever devised in Whitehall.
What Osborne's doing, argues Amol Rajan, is inflate the bubble and enjoy the popularity in the knowledge that it will burst after he's left office. "Myopic, selfish and inexcusable."
Technorati Tags: property, real estate
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While I was firefighting deadlines yesterday a second index was published. This is April data, courtesy of the Land Registry, and shows prices up 0.4% on the month and 0.7% on the year, transactions down slightly from the same period a year ago. In London, which we all know drives the market these days, prices were up 1.4% on the month and 6.2% annually. Interestingly, while five regions managed a monthly rise, four fell, most noticeably the north east, with a 1.6% decline, leaving Geordie house prices 5.7% in the red over 12 months.
Technorati Tags: property, real estate
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According to the Daily Mail, that is.
With one in every seven pounds lent on property going to landlords, and btl loans at their highest level in four years, the newspaper looks at the new boom in landlording, and finds different motivations this time around. Landlords are investing for income, not capital growth, their heads turned in an environment of (extremely) poor returns on cash and risks on other investments. Demand from tenants is up, too. The piece ends with an (actually quite useful) little guide to the pros, cons and pitfalls of investing. Recommended.
Technorati Tags: property, real estate
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Accompanying comment highlights an uplift in activity, with approvals in the first quarter up 4%. Cheaper and more available credit gets some, er, credit, but so does the idea that the UK has returned to growth and the improved expectations that come with that. Go here for all the graphs.
Technorati Tags: property, real estate
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It's the Sunday Telegraph's Janet Daley writing yesterday in the, er, Daily, and espousing a view that might be something of a puzzle to the (we're guessing here) largely property-owning-and-very-pleased-with-the-fact readers of that particular broadsheet. Owning your own home is daft, she argues, when it involves paying more than it's worth and immediately becoming its servant rather than its master for the rest of your working life. What's more, it's bad for the economy, leaching important investment funds from other areas. The answer is the private rented sector, and the Government should be working to support it, rather than lending. It's a good read, here.
Technorati Tags: property, real estate
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They are, according to the Evening Standard. The suggestion is that leading London agencies are telling their agents to seek investors rather than movers, with the ultimate ambition to pass the property from the sales department to the letting department, and continue to wring money from it for years to come. The result? Not good for movers. The information appears to come from a former Ludlow Thompson employee with a book to promote, but the Standard has followed it up with a little undercover investigation, in which they posed as an investor (no BMW was harmed in the making of the programme) and found agents didn't take much persuasion to tip them off to properties early, before they'd been advertised to the general public. One agent revealed they had the facility to set in motion the lettings process before the sale had even completed. Foxtons gets a namecheck.
Is this bad?
According to the piece… legally, yes:
The law states that “you must not discriminate, or threaten to discriminate, against a prospective buyer of the seller’s property because that person declines to accept that you will (directly or indirectly) provide related services to them”, and says discrimination includes “giving details of properties for sale first to those who have indicated they are prepared to let you provide services to them”.
Clearly, it's bad for buyers. From a vendor's point-of-view, the important thing is that the property's advertised properly and that all offers/interest are passed on by the agent. There might be times when an early offer from an investor primed to do a deal could be very useful. But the dangers of an inexperienced or trusting vendor taking advise from an agent they're paying to represent their best interests within a context of these kinds of relationship might be very dangerous indeed. It's an interesting piece. Read it here. |
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Thanks to a friend of the Rat and Mouse for alerting us to this… a nice, four-bedroom detached property in Sale, Manchester. Tidy, eh?
Spacious bathroom.
Not sure about all the artwork. But each to their own.
Whoa! No need for that!
I know they say the purpose of presentation is to make the viewer imagine living in the property but there are surely limits. Full particulars here.
Technorati Tags: property, real estate
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View this property on Bentley Way in Stanmore by April 30, offer the full asking price of £1.875, exchange within six weeks and complete within a further month and the owners will throw in a very nice black Bentley Continental GTC Mulliner edition convertible with less than 20,000 miles on the clock. What's the car worth? The Rat consulted Parker's, and we'd say something like £100,000. Full particulars here.
Technorati Tags: property, real estate
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