Housing Market
News covering issues affecting the UK residential property market, house prices, interest rates and buying and selling trends.
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64% of London tenants still target homeownership
Latest measure of confidence and intent shows two thirds of London’s private tenants still want to own their own home, despite confidence dip.
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Strong home mover demand pushes up average asking price by 1.5%
Newly marketed properties in the UK have risen by an average of £4,503 says Rightmove, with prices highest in the first timer and second stepper sectors.
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Spring Statement: Hammond reveals where taxpayers’ billions are being spent on extra homes
Philip Hammond updated MPs during his Spring Statement today about the government’s progress towards building more homes in the UK and revealed where and how part of the £44 billion committed to the effort is now being spent. This includes £4.1 billion being distributed to 44 “forward thinking” local authorities via the government’s Housing Infrastructure Fund to help build more homes, and that £220 million is to be spent on supporting small house builders. Also, London is to have £1.67 billion to spend on 27,000 additional affordable homes by 2020/21. First time buyers The Chancellor also said that 60,000 first time buyers had been helped on to the property ladder so far by his Stamp Duty changes in last year’s Autumn Budget, which abolished the duty for homes bought by first timers under £300,000. Philip Hammond also referred to the work of Oliver Letwin MP, who is leading a government investigation into why it takes so long for homes to be built. House building delays In a letter deposited in the Commons Library, he reveals that his initial investigations blames the ‘build out’ stage rather than land banking, which many affordable homes campaigners believe is the real culprit. Instead, Letwin…
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First tenants sign up to Open Banking rent-reporting service
The recent Open Banking initiative that promised a ‘revolution’ in the way bank account data can be used by third parties is already making inroads into the private rented sector, it has been claimed. Proptech firm CreditLadder says the first tenant has now signed up to its Open Banking-enabled rent reporting service and that over a thousand tenants have followed suit. The company, which calls itself a credit improvement platform and has processed £14m of rents since it launched, asks tenants to allow their bank account statements to be read each month by CreditLadder. It then notifies partner reference agency Experian, the largest in the UK, about each payment including whether the rent was paid on time and in full. This payment track record is then added to their credit history by Experian. Letting agents The service, which is being offered to tenants for free, generates its income both through a premium tenant service and a paid-for package for letting agents. CreditLadder says it already works with 700 agents branches in the UK. “When CreditLadder launched its Open Banking service last month we were acutely aware that the take up maybe held back given the newness of the technology,” says…
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Landlords enjoyed £86,600 buy-to-let bonanza last year
Landlords who sold a buy-to-let property last year made a capital gain of £86,660 on average in the UK and had owned it for just under nine years, it has been revealed. But the capital gains made in London put these national figures to shame. Landlords selling up in London last year made a capital gain of £254,000 on average per property, says Countrywide. Its latest buy-to-let research reveals that, therefore, a landlord who invested in property within London eight years ago will have made three times more money from selling their property than those outside the capital. Eight of the top ten places where landlords have made the largest capital gains from their buy-to-let properties are in London and include Brent, Waltham Forest, theCity of Westminster, Haringey, Lambeth, Pendle, Islington, Kensington & Chelsea and Southwark Buy-to-let gains In these areas landlords who sold up last year enjoyed huge capital gains including, in Westminster and Kensington & Chelsea, gains of over half a million pounds on average. Also, in these areas of London 28% of landlords who sold up last year doubled their original investment. “Even in areas where price growth has lagged behind, most landlords have made a profit…
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Government’s first time buyer Stamp Duty give-away has failed in South, claim surveyors
The government’s attempt to kick-start the first-time buyer market by removing Stamp Duty and Land Tax (SDLT) for all but the wealthiest has proved a damp squib in London and the South, surveyors have claimed. In last November’s Budget Chancellor Phillip Hammond eliminated SDLT for 80% of first time buyers, and cut the duty for 95% of those who pay it. But the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) says in its latest property market snapshot that new buyers’ enquiries fell for the eleventh month in succession. “This would appear to suggest that the government’s attempt to breathe fresh life into the market through eliminating the stamp duty charge for most first-time buyers in the Budget is not having a significant impact on overall demand,” says RICS’ Residential Market Survey for February. Affordability is the key to demand among first time buyers, the figures show. The SDLT stimulus appears only to be working in the north of the UK where house prices are more affordable; the number of enquiries to agents from first-steppers increased in Scotland, Northern Ireland, Yorkshire, Humberside and the North, but stalled elsewhere. RICS also says the number of properties available to sell has continued to drop.…
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37% more home buyers surge into property market during January
Every estate agent knows the weeks after the New Year can be some of the busiest for the property market but 2018’s have been bumper ones, it has been claimed. NAEA Propertymark says the number of house hunters registered with agents increased by 37% during January to an average of 367 per branch, up from 268 in December. This is the highest monthly figure since September last year. But such good news for agents comes at a cost for first time purchasers. The increased number of buyers has mainly been second steppers, the NAEA says, and first-time buyer activity dropped off as they have faced competition from other types of buyers during the New Year rush for properties. Supply has also increased, NAEA says, up from 33 properties per branch in December to 36 during January. The fall-off in first-time buyer activity ends a year of improvement in their numbers during 2017, which UK finance recently revealed had reached their highest numbers since the financial crash of 2007/8. “As we usually see in January, buyers and sellers have re-entered the market after the festive slow-down and triggered an uplift in the number of sales agreed,” says Mark Hayward, Chief Executive,…
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London to be hit by triple whammy as experts predict soft property market during 2018
House price rises will slip behind inflation this year by half a percent across the UK and 1.6% in London, it has been predicted by over 30 leading property market experts. News agency Reuters, which polled the unnamed experts last week, says continuing worries over Brexit and weak consumer spending will subdue house price rises and investment confidence in the property sector. “Would-be sellers are holding onto assets for longer and buyers are being a little more diligent before committing to significant expenditures, all this against a backdrop of inflation-surpassing wage growth,” says Rod Lockhart of online mortgage firm LendInvest (pictured, left). Reuters says a majority of the experts it polled believed that the effect of the UK’s planned exit from Europe on London had been to decrease sales turnover, but that the picture was less clear nationally. Eleven of the 18 experts who answered the question on property sales said London’s turnover would decrease this year, driven by huge affordability problems, Brexit but also the government’s tax-hikes for landlords. “Quite simply, with loan-to-income ratios for first time buyers sitting at around four times, average salaries of £33,000, and your average flat in London costing over £500,000, it’s extremely difficult…
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NO DSS notices now “unlawful” claims Shelter following landmark case
Letting agents who try to screen out applicants for rented properties who are on benefits may now be breaking the law, it has been claimed. This follows legal action brought by Birmingham tenant Rosie Keogh with the help of housing charity Shelter against a lettings agency after she claimed to have been rejected because part of her rent was to be paid by housing benefit. “You feel like a second-class citizen,” she told the BBC. “I felt as a housing benefit claimant I was somehow not be trusted with paying my rent on time.” Rosie (pictured, left) says she hopes the case will stop the common NO DSS signs seen in many rental ads by setting a precedent making the “No DSS rule unlawful [which] will then open up the market so everyone can participate in it,” she said. The Moseley-based part-time cleaner and former para-legal secretary had a eleven-year track record of paying her rent on time before encountering problems in 2016 when she applied to rent a property marketed by lettings firm Nicholas George. She claimed that, because 60% of people on housing benefit are women, and that 95% of single parents are women, the agent’s actions discriminated…
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Dramatic drop in tenant arrears despite rising rents, says Your Move
There has been a dramatic reduction in the number of tenants who are in arrears despite rising rents across the UK, it has been claimed. Agent Your Move says 8.4% of its tenants were in arrears during January, down from 12.4% in December and significantly less than six months ago when arrears peaked at 13.7% of its tenants. It’s also much lower than the post-financial crash figure of 14.6%, which Your Move recorded in February 2010. Tenant arrears are improving despite rising rents, which Your Move says have increased by 2.5% across England and Wales over the past 12 months to an average of £829 per property, just under the Bank of England’s current reported inflation figure of 2.8%. Regional differences But the company says this figure masks regional differences. Rents increased by 2.9% in the North West but dropped by 2% in the North East. The data follows our report yesterday that the number of managed rental properties dropped by 8% during January, which ARLA blamed on the government’s recent tax increases for landlords and said would lead to increased rents. And the shocking difference in rents between London and the rest of the UK continues, Your Moves says.…
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