Housing Market
News covering issues affecting the UK residential property market, house prices, interest rates and buying and selling trends.
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So that’s why sales are slowing down! Brits now move home every 23 years
The time gap between people moving home has increased from nine to 23 years since the late 1980s as high house prices have made moving up the property ladder more expensive, research by market analyst Hometrack has revealed. This may explain why property transactions have not recovered their pre-financial crisis crash. Before the global banking meltdown approximately 120,000 properties were sold each month, a figure which is currently running at just under half that number, according to latest Land Registry figures. Scottish movements Hometrack, which was purchased by ZPG recently, says the average Brit moves home every 22.7 years. Those in Scotland are the most frequent home movers, changing address every 19.6 years followed by the South West at 20.6 years and the East of England at 20.9 years. The Welsh are the most reluctant movers, changing home every 26.8 years on average. Residents in Powys, mid-Wales only move home once every 33.1 years, the data shows. On a very local level, Midlothian in Scotland, which covers the area south of Edinburgh between East Lothian and the Scottish Borders, is where people move home the most frequently, or every 14.9 years, five years faster than the rest of the UK.…
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Holding deposits to be excluded from letting fees ban, confirms Minister
Announcement comes during wide-ranging debate in Commons this morning led by former Hunters boss Kevin Hollinrake MP.
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Newsflash: Sadiq Khan to bring in longer tenancy agreements for Londoners
Mayor of London Sadiq Khan is to tackle London’s housing crisis with a ‘new deal’ for renters including longer tenancies called the ‘London Model of renting’, it has been announced. The initiative, which will be part of the Mayor’s new Housing Strategy, will see tenants and landlords brought together to create the new concep. This is likely to include longer tenancies to create a more “stable, family-friendly sector” and see an end to six and 12-month Assured Shorthold Tenancy agreements that currently dominate the sector. A statement released today says that: “the Mayor wants a better deal for the increasing numbers of Londoners who live in the private rented sector, with the aim of creating a modern, fit-for-purpose and high quality housing option for the millions of Londoners who rent…where the legitimate rights of landlords are protected too”. Tenancy agreements Figures quoted by Khan’s office reveal that a quarter of all Londoners live in the private rented sector, and increase of 200% since 2004, and that the current legal framework for tenancies were introduced almost 30 years ago. Khan says that with a standard tenancy length of just six to 12 months, renters face high rents and little guarantee of…
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Build to Rent landlord takes deposits and rent in Bitcoin
A co-living housing development in London says tenants can now pay their £500 deposit using the controversial crypto-currency Bitcoin and will also be able to use it to pay their rent later on this year. This will make The Collective, which is an 11-storey 550-unit development in North Acton, the first in the UK to enable tenants to make payments with Bitcoin. Launched in 2009, Bitcoin was the world’s first digital currency and works without a central administrator or ‘bank’. Instead, those using the currency download software onto their computers and then use the currency to buy products or services ‘peer-to-peer’ with other users. The currency enables money to be moved around the world undetected by central banking or tax authorities and has therefore faced allegations of misuse, including by organised crime, cyber hackers and tax evaders. Bitcoin Build to Rent The currency has been chosen by The Collective at its recently-completed Build to Rent development called Old Oak because, it says, Bitcoin is the payment platform of choice among many of its overseas tenants. Old Oak charges on average £1,083 a month for a small ‘twodio’ one-bedroom apartment (pictured, below) for a couple which includes a private bathroom but…
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London mayor asks TfL to start building homes
Khan says transport quango has the land on which it should start building affordable homes for the Capital.
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London lettings showing “green shoots” says Foxtons
Foxtons says demand for rental properties in the London lettings market increased during the second quarter of the year, helping offset ongoing drops in rents. The company says in its latest lettings report that this is evidence of “stabilisation” within the market, which has witnessed decreasing average rents for six months now. “While this might not appear to be a significant increase, it comes against a backdrop of decline, suggesting that green shoots are starting to appear,” says Ed Phillips, Foxtons’ Managing Director of Lettings (pictured, below). The number of renters looking for property who are registered for each rental property offered by Foxtons’ branches increased by 3.3% during the second quarter of the year. But rents continue to decrease across many parts of the London lettings market, for several reasons. This includes the glut of properties created by the rush to buy properties before the extra Stamp Duty was introduced in April last year. Also, several large build-to-rent schemes have gone live in the capital this year, including the 1500-unit in the former Olympic Village. Zoned in Foxtons says the reason for this growth is an increase in demand for properties within London’s central Zone 1 and Zone 2…
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Rent should be added to a tenant’s credit history, say landlords
Nearly two thirds of landlords support tenants being allowed to add rental payments to their credit history, according to the Residential Landlords Association (RLA). It canvassed 3,000 of its member landlords of whom 61% said they supported such a move. Following the survey’s result, the RLA says it is writing to the Government calling on it to work with the industry to include rent payment history as a standard feature when calculating credit scores. “With many tenants wanting to buy a house of their own, it is absurd rent payment is not routinely included when undertaking credit checks for mortgage applications,” says RLA Chairman Alan Ward (pictured, left). “Moving to such a scheme would help not just tenants, but also landlords by giving them a clearer sense of whether a prospective tenant has historically paid their rent in full and on time.” The RLA is not the first out of the trap with a campaign. In March this year Jamie Pogson (pictured, below), a young self-employed builder and dad from Plymouth started a parliamentary petition after struggling to get a mortgage after realising he had a poor credit history. His petition took off and amassed 145,000 signatures – enough to…
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Belvoir dismisses “sensationalist” media reports of “out of control” rent rises
Belvoir’s new CEO Dorian Gonsalves (pictured below) says recent media reports that rent rises are out of control across the UK are at odds with the experience within his 300+ branch network. Recent commentary by mainstream media on research from the GMB union and the recent Homelet rental index suggested that rents were rising fast and that many renters – particularly in London – are paying more than half of their salary in rent. Gonsalves say prices are instead rising by an average of 2.75%, increases which he says are mirrored by other indexes and the government’s Office of National Statistics (ONS). “Sensationalist media reports that rents are spiralling out of control across the country are at odds with what our offices are reporting, and that other letting agents across the country are currently experiencing,” he says. “However, feedback from our franchisees confirmed that less properties were seeing static rents than in the previous quarter, and more offices experienced rent rises of £25 and £50 per month.” Gonsalves says the Belvoir Rental Index for the second quarter of the year shows that families and professionals are the most likely to experience rent rises, although he says demand from tenants is…
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First time buyers are back in the market
First time buyers are back with a vengeance borrowing £5.9 billion in June, up 26% on June and 9% on the same month in 2016, the Council of Mortgage Lenders latest figures show. The increase is on the back of first time buyers taking out 36,000 loans in June, 22% more than the month before. The increase is more than a blip. Figures from the CML, which is soon to be renamed UK Finance, show that during the second quarter of this year first time buyer borrowing increased by 18% taking out 91,400 loans. “June’s figures show a busy month in the mortgage market, with home movers having their highest monthly activity levels for over a year and an especially high number of loans for first time buyers,” says Paul Smee, Head of Mortgages at UK Finance (pictured, left). “But there are also signs of a softening market and we are not anticipating that this performance will be sustained in the second half of 2017.” Home buyer borrowing also jumped during July, increasing by 26% month-on-month and 15% year-on-year although buy-to-let borrowing remains subdued, but still rising, by 3% both by month and year comparisons. The CML data also reveals that…
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People hate downsizing out of their huge houses, research shows
Large family homes are very hard to leave – 43 per cent of UK homeowners experienced a sense of ‘sadness, grief or loss’ after moving house; while 83 per cent feel emotionally attached to their homes.
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