RICS
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Latest property news
RICS says supply to England’s sales market continues to “wane”
RICS has reported an ailing sales market within its latest survey of agent sentiment, which each month is carried out among its members across UK. In an unusually forthright report, the figures for March have prompted it to use strong language to describe the UK sales market, including “stagnant” and “waning interest”. RICS reveals that new buyer enquiries and sales remained flat and stock levels hit a new record low “as the number of properties coming on to the market continues to decline”, the report says. “The key theme that really runs through the whole of this survey is the lack of supply in the market,” says Simon Rubinsohn, RICS Chief Economist (picture, left) “Our key measures – average stock per surveyor – has actually hit a new low, and this explains why house prices on balance remain in modestly positive territory. For the time being it is hard to see any major impetus for change in the market, something also being reflected in the flat trend in transaction levels.” RICS says new instruction dropped during March with 13% more respondents experiencing a drop in new listings, and agents now hold 43 properties for sale on their books, on average.…
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Latest property news
As Article 50 trigger looms, RICS says a hard Brexit will damage property sector
The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors says a hard Brexit may lead to 176,500 EU member state construction workers being forced to leave the UK, or 8% of the total building industry workforce. As the government prepares to trigger Article 50 and steer the UK towards an exit from the European Union, RICS argues that for Brexit to succeed “it is essential to secure access to the EU Single Market or put alternative plans in place to safeguard the property and construction sector”. Research by RICS also revealed that 30% of the construction professional it surveyed believe hiring non-UK workers was important to the success of their business. “Unless access to the single market is secured or alternative plans are put in place, we won’t be able to create the infrastructure needed to enable our cities to compete on a global stage,” says Jeremy Blackburn, Head of Policy at RICS (pictured). “We have said before that this is a potential stumbling block for the Government, which is working to deliver both its Housing White Paper and Industrial Strategy.” A recent report by Mayor of London Sadiq Khan shows that a significant majority of these EU construction workers are based in…
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Features
Circle of trust
The property industry has a new, potential disrupter, nudging into its circle of trust, which could be wonderful, but, Andrea Kirkby asks, how many organisations do we really need?
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Movers & Shakers
JLL’s Scotland graduates
Four JLL graduates in Scotland have qualified as chartered surveyors with the RICS, underlining JLL’s commitment to nurturing the next generation of talented property professionals.
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Features
Property market – regional cities shine as London loses lustre
Designs on Property tracks and summarises the monthly property indices. Kate Faulkner says, “Birmingham leads cities like Cardiff, Liverpool, and Manchester in terms of house price growth.”
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Latest property news
RICS says tenant passports are solution to rental woes
Letting agents and landlords could soon be able to review tenants’ rent payment histories if proposals from the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) for a national system of tenant passports becomes a reality, a direction of travel that industry leaders say the government has already embarked on. The RICS Rented Sector Policy Paper published today outlines a national passport system using a database of all the UK’s ten million social and private sector tenants, along with a similar database of landlords. RICS says this would help more vulnerable tenants because, by offering more details on a person’s payment track record, landlords and agents would have a greater understanding of them than currently offered by referencing checks. The idea is a more ambitious version of several local tenant passport systems already being trailed including in Kettering, Northamptonshire where the local borough council offers a voluntary tenant passport scheme for those moving from social to private rented sector housing. RICS says this enables potential landlords to see that they have been good tenants, even though they may have a bad credit history. “An ever-increasing proportion of the population is looking to rent. By 2025, we know that there will be a 1.8 million shortfall…
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Latest property news
RICS calls for ‘balance’ in letting agent fees ban
The Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors has made an impassioned plea to the government to allow agents to recoup the ‘reasonable costs’ of putting prospective tenants through referencing and credit checks when the letting agent fees ban comes in during 2018. The comments have been made by Jeremy Blackburn, RICS’s Head of UK Policy who yesterday published a blog warning the government that there may be unintended consequences of the ban. He says these include rising rents as landlords pass on the extra costs to tenants and reduced rental stock as smaller and more vulnerable landlords decide to exit the market. Blackburn also says that Build to Rent’s capacity to take up the slack of a shrinking private rented sector is doubtful, but says agents will have at least a year to prepare for the changes. He says the Department of Communities and Local Government has told RICS that they re planning to take the longer route to legislation rather than rushing a ban through, and that this will give the industry until 2018 to prepare. But Blackburn also says he is surprised that agents were caught off-guard by the Chancellor’s announcement last week. “For the industry, early warning signals of…
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Latest property news
RICS sets standard in property measurement
An international coalition, including RICS, has launched a property measurement standard for floor space to benefit residential property investors, developers, real estate agents, professionals and ultimately consumers. This new international measurement standard will offer more clarity and consistency to users of residential property services, whether they’re buying, selling, renting or investing. The International Property Measurement Standards (IPMS): Residential Buildings will provide a uniform global method to determine the size and dimension of floor space measures that can be used anywhere in the world. Currently, the way residential property is measured can vary significantly from one market to the next. As a consequence, owners, occupiers and investors in domestic property are often left confused or misinformed when it comes to the reported floor space. This causes substantial issues when property is listed off-plan or bought by investors, but it has also led to disputes where rental calculations and service charges have relied on erroneous measurement information. Published by a coalition of more than 80 property organisations around the world and drafted by an independent group of 18 experts from 11 countries, IPMS: Residential Buildings is the second in a series of global open-source standards aimed at creating a uniform approach to…
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Features
The benefits of belonging
It is perfectly possible to run a property business without belonging to a professional or trade body, however, if you take the truly independent road, just how much support and inspiration are you missing out on?
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Resources
Brexit and holidays create the perfect storm of inactivity
Designs on Property tracks and summarises the monthly property indices. Kate Faulkner says, “There is a mixed picture across the country with fewer vendor instructions and buyer registrations.”
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