Breaking News
As predicted, Government shines light on buy-to-let to tackle housing crisis.
Prior to the Election in May 2015, Michael Riley, Director of Capital & Coastal, correctly predicted that despite which party came into power, it would only be a matter of time before the new Government “shone a light” on the buy-to-let industry as a way of tackling the lack of stock driving the country’s housing…
Christopher Walkey
Halifax report house price surge in June
According to the Halifax UK house prices picked up in the last quarter after two successive falls, with an unexpected month-on-month surge in June pushing the annual rate to 9.6%, the Halifax house price index showed prices jumped by 1.7% between May and June, the fourth consecutive monthly rise, this is contrary to other ecent…
Allen Walkey
Budget time again
The budget that will be announced today by George Osborne will be the first all-Conservative buget since 1996, it is expected that the Chancellor will take three years instead of two to reach his £12bn target for cuts. In a landmark commons statement the Chancellor will set the agenda for the five year parliament ahead,…
Allen Walkey
ARLA appoints new President
The Association of Residential Lettings Agents has appointed Peter Savage as President for the coming year, the outgoing ARLA president is Valerie Bannister, who is the national property director at Your Move, Savage said that he was overjoyed to take on the role of President. Peter is a long standing member of ARLA, having held…
Allen Walkey
Landlord faces agent who owes her £20,000.
Channel 5’s ‘Nightmare Tenants, Slum Landlords’ is set to show how one rogue operator gives good letting agents a bad name. Margaret Wilson faces the agent that owes her £20,000 in a perfectly captured showdown on Wednesday 8th July at 9pm. Margaret Wilson owns two rental properties in Oxfordshire. Two years ago she handed them…
Christopher Walkey
Buy-to-Let increases burden on welfare
It is expected that George Osborne will be cutting Housing Benefit in his budget on wednesday, it has been reported through certain media that he is considering forcing all housing benefit recipients to contribute towards their own rent. It has also been reported that he is pushing for the benefit cap to be lowered from…
Allen Walkey
Inheritance tax raised to £1m
David Cameron and George Osborne writing in The Times on saturday confirmed that the threshold at which inheritance tax is levied will rise for couples to one million pounds from £650,000 after April 2017. The policy will be funded by limiting the amount of tax relief on pension contributions given to those earning more than…
Allen Walkey
Response by the NHF
In a press release by the The National Housing Federation they responded to an announcement in The Times over the weekend to housing commitments from Prime Minister David Cameron and Chancellor George Osborne. Prime Minister David Cameron outlined plans on Saturday to accelerate house-building over the next five years and raise the inheritance tax threshold…
Allen Walkey
News: @RaterAgent web traffic on upward trend, but still behind @Allagentsuk…
Just 5 months since its creation – and 2 months since its formal launch – raterAgent is already the second most-popular, dedicated estate and letting agent review site in the UK. Using Alexa.com rankings – verified by that site’s owners, Amazon.com – the graph below shows how, in the 5 months since our ‘beta’ launch,…
Christopher Walkey
Unfair to Scottish landlords
At present Scottish Landlords see as unfair the way rules concerning the council tax works, Nicola sturgeon announced in November last year a commission to examine a fairer way of funding local government services. The Scottish Association of Landlords (SAL) wants to see a change in rules so that empty furnished properties will be entitled…
Allen Walkey
Trading has commenced in Hunters shares
Hunters, one of the largest national sales and lettings estate agency businesses, announced yesterday that dealings in its shares on AIM had commenced at 60 pence per share. Numis Securities is Nominated Adviser and Broker to the Company. The Group has traded under the Hunters brand since inception in 1992 and as at 31 May…
Allen Walkey
#OnTheMarket continues to break traffic records:
Onthemarket are delighted to tell you that they have seen another record breaking month in terms of traffic to OnTheMarket.com. 4.4 million visits Over 2 million unique visitors They are continuing to see strong engagement from consumers in terms of pages viewed per visit and time on site and a high percentage of repeat visitors. This reflects both the quality…
Christopher Walkey
House price growth slows in June.
According to the Nationwide House Price Index UK house prices fell by 0.2% in the month of June, annual house price growth moderated to 3.3% from 4.6% in May. Commenting on the figures, Robert Gardner,Nationwide’s Chief Economist, said: “The annual pace of house price growth continued to slow in June, moderating to 3.3% from…
Allen Walkey
New property hot spots around London
House price affordability in London is putting pressure on buyers to look to the commuter belt to find a home within their price range, latest data from the Land Regsitry shows annual growth of just more than 9%, making the average London house worth £475,961, in the South-East, annual price rises are also just over…
Allen Walkey
BOE comments on Greece
The Bank of England said it stands ready to “take any actions required” after Greece’s rapid economic slide in just the past few days, Greece beame the first advanced economy to default on a loan to the International Monetary Fund on Tuesday. The precarious position of Greece could pose a risk to the financial system,…
Allen Walkey