Breaking News
New Scottish property transaction tax.
As from today a new Scottish tax will be introduced that will replace the UK property stamp duty tax, it is named the Land and Buildings Transaction Tax (LBTT), this comes about following the introduction of new devolved powers contained in the Scotland Act 2012. This will be the first tax to be introduced by…
Allen Walkey
London luxury homes – rental up front.
Such is the attraction of living in London that wealthy tenants are paying up to £250,000 rent and deposit upfront to secure some of London’s most luxurious homes, as rich as they may be in their own countries overseas renters need to prove their finances, documents from abroad have no validity to UK landlords or…
Allen Walkey
First time buyer numbers rise
It would appear that figures used from February 2015 show that first time buyers now account for a third of all house sales, that is according to a report by the National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA) These figures confirm that the tide is beggining to turn for first time buyers, it would appear that…
Allen Walkey
Housing affordability
After a number of years of the housing market favouring buyers rather than sellers, there are now clear indications this spring that sellers are gaining the upper hand. Recent research is showing that Housing affordability has deteriorated to 2009 levels on the back of strong property price growth, according to Loyds Bank the average home…
Allen Walkey
NHS land and property sell off.
It has been reported that the NHS will be selling off land and property as a longstanding strategy to help resolve the health service’s dire financial situation. Health minister Norman Lamb has according to reports told officials to look at what revenue can be raised from selling off “hospitals standing empty” and “vacant land”. The Department…
Allen Walkey
London Mayor’s scheme for private landlords
A scheme which was originally launched by Boris Johnson in late May of last year has not progressed as expected, in fact Labour’s London Assembly Housing Spokesperson is quoted as saying it will take 103 years to complete. The London Mayor’s plan was to get 100,000 private landlords to sign up to a minimum standards…
Allen Walkey
First pre-election “debate”
Last night we saw the first pre-election TV “debate” which strictly speaking was not exactly a debate, both Cameron and Milliband were both seperately interviewed by Jeremy Paxman and again they seperately took questions from a studio audience. There was no clear “winner” as such, they were pretty well evenly matched, polls carried out by…
Allen Walkey
Boost for buy-to-let option for retirees.
New figures confirm that retired homeowners are typically earning more than £7,000 each from their homes over the past six months, this is excellent news for retirees considering to use the Buy-to-Let option when choosing where to invest their savings that would otherwise have to have gone into an annuity. This news is well timed…
Allen Walkey
Ex-Footballer joins the Team at Homes under the Hammer
Dion Dublin will be joining the other presenters Martin Roberts and Lucy Alexander at BBC’s Homes under the Hammer for their 19th series. Dion who has a long held interest in property started his football career with Norwich City, then onto Cambridge United, he was signed in a £1million deal with Manchester United, following on at…
Allen Walkey
Rents increases ahead of General Election
According to the Association of Residential Letting Agents around 31% of letting agents said the cost of renting a home had increased during the month of february, this has been attributed to higher numbers searching in the sector, with agents having an average of 40 prospective tenants on their books per branch, up from 38…
Allen Walkey
Energy improvement concerns for Landlords
Energy and landlord organisations had called upon the Chancellor to extend the Landlord’s Energy Savings Allowance and were hoping for it to be addressed in the budget, as it turned out there was nothing in the budget that dealt with the allowance. The allowance will therefore now come to an end in April, the allowance…
Allen Walkey
“Property Partner” new crowd funding property platform
Property Partner only fully lauched this January and it is just days ago the Crowd Funding property business attracted a further £5.2m of Investment, Founder and CEO Daniel Gandesha says it will be a “stock exchange” for property assets, Gandesha also goes on to say, it will give smaller backers the chance to invest sums…
Allen Walkey
Right to buy to be included in manifesto
Is this a sensible policy or just another vote catcher?….The Conservatives are expected to include in their manifesto the Right to Buy which would be extended to up to 2.5million housing-association tenants. This reform, backed by senior Conservatives including Iain Duncan Smith, Boris Johnson and David Davis, is expected to be included in array of…
Allen Walkey
Interest rates still at 0.5% after 6 years
The Bank of England Base Rate has now been at a record low of 0.5% for six years, and there is no real indication that this will change much short term. it expects inflation, as measured by the Consumer Prices Index, to head back up to the Government target of 2% by the first quarter…
Allen Walkey
Pre election debates.
Most probably the three most important issues that are in peoples mind as we run up to the election are Housing, Immigration and the National Health Service, anyone reading my article today will more than likely just have housing on their mind. Over the last few weeks as we run up to the actual election…
Allen Walkey