Author name: Gisela Lyshetti

Croydon top property hotspot as asking prices jump to new record high of £308,151 on average in May, says Rightmove Asking prices in the first-time buyer sector in the London borough have surged by 18.6 per cent on last year  But in Llandudno, North Wales, the average asking price for a first-time buyer home fell by 7.5 per cent to £145,703. The price of a home with two bedrooms or fewer leapt by £11,298 over the last month alone to reach £194,224 on average in England and Wales Asking prices for houses have jumped to a new record high of £308,151 on average in May, according to property website Rightmove, with some towns seeing ‘eye-watering’ increases. Across England and Wales, the average price tag on a property coming to market has risen by £1,118 on last month, Rightmove said. The price increase comes despite a three percentage point stamp duty hike for buy-to-let investors, imposed from April 1, which it was thought would take some heat out of the market. The website said the price of an ‘entry level’ home with two bedrooms or fewer leapt by £11,298 over the last month alone to reach £194,224 on average. Homes in this bracket are typically sought after by both first-time buyers and buy-to-let investors. Miles Shipside, Rightmove director, said that a rush of buy-to-let investors snapping up properties before the April 1 stamp duty deadline had resulted in ‘a famine of suitable property and higher prices’. He continued: ‘Estate agents have perhaps been focused on getting investor sales through to completion before the tax hike, and some may have been surprised by the continuing momentum and scarcity of stock to meet ongoing demand. ‘The net effect is eye-watering increases in asking prices in some towns, and is further stretching first-time buyers’ affordability even though they are competing against fewer buy-to-let investors in the market.’ Rightmove said the country’s top hotspot was the London borough of Croydon, with Dartford also a popular area for people priced out of London Asking prices in the first-time buyer sector in Croydon have surged by 18.6 per cent on last year and now average £297,770. Read more: https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/mortgageshome/article-3591397/Croydon-property-hotspot-asking-prices-jump-new-record-high-308-151-average-website-Rightmove-says.html#ixzz48vahsptA

Nationwide is set to launch mortgages that allow young people to get on the housing ladder by using wealth tied up in their parents’ or grandparents’ property. Bosses at the building society said they wanted to make it easier for relatives to pass on cash to first-time buyers. And they also pledged to help older people release money from their homes to ease financial worries in retirement. Nationwide unveiled the plans yesterday as it announced a 23 per cent rise in profits to £1.3billion for the year to April Chief executive Joe Garner said he felt Nationwide was in a strong position – and pledged to keep branches open wherever possible. Former BT executive Garner, who took over last month, said: ‘I don’t expect the number of branches that we have to change dramatically in the near future. ‘I passionately believe in branches and the people in them.’ Nationwide members deposited an extra £6.3billion with the society during the year, taking its total to £138.7billion. This was despite what it called ‘strong competition’ from government-owned provider National Savings and Investments, which has been offering saving rates significantly better than the private market. But Nationwide’s profit boost was driven chiefly by a growth in mortgage lending. This has surged to a higher level than before the Great Recession. The building society had a 13.7 per cent share of the market during the year, with £32.6billion of residential mortgage lending – up £5.5billion on the previous year. It has also increased the age at which mortgages must be repaid from 75 to 85 in recognition of Britain’s more elderly population. But in this increasingly-heated market, Nationwide is concerned younger buyers could struggle to realise their dreams. Read more: https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/mortgageshome/article-3607259/Mortgage-let-s-pass-wealth-children-Nationwide-s-plan-help-young-people-buy-home.html#ixzz49f2HBzVNFollow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

Hold out for lowest home loans ever! Best mortgage deals tipped to become even cheaper after Brexit rate cut Interest rates forecast to be cut to 0.25% by Bank of England after Brexit Mortgage brokers suggest waiting a few weeks could pay off Two-year fixes are cheapest but five-year fixed rate deals give security  Homeowners are in line for a Brexit boost as banks prepare to cut their mortgage rates. The best deals are set to become even cheaper because Britain voted to leave the EU. Cuts are likely because the Bank of England is being tipped to slash base rate from its record low 0.5 per cent to 0.25 per cent by the end of the year. Experts say mortgage lenders will take the axe to home loan rates early to lure customers. Borrowers now have some tricky decisions to make: should they wait to grab one of these new, cheaper deals? And should they lock into a long-term or short-term contract? Most mortgage brokers suggest waiting a few weeks to see if top new deals are launched. Ray Boulger, of broker John Charcol, says: ‘I am convinced rates are going to come down, so my advice would be for borrowers looking for a fixed-rate mortgage to hold off until lenders act.’ Then it comes down to what type of loan you want to get. The two main choices are a fixed deal or a tracker. A fixed rate ensures your payments won’t change for a set period, while a tracker sees your bills move up or down with official base rate. Fixed deals could get cheaper sooner than trackers. As soon as Brexit was confirmed last week, the cost to banks of funding fixed deals started to fall. This is measured by so-called swap rates. When traders think the Bank of England base rate will fall, so do swaps — and vice-versa. City experts think that the Bank of England will have to slash interest rates to keep the economy ticking over as Britain adapts to being outside the EU. So in the wake of last Thursday’s referendum, swap rates fell by as much as one-third. These falls should soon be passed on to borrowers in the form of lower interest rates. Taking a fixed deal now will give you peace of mind over your monthly housing bills, whatever happens over the next few years. Read more: https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/mortgageshome/article-3664786/Hold-lowest-home-loans-Best-deals-set-cheaper-Brexit-rate-cut.html#ixzz4Cy29NFjf

Balance of 8% more surveyors reported an increase in buyer enquiries  But supply declined for seventh month in a row Prices rose everywhere except London and the North East in September  Homebuyer demand has picked up for the first time in seven months as a paucity of properties for sale props up prices, according to a new survey. In September, a balance of 8 per cent more estate agents reported an increase in buyer enquiries, compared to June, when a balance of 34 per cent of surveyors recorded a drop in demand. This is the first time since February that net demand has picked up. The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors said the return of interest by property seekers was a sign that the market was settling down after the slowdown caused by the introduction of higher stamp duty and Brexit concerns. But the number of new homes coming onto the market fell for the seventh straight month, with the imbalance between demand and supply expected to continue to drive prices higher. ‘In fact, with the exception of a few months around the turn of the year, the flow of new stock coming to market has dwindled continuously over the past two years,’ RICS said. Read more: https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/mortgageshome/article-3834666/Buyers-return-property-market-time-seven-months-supply-crunch-props-prices.html#ixzz4Mxc2paYv

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New rents outside the capital have risen faster than in London for the first time since 2010. Countrywide’s November Monthly Lettings Index shows rents in Greater London fell 0.7% year-on-year to £1,284. This is the sharpest fall since October 2010 and now means that over the course of the past 12 months, London has gone from the region with the second fastest rate of rental growth in Great Britain to the slowest. Across the country the cost of a new let rose by 2.0% over the past 12 months to £925. New lets Region Ave Rent Nov-16 Ave Rent Oct-16 Ave Rent Nov-15 November Rent YOY Greater London (excl central London) £1,284 £1,302 £1,292 (0.7%) Central London £2,402 £2,475 £2,383 0.8% East of England £981 £996 £941 4.3% South East £1,138 £1,150 £1,098 3.6% South West £835 £850 £811 3.0% Midlands £671 £702 £662 1.4% North £656 £674 £627 4.7% Scotland £677 £700 £671 0.9% Wales £632 £688 £643 (1.8%) Total £925 £947 £907 2.0% The gap between rents in London and the rest of Great Britain has steadily grown over the past five years. By 2015, the gap had reached a record £490 a month, up from £150 a month in 2010, Countrywide says. But with rental growth slowing in the capital, the gap between London and the rest of the country has narrowed. By November 2016 the gap had fallen to £489 a month, the first fall since 2010. Gap between London rents and the rest of GB   Greater London GB (ex London) Difference (£) Difference (%) 2007 £966 £749 £217 29% 2008 £809 £642 £167 26% 2009 £808 £635 £173 27% 2010 £844 £694 £150 22% 2011 £971 £712 £259 36% 2012 £1,082 £726 £356 49% 2013 £1,118 £739 £379 51% 2014 £1,197 £759 £438 58% 2015 £1,279 £789 £490 62% 2016 £1,298 £809 £489 60% Countrywide attributes the narrowing gap between London rents and those in the rest of the country to a surge in the number of homes available to rent in the capital. In November there were 32% more homes to rent in London than 12 months ago, while the number of would-be tenants rose by just 9%. Johnny Morris, research director at Countrywide, said: “Higher than usual numbers of homes available to rent has boosted tenants’ negotiating power. Stock growth has outstripped that of tenants. “This is in part due to the hangover from the rush to beat the 3% stamp duty charge earlier in the year and a shift in stock from the sales market. With more choice and facing stretched affordability, many tenants are using their new-found negotiating power to agree lower rents than in 2015. “Since the gap between London rents and those in the rest of the country hit a high water mark in 2015, the gap has been gradually narrowing. “The pressure on affordability and number of homes coming on to the rental market in the capital means that rents are likely to lag behind the rest of the country in 2017.”

Rents in the UK fell by 0.3% in May compared to the same month a year ago, the first such fall since December 2009; the average monthly rent now stands at £901 Rents in London fell by 3.0% in May compared to May 2016, the most substantial fall for 8 years HomeLet’s May Rental Index reveals that rents fell in five out of the 12 regions of the UK UK rental price inflation fell for the first time in almost eight years in May, new data from HomeLet reveals. The average rent on a new tenancy commencing in May was £901, 0.3% lower than in the same month of 2016. New tenancies on rents in London were 3% lower than this time last year. May’s decrease in average rental values marks a significant moment for the rented property sector. This is the first time since December 2009 the HomeLet Rental Index has reported a fall in rents on an annualised basis. The pace of rental price inflation across the UK has been slowing in recent months, having peaked at 4.7% last summer. In addition to the fall in rents in the capital, four other regions of the UK saw rents on new tenancies decline during May. The North-East of England, the South-East, Yorkshire & Humberside, and Scotland registered falls ranging from 2.3% to 0.6%. HomeLet’s regional data is available in more detail via an online interactive infographic. The slowdown in the rental sector mirrors a similar picture elsewhere in the housing market, with Nationwide Building Society revealing in June that house prices had fallen in each of the past three months. The slowdown in the London market has seen average rents fall from £1,572 a month last July to £1,502 in May. Last month’s 3.0% annualised fall was the steepest decline seen in the capital since 2009. Commenting on the research, HomeLet’s Chief Executive Officer, Martin Totty said: “May 2017 saw average rents nationally fall for the first time in eight years when the economy had suffered the shock of the financial crisis. HomeLet rental data suggests landlords are now facing a difficult balancing act between ensuring rents are affordable for tenants in a low real wage growth environment whilst covering their own rising costs. “Tenants will still need a vibrant and growing rented sector to provide them with property options at the time of their choosing. Any constraint to the supply of rental properties, because landlords are unable to achieve the reasonable returns they require, cannot be in the long term best interests of tenants, especially if, as we’ve now heard from all the main political parties, the UK’s population continues to grow.” Read More: https://homelet.co.uk/news/article/uk-rents-fall-for-the-first-time-in-8-years?utm_source=Rental%20Index&utm_medium=email&utm_content=HRI%20Headlines&utm_campaign=Agent%20Mailer&dm_i=2LB6,131TQ,6EUCFY,39M4E,1

Rightmove’s rebrand is on target to start its live roll-out tomorrow. To you and me, it might be a bit of an update on Rightmove’s long-running ‘find your happy’ campaign, chiefly involving new window stickers, some updated logos and a change of colours. Oh, and some doodles coming up next. But then, what do we know? According to the magazine Design Week, it’s a whole new brand, “designed to symbolise the brand message ‘find your happy’ by giving it a sense of direction and ‘humanity’”. Rightmove itself was a bit more down to earth, when we inquired, saying there has been good feedback from agents, and that the aim is to have a cleaner and bolder look. According to Design Week, reporting on the work undertaken by a firm called The Team, it’s not nearly that simple (ie, it wasn’t cheap, involved endless creative brain-storming sessions, and will win awards). The magazine reports: “Property search giant Rightmove has been rebranded by The Team in an effort to humanise the brand and reaffirm its position as the UK’s most popular property website. “Rightmove claims to advertise around 90% of all homes advertised by estate agents across the UK. Started in 1999, the company set out to ‘help people make the right move’, changing their focus to ‘find your happy’. “Rightmove’s original logo featured an arrow and a house, which had partly evolved to tell the story of finding a happy home. “The Team’s brand strategy director Dan Dufour says that the “find your happy” message “was not being reflected in the visual identity so we had to find a way to further bring it to life. “The Team was asked to create a new symbol and a design framework, which would work on and offline – including consumer and business-to-business marketing. “A new logo has been designed to inject “human warmth” into the brand. Dufour says: “The best brands always engage on an emotional level and have a distinctive emotional quality.” According to Dufour the new design is inspired by the sentiment “home is where the heart is”. The “find your happy” message is propagated by rotating the house symbol, giving it a sense of movement and direction. “By softening the edges of both the symbol and the wordmark the brand starts to function in a “more emotional and less rational way”. It sets a precedent for a wider brand framework, which will roll out in the New Year and include a set of doodles designed in house. “While the logo has to work in 2D in its simplest form that doesn’t mean it can’t come to life,” adds Dufour. “A new colour palette moves away from a conservative blue and green, replacing it with turquoise, a brighter blue and a cherry red where the home symbol is made to look like a heart. The wordmark has been softened and is now set in Effra.” Crikey! No wonder we could never find a job in marketing. Still, it really does all look very good. And it probably will win awards.