New keeper wanted.....

If the idea of being able to do a spot of wildlife watching from your window and having coastal walks right on your doorstep sounds appealing, this former lighthouse keeper’s cottage in Aberdeen is well worth a look.

In fact, the quaint cottage is so close to the sea that you can hear the water crashing against the rocks.

The cottage forms part of a walled community of five homes within the grounds of Girdleness Lighthouse.

Designed by Robert Stevenson, grandfather of author Robert Louis Stevenson, the lighthouse was constructed in 1833 to a new design and was considered the best lighthouse ever seen by the royal commission in its report of 1860.

The lighthouse was manned until 1991, when it was automated, and it remains a navigation aid for ships entering Aberdeen harbour.

Parkview Cottage is a charming two-bedroom home steeped in history and retaining many fine period features, such as beautiful pitch-pine panelled doors with original brass hinges; sash-and-case windows with working window shutters; high ceilings with cornicing; picture rails, and wooden flooring.

For a home in a relaxing location, Parkview Cottage is worth noting.

The property is on the market for offers over £198,000. For further information, call selling agent Simpson & Marwick on 01224 622622.

Until the next time,

Mr Jackson.

Westminster Council sells its street signs....

Westminster Council sells its street signs on Ebay !

Including Bow Street, Abbey Road and Covent Garden... original street signs complete with Westminster Council authentication certificates. The council is replacing them with anti-graffiti models. The Ebay sales are said to offset the cost. Abbey Road is expected to be the most popular.

Click here to view

Perhaps Moray Council may follow suit Lazarus Lane in Elgin has always been my particular favourite !

Streets ahead as always,

Mr Jackson

Lottery ticket anyone....?

Kinross House, north of Edinburgh, was called the most beautiful piece of architecture in Scotland by Daniel Defoe and it is still a hugely impressive building. The property is on the market with a guide price of £4.25 million, reduced from its pre-launch “unofficial” guide price of £5 million. Designed and built in the late 17th century by Sir William Bruce — sometimes called the Christopher Wren of North Britain — as his home, it is one of the first examples of classical architecture north of the Border.

Though maintaining the property could be a burden — it is set in just over 76 acres and upkeep of the gardens alone, considered one of the finest formal gardens in Scotland, costs about £60,000 a year. The gardens are open to visitors, but entrance fees only bring in a nominal income.

There are 16 bedrooms, a playroom, nursery, and an imperious garden room, which has a 17th-century Flemish tapestry. The tapestry, like much of the furniture, may be sold for an additional sum. A few smaller rooms have been opened up to create a huge kitchen/family room. The house has been well maintained, and there’s even a ballroom, filled with ceiling-high portraits of the Montgomeries, and several cottages.

Since property prices have fallen, however, prospecitve buyers have been reluctant to overbid, even if the guide price is low. David at Moray Property said that properties in Scotland are now unlikely to sell for much more than their guide prices, on average only between 2-10%, particularly those costing more than £2 million !

Lottery ticket anyone.... ?

Until the next time,

Mr Jackson.

E-Bay Bargain....?

What seems like a nice little investment property in Blargowrie is listed on e-bay at present.

It's a lock up shop, currently leased out to a Bridal Studio with a 5 year ongoing lease until 2014. The seller is looking for £33k, with a rent of £3120.00 per anum, this equates to a 9.45% return.

Might be worth a look, especially if you are a cash buyer with money in the bank gaining a paltry 1% or less.

The only thing I would look out for is a communal charge, as it's a three storey building. There's no mention of what the upper floors are used for and it would be best to have a full repairing lease in place. It is near a River, so do your homework people - Just ask anyone from Elgin or Fochabers about living near a river.

Otherwise looks like a good deal. See more details about this property on e-bay by clicking here.

Good luck !

Mr Jackson.

Bad Tenant 2....

A 98-year-old woman (not pictured above)became one of the oldest people in Britain to be evicted from her home after being branded "the neighbour from hell".

A judge told Mary Plaisted she had 28 days to leave the sheltered housing flat in Southampton where she has lived for 28 years.

Southampton City Council took the court action after Mrs Plaisted made the lives of her neighbours a misery for years from her £65-a week ground floor accommodation in the Lordshill area of the city.

The pensioner, who denies she has been a problem, is alleged to have assaulted carers and council staff and harassed neighbours by banging on their windows.

She was also accused of using her panic alarm 563 times in a month, and making 264 calls to police over the last two years.

District Judge Robert Naylor approved the council's application for an eviction order at a hearing at the city's county court yesterday.

Council spokesman Nick Cross said: "It is very regrettable when any action is taken by the council to repossess a property, particularly when the individual is very elderly.

"However, the council is left with no alternative when anti-social behaviour by one tenant leads to other residents' lives being made a misery.

"In such cases we will act for the due regard of other tenants while balancing this with the need to act responsibly for the needs of the individual.

"This has been a particularly difficult case and we will now progress this with sensitivity and in line with the council's housing responsibility.

"We have a number of options as to what we can do next and we will be discussing these with Mrs Plaisted."

Speaking to the Southern Daily Echo, Mrs Plaisted said: "I didn't attack anybody, and I've only asked for help when I've needed it.

"I haven't done anything wrong that I'm aware of and I don't know why they're after me. I can't understand it.

"I'm very worried because I don't know what I'll do. I've got nowhere to go."

If you'd like Mary as your neighbour, give me a call, I'll put you in contact with her, that's if she's not on the phone to the police....

Old people eh ;-)

Mr Jackson

Bad Tenant 1.....

His music had his neighbours Rockin' All Over The World - but now Paul Lloyd is risking going Down Down.

Blasting out Status Quo rock songs at all hours of the day, Lloyd was proving to be a menace to his neighbours.

But he has now been silenced after he was hit with a two-year anti-social behaviour order (Asbo) preventing him from playing loud music.

Lloyd has also had thousands of pounds worth of equipment, including six televisions, four DVD players, hi-fis and set-top boxes seized from him.

The 34-year-old, of Hampstead Road, Benwell, Newcastle, was prosecuted after ignoring a string of Newcastle City Council notices ordering him to keep quiet.

Noise team officers received complaints from people living near him who had been kept awake all night by the thud of the bass beat from his stereo equipment, including hits by Status Quo, whose songs include Rockin' All Over the World, Down Down and Whatever You Want (Not that I'm a fan you understand....).

Lloyd pleaded guilty to four charges of failing to comply with Noise Abatement Notices and Newcastle magistrates gave him a two-year Asbo which prevents him making any noise that can be heard outside his flat between 11pm and 7am.

He has also been banned from causing alarm, harassment or distress to his neighbours.

If he breaches the terms of the order, Lloyd could be fined or jailed for up to five years.

Stephen Savage, the city council's director of public protection said: "We will not tolerate any sort of behaviour which has a negative effect on other people's quality of life.

"This Asbo shows we'll take appropriate action if necessary. The Asbo that Mr Lloyd received sends a clear warning out to those who choose not to consider their neighbours' quality of life."

Lloyd was also told to pay £100 prosecution costs, while the court also ordered the forfeiture of his electronic equipment.

Seems like he'll be playing unplugged sessions from now on....

Until the next one.

Mr Jackson.

Estate agent does time....

The New York Times reports on the case on an Iraqi estate agent who is now serving three years in jail for bouncing cheques.

Mr Ali Fariq 33, was kidnapped and beaten by an Iraqi diplomat, Birhan al-Yacoubi, who blamed him for an investment deal gone sour.

Mr Al-Yacoubi is alleged to have forced Mr Fariq to write cheques drawing on funds he did not have. The cheques were then presented to the police as evidence of fraud for which Mr Fariq is now serving time.

Bouncing a check is a criminal offense in Dubai and that fact has begun raising questions about the fairness of Dubai’s laws, especially among the foreigners who make up about 90 percent of the population.

The overall uncertainty of Dubai’s legal system — especially the risk of doing jail time for debt — has prompted many expatriates to flee when they are in financial trouble rather than filing for bankruptcy and setting out a repayment schedule.

In a recent open letter to “The Dubai Public” Simon Ford the British Founder of a recently closed down travel company in Dubai said. “I am not running away from debt, I am purely protecting those dearest to me and getting out of a country which, due to the lack of structured bankruptcy laws and a banking system which has zero flexibility on loan repayments, drives people to make horrible decisions.

Over the past 12 months I've seen an influx of ex-pats making their way back to Britain, especially those from Spain and the Middle East. Certainly the lure of large sums of cash and sunny climes does seem tempting. But as we've seen time and time again, there's more to life than profit and sunshine....

Keep smiling,

Mr Jackson

James' crazy loans.....

Dragons' Den's James Caan is teaming up with Hitachi Capital to offer high loan-to-value mortgages to borrowers, via his Look4aproperty.com website.

How crazy could Caan's loans get? I hear 95% crazy.

C'mon James, we're all stocked up here - go sell crazy someplace else.... Less we get into the same trouble as we did before.

Yours tellingly,

Mr Jackson.

How to sell your house in a buyers market.

1 It’s a buyer’s market. But with few sellers around, competition is limited. According to Hometrack, the number of new buyers has risen by 32 per cent over the past three months while the number of homes on the market has grown by less than 10 per cent.

2 Keep the price down. Do not be swayed by the estate agent who offers you the highest valuation: many are overvaluing homes simply to get the instruction. Compare prices and do your homework to find out exactly what properties are selling for in your area.

3 Make your agent work. Agents’ fees vary between 1 and 3 per cent. Choose the one that offers you the best deal has recently sold homes similar to yours and keep it on its toes by negotiating a four-week contract.

4 Buyers start their search online. Your home must be on all the main portals, such as Globrix, & Rightmove, not just your agent’s site. The main photo is usually an exterior shot so make sure the façade looks good. A tidy front garden, clean windows and a well-kept front door are essential.

5 First impressions are crucial. Buyers are making up their minds within about 30 seconds of walking through the door, according to Paul Hammond, of the Lossiemouth agent Moray Property.

6 Focus on the front room. If you have £5,000 or less to spend, make sure it goes on the first room that the buyer will see. This usually means repainting walls and woodwork as well as doing any repairs. Also, buyers prefer wooden floors to grubby carpets.

7 Boost your bedroom count. If you are selling a three-bedroom house, all three must look like bedrooms, not a storage room for the rowing machine.

8 Turn the box room into a study, home office or an extra shower room/lavatory. This looks much more impressive on the sales particulars than “box room” and most people can find alternative storage space under the stairs, in the attic — or in a skip.

9 Resist the temptation to turn bedrooms into bathrooms. Most buyers expect more than one bathroom in a house with more than three bedrooms, but two bathrooms is usually enough in a home with up to six bedrooms.

10 If you know there is a problem with your property, fix it or be honest from the outset — don’t give the buyer an excuse to pull out or drop his or her offer at the last minute because the survey revealed something unsavoury.

Good Luck.....!

Until the next one,

Mr Jackson.

Housing 'Apps'.....

Always one to keep up with the latest technology fads, (even at my age) I was interested to see that last Tuesday, Rightmove launched their new iPhone app and early signs are promising with it topping the 'Top Free Apps' on iTunes.



It’s no surprise that the UK property portals want to get involved with iphone apps as they become increasingly popular and more and more people are using mobiles to search the web. The top US property app from Zillow has been downloaded over half a million times, proving how popular mobile web surfing for property is and has the potential to be going forward.

I am sure that Rightmove would like to follow in the footsteps of Zillow and know that the other portals are working on iPhone apps too, Globrix being one of them promising to bring out an app with wow factor very soon.

If I was a property hunter with an iPhone, I would prefer the Rightmove site for now, but if I was an Estate Agent I’d be looking at getting my own mobile site and being prepared to promote the Globrix services alongside my own - Keeping well ahead of my competitors !

Until the next time,

Mr Jackson.

Told you it was a steal....

Less than a week after my posting about the 'steal' of a property at Marine Court, Stotfield Road, Lossiemouth, it's now already under offer....

I hope to bring you more properties of a similar nature soon, for all you bargain hunters out there.

Glad to see things are drying up in Moray - Looks like a nice sunny start to the week.

Yours (a bit drier now....),

Mr Jackson.

Everyone in the Ark......!

Once again Moray bore the brunt of the downpours which closed roads and schools across the north-east, with Lossiemouth recording a month’s rainfall in a single day.

But council officials said recently-completed flood defences in Forres and Lhanbryde had coped well with the deluge. That's all well and good, but what about the people of Elgin & Fochabers ?

Flooded in 1997, 2002 and again in 2009. It's about time the flood alleviation scheme for this area was prioritised. Moray Council is currently half way through completing the scheme, covering every flood-threatened community in the area and costing a total of £150m.

The projects at Lhanbryde and Forres, totalling £23m, have already been completed. Work has now begun on flood alleviation for Rothes, one of the towns badly hit again yesterday.

With over 500 homes being evacuated yesterday and the expected repair costs running into hundreds of millions of pounds this work is needed now !

I had properties in the Pansport area of Elgin when the 1997 floods happened and every promise was made to prevent it happening again...but, surprise, surprise, nothing has been done and these poor people have to go through this all over again. Heads should roll at the Moray Council and the Scottish Government

Also, when will the local government learn about flood management by stopping planning and new housing developments on every available piece of land, especially those located on flood plains or areas which are prone to flooding. Its not rocket science.....

Yours, a very wet

Mr Jackson.

A lightbulb moment.....

"Funny" Somerset estate agent Jules Bending's apparently going into the obsolete light bulb business, and admits he's been stockpiling traditional hundred watters in a farmer's shed in the Mendip Hills, in readiness for the ban.



Guardian readers are apparently furious.

Until now, Bending – who runs an estate agency in Glastonbury, Somerset – has been better known for his tongue-in-cheek property descriptions which have got him banned by Rightmove.

However, he may now become more illustrious for his collection of 6,700 bulbs, which he believes will fetch between £40 and £60 each when sold on to climate-change refuseniks desperate for the real thing.

The sale of ‘ordinary’ 100w light bulbs has now been banned but many people do not like the energy-saving variety, which Bending says give off a “pukey green” light.

One property blogger feels slightly queasy. Ah... the West Country, where estate agent-sponsored mud wrestling is considered good publicity, and sticking light bulbs in a shed is entrepreneurship....

Until the next time,

Mr Jackson.