This week I've given over my blog to a 'popular' local agent whom I met whilst selecting a large piece of Blueberry pie at Logie Steading. We reminissed on the virtues of getting old and of course the local property market, here's what he had to say - I'm sure you'll enjoy it ......
As I pause before the mirror and contemplate another day flogging homes, I check the reflection and grimace. Countless old buzzards in crumbling homes, matching their crumbling frames, regale estate agents with portentous warnings about not getting old, seemingly unaware that the alternative isn’t too peachy an option.
I know it’s because they’re lonely and painfully aware that life is effectively over - just the care home and the adult sized nappies to negotiate – but I’m already prone to mild depression, in this business.‘Not too bad for your age.’ Chuckles my wife not entirely helpfully, as I fiddle with my tie knot.
I’m aware I’m no matinee star, but I like to feel I’ve aged better than most of my peer group. With the rapidly greying temples, I’m trying to cultivate the salt and pepper George Clooney look, but in truth it might be closer to George Fornby.
‘Maturing.’ I say pausing before adding. ‘ Like a good wine.’ It hands my wife the perfect opportunity too confirm wryly, that she knows I do.
‘You’re doing okay.’ She grants graciously, then hurries to the kitchen to avoid any further fabrication.
I occasionally run into old school contemporaries, often valuing their home for a matrimonial split. It’s a bittersweet moment judging, as we both are doubtless doing, who has done better since the faded yearbook picture. The ones that give me a warm cheer are the over-achievers who peaked early. The sort of kiddie who was football captain, had a trial for a minor league outfit, and always picked you last in the traumatising P.E. team selection process.
Obviously it’s bad for business pointing out the balding big-bellied man about to lose his home hasn’t worn too well. You can’t afford too much blatant vitriol in sales. On reflection, it might be why I’m persevering with this blog, cheaper than a therapist’s couch and any carping won’t cost precious deals.
‘You’ll be late.’ Warns my wife, as I check my e-mails. I’ve been tempted by another Friends Reunited teaser and dipped into that oddly addictive time warp. I’m not scanning for first love availability mind, I’ve attended too may forced sales where one spouse has been seduced by a twenty-five year old memory of his classmate in a gymslip, to know it’s not a wise move.
Although relationship break-ups do fuel the sales market nicely. Perhaps my crummy outfit should investigate a link to the site. Not sure how the photos posted on-line would stand up to the property misdescription act though, as most of them are ten years and ten pounds out of date.
‘Don’t I know you?’ Asks the grey-faced man who opens the door to me later. He looks like a barely animated corpse, and as he stares at my business card we both realise we attended the same failed educational experiment. A vast comprehensive forged by the amalgamation of a reluctant Grammar school and a notorious secondary modern. He used to kick me as I waited at the bus stop, a fact he’s conveniently forgotten, unless he’s got early onset Alzheimer’s.
I remember though.‘Best days of my life.’ He reminisces nostalgically; confirming he’s either completely lost his marbles along with his wife, or has had an exceedingly dull thirty years since.Then as if to confirm he reached his apex in maths lessons, he brings out a dusty set of school photos and ignoring the fact he routinely bruised my ankles while I waited for the number ten bus, he starts meandering down memory lane.
The man is clearly more depressed than I am, so once I’ve humoured him with the odd sanitised anecdote about the crappy emporium we both attended, and more importantly ascertained his soon to be ex-wife’s solicitor has okayed the imminent house sale, I hit him with a top rate sole agency - one that stings almost as much as my legs used to.
‘I’m thinking of organising a reunion.’ The man continues once I’ve the paperwork and a for sale board safely confirmed. God help his creaky-limbed internet-sourced dance partner when Slade are played at the disco, she’ll need to watch her shins.I’ll just wait for their re-sale in a couple of year’s time.
See you at the reunion- Until next time,
Mr Jackson.
Tuesday, 25 November 2008
Tuesday, 11 November 2008
'Interest'ing Rate Cuts.
There's uproar at the Daily Mail website, in response to a piece in which it's reported that the lenders (many of which, by the way, have now passed last week's 1.5% interest rate cut) have told Alistair Darling they won't be passing on any further cuts, while the Libor rate remains substantially higher than the base rate.
Nor is it unusual... it's a response to mortgage interest rates we're hearing over and over again. And it's incredibly, astonishingly shortsighted. Has everybody - already - forgotten how we got into this mess in the first place?
Will more cheap credit really get us out? And who, in their right mind, would rather have seen the banks left to fail, taking savers, homeowners and businesses with them?
The banks weren't bailed out for the personal benefit of the directors - they were bailed out for the benefit of the economy. Furthermore, who really believes that cutting interest rates is going to prop up the housing market?
And - finally - remember that there are still some savers out there, people who didn't take advantage of easy credit but who behaved responsibly in the first place - who'd like to see their savings rewarded with a level of interest that at least keeps up with inflation.
These are unusual times my friend, sit back and enjoy the ride - if you can. It's much more palletable with a couple of slices of Dundee cake and an expresso - whilst enjoying these, things don't look all that bad, for a few minutes at least.....
Until the next time,
Mr Jackson.
Nor is it unusual... it's a response to mortgage interest rates we're hearing over and over again. And it's incredibly, astonishingly shortsighted. Has everybody - already - forgotten how we got into this mess in the first place?
Will more cheap credit really get us out? And who, in their right mind, would rather have seen the banks left to fail, taking savers, homeowners and businesses with them?
The banks weren't bailed out for the personal benefit of the directors - they were bailed out for the benefit of the economy. Furthermore, who really believes that cutting interest rates is going to prop up the housing market?
And - finally - remember that there are still some savers out there, people who didn't take advantage of easy credit but who behaved responsibly in the first place - who'd like to see their savings rewarded with a level of interest that at least keeps up with inflation.
These are unusual times my friend, sit back and enjoy the ride - if you can. It's much more palletable with a couple of slices of Dundee cake and an expresso - whilst enjoying these, things don't look all that bad, for a few minutes at least.....
Until the next time,
Mr Jackson.
Tuesday, 28 October 2008
Rent the house of your dreams.
I came across a very interesting article in The Telegraph today, whilst sat infront of my log-burning stove, with a mug of hot chocolate, topped with marshmallows. Today was a wrap up warm and stay at home day, it's I while since I saw snow in October !
It is like the beginning of a children's story. The Durrell family famously rented an animal-infested house in Corfu, while E Nesbitt's railway children and their mother took a cottage in Yorkshire which had a railway line running along the bottom of the garden. All kinds of families are now turning to renting. They aim to have adventures, achieve their dreams and avoid any feeling of coming down in the world.
Many other families are thinking alike. The rented sector, which for so long has been inhabited by singles and couples in their 20s and 30s, is now seen as a place of sanctuary and freedom. Hits for family-sized houses on the website in August were a staggering 68 per cent higher than in August last year, and stayed high in September. Hits for renting were 51 per cent higher than in the same month in 2007.
One Hampshire land agent looking for a house to buy realised he could rent a five-bedroom Georgian vicarage with a paddock, stable and outbuildings in a village for the same monthly cost as a mortgage on a Victorian terrace in the nearest town. He took a five-year lease on the vicarage.
"It sounds clever and strategic," he says, "but it just suits us at the moment. You have to ask yourself how much more do you own a house if you are mortgaged up to the hilt on it?" But isn't that monthly outlay dead money? "Not at all, because I am getting what I want. What I have bought is the joy of living in this house."
Sam Gibson and his family have just moved to Morpeth in Northumberland. He and his wife Emily, their two lurchers and seven-month-old Alfred, have moved into the wing of a Grade-I listed pile called Capheaton Hall. And they are renting it.
"We are terrifically lucky," says Sam, an estate agent with Strutt & Parker. "We have four bedrooms, live in one of the area's finest houses, look out over the most perfect ha-ha and have been invited to help eat the produce from the kitchen garden." He does want to buy eventually: "I want to make a home for my young family," he says. "I want a place where Alfie can grow up and I can plant a peach tree."
The 25-year repayment mortgage became too expensive for many people by the end of 2007. Savills, the estate agency, says, they cost 76 per cent more than renting. Many people switched to interest-only mortgages instead.
Seems like now is the ideal time to rent a family sized house of your dreams, at least until 2023, if you read my previous post !
Happy hunting.
Mr Jackson.
It is like the beginning of a children's story. The Durrell family famously rented an animal-infested house in Corfu, while E Nesbitt's railway children and their mother took a cottage in Yorkshire which had a railway line running along the bottom of the garden. All kinds of families are now turning to renting. They aim to have adventures, achieve their dreams and avoid any feeling of coming down in the world.
Many other families are thinking alike. The rented sector, which for so long has been inhabited by singles and couples in their 20s and 30s, is now seen as a place of sanctuary and freedom. Hits for family-sized houses on the website in August were a staggering 68 per cent higher than in August last year, and stayed high in September. Hits for renting were 51 per cent higher than in the same month in 2007.
One Hampshire land agent looking for a house to buy realised he could rent a five-bedroom Georgian vicarage with a paddock, stable and outbuildings in a village for the same monthly cost as a mortgage on a Victorian terrace in the nearest town. He took a five-year lease on the vicarage.
"It sounds clever and strategic," he says, "but it just suits us at the moment. You have to ask yourself how much more do you own a house if you are mortgaged up to the hilt on it?" But isn't that monthly outlay dead money? "Not at all, because I am getting what I want. What I have bought is the joy of living in this house."
Sam Gibson and his family have just moved to Morpeth in Northumberland. He and his wife Emily, their two lurchers and seven-month-old Alfred, have moved into the wing of a Grade-I listed pile called Capheaton Hall. And they are renting it.
"We are terrifically lucky," says Sam, an estate agent with Strutt & Parker. "We have four bedrooms, live in one of the area's finest houses, look out over the most perfect ha-ha and have been invited to help eat the produce from the kitchen garden." He does want to buy eventually: "I want to make a home for my young family," he says. "I want a place where Alfie can grow up and I can plant a peach tree."
The 25-year repayment mortgage became too expensive for many people by the end of 2007. Savills, the estate agency, says, they cost 76 per cent more than renting. Many people switched to interest-only mortgages instead.
Seems like now is the ideal time to rent a family sized house of your dreams, at least until 2023, if you read my previous post !
Happy hunting.
Mr Jackson.
Thursday, 16 October 2008
Prices bounce back...... in 2023 !
If you read the Guardian, like myself, then they had some gloomy news today, stating the average price of a house in the UK will not return to its 2007 peak until 2023, this according to a leading academic.
If you're a homeowner, you'd better sit down with something stronger than Rington's tea and some comfort food, maybe some Rolo doughnuts, which I found on offer this week - thanks to the credit crunch, it's not all bad you know......
Andrew Clare, professor of asset management at Cass business school in London, said the housing market would get "a lot worse" before it started to pick up.
Using futures contracts based on the Halifax house price index, he has calculated that, in 2010, the average will be 40% lower than the peak of £199,600 in August last year - about £120,000. "Worse still, according to these prices, the Halifax index will not recover its August 2007 level until 2023," he said.
Clare said his survey was "very bad news" for anyone who bought a house last summer and predicted negative equity would be a big feature of "our economic landscape for years to come". However, he also sees greater affordability, with the ratio of average house prices to average earnings declining as property prices fall, assuming that earnings rise at an average nominal rate of 5% a year.
"By 2010 the price-to-earnings ratio would be much closer to a sustainable level - very close to the old-style mortgage multiples that lenders used," he said.
Halifax said last week that the average price of a house fell 13.3% in the year to September - the biggest drop since records were first kept 25 years ago.
However, specialists giving evidence at a Treasury select committee yesterday gave a less gloomy outlook than that painted by Clare. David Miles, professor of finance at Imperial College London, told MPs that house prices would stabilise after a further 5-10% drop. He said a total 20% drop in prices should be the point at which the housing market rejuvenates.
The ripple effect is now starting to hit Scotland and Moray, just look in the estate agents windows and in the local press. There's many more houses being offered at fixed prices and rental prices are steadily increasing.
Word has it that several local estate agents are struggling at present and if the sale market doesn't improve soon, we may well see many more Big Issue vendors on our streets ! Though they have had it very good for the last few years, let's hope it doesn't come to that.
The Moray housing market is very resiliant though, if only purchasers could still get a good mortgage offer. As always, shop around my friends, the current economic slowdown is affecting all businesses, with many being prepared to negotiate or offer better deals, just like my Rolo doughnuts !
All the best,
Mr Jackson
If you're a homeowner, you'd better sit down with something stronger than Rington's tea and some comfort food, maybe some Rolo doughnuts, which I found on offer this week - thanks to the credit crunch, it's not all bad you know......
Andrew Clare, professor of asset management at Cass business school in London, said the housing market would get "a lot worse" before it started to pick up.
Using futures contracts based on the Halifax house price index, he has calculated that, in 2010, the average will be 40% lower than the peak of £199,600 in August last year - about £120,000. "Worse still, according to these prices, the Halifax index will not recover its August 2007 level until 2023," he said.
Clare said his survey was "very bad news" for anyone who bought a house last summer and predicted negative equity would be a big feature of "our economic landscape for years to come". However, he also sees greater affordability, with the ratio of average house prices to average earnings declining as property prices fall, assuming that earnings rise at an average nominal rate of 5% a year.
"By 2010 the price-to-earnings ratio would be much closer to a sustainable level - very close to the old-style mortgage multiples that lenders used," he said.
Halifax said last week that the average price of a house fell 13.3% in the year to September - the biggest drop since records were first kept 25 years ago.
However, specialists giving evidence at a Treasury select committee yesterday gave a less gloomy outlook than that painted by Clare. David Miles, professor of finance at Imperial College London, told MPs that house prices would stabilise after a further 5-10% drop. He said a total 20% drop in prices should be the point at which the housing market rejuvenates.
The ripple effect is now starting to hit Scotland and Moray, just look in the estate agents windows and in the local press. There's many more houses being offered at fixed prices and rental prices are steadily increasing.
Word has it that several local estate agents are struggling at present and if the sale market doesn't improve soon, we may well see many more Big Issue vendors on our streets ! Though they have had it very good for the last few years, let's hope it doesn't come to that.
The Moray housing market is very resiliant though, if only purchasers could still get a good mortgage offer. As always, shop around my friends, the current economic slowdown is affecting all businesses, with many being prepared to negotiate or offer better deals, just like my Rolo doughnuts !
All the best,
Mr Jackson
Wednesday, 8 October 2008
Bag Of Cats....
A very strange landlord in New York came up with a rather sick idea of getting rid of his tenants-putting dead cats in one of the building's flats.
Following the sickening move, tenants of the building are suing the landlord. The residents of the apartment building in Bushwick, Brooklyn, have claimed that the stench was so bad that they had to hold their noses when they passed through the communal stairs. "It was so bad, we thought it was a dead body," The Telegraph quoted Daisy Terry, one of the tenants, as saying.
After several weeks, when the smell started to waft around the building, the New York housing inspectors were called in to look into the issue. After investigation, it actually turned out to be a bag of dead, rotting cats lying in a vacant ground floor flat.
With the support of the members of the city council, the rent-stabilised tenants are now suing a property company, Heskel 1, which bought the property last year. The tenants have also alleged that the company even removed the stairs leading to the basement and filled hallways with rubbish after they refused to accept money to move out so the building could be redeveloped.
However, the landlord has refused to comment on the issue. According to Christine Quinn, the New York City Council Speaker, such cases were "happening all over our city and we must ensure wronged tenants have the right to confront their harassers in court.
Happening all over the City ? Thank goodness we live in a much more civilised area, for the time being at least.
That's put me right off my Battenburg this morning. If you have a worse landlord than that, please let me know !
All the best,
Mr Jackson.
Following the sickening move, tenants of the building are suing the landlord. The residents of the apartment building in Bushwick, Brooklyn, have claimed that the stench was so bad that they had to hold their noses when they passed through the communal stairs. "It was so bad, we thought it was a dead body," The Telegraph quoted Daisy Terry, one of the tenants, as saying.
After several weeks, when the smell started to waft around the building, the New York housing inspectors were called in to look into the issue. After investigation, it actually turned out to be a bag of dead, rotting cats lying in a vacant ground floor flat.
With the support of the members of the city council, the rent-stabilised tenants are now suing a property company, Heskel 1, which bought the property last year. The tenants have also alleged that the company even removed the stairs leading to the basement and filled hallways with rubbish after they refused to accept money to move out so the building could be redeveloped.
However, the landlord has refused to comment on the issue. According to Christine Quinn, the New York City Council Speaker, such cases were "happening all over our city and we must ensure wronged tenants have the right to confront their harassers in court.
Happening all over the City ? Thank goodness we live in a much more civilised area, for the time being at least.
That's put me right off my Battenburg this morning. If you have a worse landlord than that, please let me know !
All the best,
Mr Jackson.
Monday, 29 September 2008
There's cowboys in them there towns......
A good friend of mine has recently been discussing with me his unsatisfactory dealings with a certain local letting agent. Forget the fact that he missed out on a rental income to the tune of a few thousand pounds, his gripe is that he feels he was completely hustled by supposed ‘experts’.
'X ' As I will call him (he even looks a bit like a secret agent) had never let out a property before and having been talked the talk by the local agent, and having received a healthy (realistically overinflated) rental valuation, he saw no reason not to list with Agent B.
Although he was assured the market was as strong as ever, his property lay tenantless, managers wouldn’t answer his calls and viewings were scarce. I won’t name names when it comes to which agents did what, but you can probably make a fairly educated guess as to which agent was excited to get him on the books and then failed to ever deliver a viewing.
If you’re thinking of letting out a property, how can you avoid falling into the hands of misleading agents?
Well, a good place to start would be the fantastic list of questions that Which? have compiled.
They recommend you visit at least three agents and understand all their fees and charges before you committ to anything and if they can’t answer all your questions satisfactorily, don’t list with them. Not everyone’s out to hustle you, you will find a decent letting agent if you do your homework.
You couldn't do better than the chaps at Moray Rentals in my opinion - but then they always make sure I get a cup of tea and a slice of David's wife's Dundee cake :-)
What to ask:
· How many similar properties do you have to let?
· How many are not being let now?
· How long does it usually take from advertising to getting a tenant?
· Is anyone currently looking for my sort of property?
· What qualifications do your staff have in letting?
· Are you in a trade association? If not, why not?
· How are disputes between owners and agents settled?
· What happens about repairs in the home?
· If the agency handles repairs, am I charged cost price, or with a mark-up?
Plus anything else you think relevant to your situation.
Be careful out there, not all cowboy's wear Stetsons and ride horses !
Until the next time,
Mr Jackson.
'X ' As I will call him (he even looks a bit like a secret agent) had never let out a property before and having been talked the talk by the local agent, and having received a healthy (realistically overinflated) rental valuation, he saw no reason not to list with Agent B.
Although he was assured the market was as strong as ever, his property lay tenantless, managers wouldn’t answer his calls and viewings were scarce. I won’t name names when it comes to which agents did what, but you can probably make a fairly educated guess as to which agent was excited to get him on the books and then failed to ever deliver a viewing.
If you’re thinking of letting out a property, how can you avoid falling into the hands of misleading agents?
Well, a good place to start would be the fantastic list of questions that Which? have compiled.
They recommend you visit at least three agents and understand all their fees and charges before you committ to anything and if they can’t answer all your questions satisfactorily, don’t list with them. Not everyone’s out to hustle you, you will find a decent letting agent if you do your homework.
You couldn't do better than the chaps at Moray Rentals in my opinion - but then they always make sure I get a cup of tea and a slice of David's wife's Dundee cake :-)
What to ask:
· How many similar properties do you have to let?
· How many are not being let now?
· How long does it usually take from advertising to getting a tenant?
· Is anyone currently looking for my sort of property?
· What qualifications do your staff have in letting?
· Are you in a trade association? If not, why not?
· How are disputes between owners and agents settled?
· What happens about repairs in the home?
· If the agency handles repairs, am I charged cost price, or with a mark-up?
Plus anything else you think relevant to your situation.
Be careful out there, not all cowboy's wear Stetsons and ride horses !
Until the next time,
Mr Jackson.
Friday, 26 September 2008
Bless This House
Negotiators at Falcon and Foxglove (Burnley) have taken to burying statues of St Joseph in the gardens of properties they’re trying to sell.
St Joseph? Despite many years enduring the tender ministrations of Sisters of Mercy, Christian Brothers, Jesuits and Dominicans, this is a new one on me.
But a quick Google of St Joseph does indeed reveal that he’s the patron saint of carpentry, property and home sales (he’s also the man to get in touch with if you want an easy death, but let’s move quickly on…).
There’s quite a little cottage industry out there on the interweb flogging St Joseph home sale kits to the devout and the desperate – take your pick from:
Or my own particular favorite:
Once you have your statue, you bury yer man in the garden (upside down according to some), say a quick prayer, and stand well back to avoid being trampled by the stampede of heaven-sent buyers …
But does it work? Howard Baker of Falcon & Foxglove told Estate Agent Today: “Very few houses were selling and we just thought it was worth a try.
“When the first house sold within four days I thought it was a coincidence, but the second sale happened only days later, followed by the third shortly afterwards.
“We are always looking for new ways of marketing properties and making them more saleable, so we are willing to try anything that helps to sell houses.”
Hmmm. Spooky!
Now why, oh why, didn’t someone tell the DCLG about this before they went to all the trouble of introducing HIPs?
My thanks go to Mike O'Flynn for this amusing if not slightly wierd story.
You will note no tea or cakes have been mentioned in this story - Mrs Jackson has me on a diet and I'm trying not to think about doughnuts, butteries, vanilla slices, fresh apricot Danish pastries, warm pain au raisin's, croissants with jam, Russian slice, blueberry muffins............
Hungrily yours,
Mr Jackson.
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