Celebrity House Sitters...

From the ever popular 'Rat & Mouse' blog.....Thanks guys !

Ever wondered who would be the UK's preferred celebrity house-sitter? Me, neither. But thanks to a survey of moneysupermarket.com users, that data is available:

1. Jeremy Clarkson (28%)
2. Christine Bleakley (23.9%)
3. Sarah Beeny (23.8%)
4. Cheryl Cole (14.2%)
5. Lord Alan Sugar (6.3%)
6. Wayne Rooney (3.7%)

The results are surprising. Remember, these are people entrusted to look after a gaff while the occupants are away, so catching Bleakley in the shower isn't a possibility. And what possible value will the presence of Clarkson add? To anything? The lovely Sarah Beeny? I suppose you could always leave a note asking her to do a bit of remodelling if she's time.

Poles Apart.....

An extraordinary recent poll by Barratt shows:

71% rated home ownership an eight or above in importance (out of ten)
46% rated marriage as important
44% gave having children the same rating
27% considered an active social life an eight or more
Between the ages of 18 and 24, that 71% rises to 81%

How many wished to live in a Barratt house though ?

The poll doesn't say...

Surprisingly Yours,

MR J

Now leave your home.....!

It's a new show, planned for BBC 1, looking for six individuals with ambitious grand designs.

The show will fund the projects through to completion, and film the process. But - and here's the twist - only the "winner" (judged by an as-yet-unannounced property "guru") will get to keep their home.

It's like Britain's Got Talent, crossed with Grand Designs, crossed with Property Ladder, crossed with Fame Academy.

Oh dear....things are set to get ugly.

Mr J

ASBO's for Landlords..?

LANDLORDS of Edinburgh's "party flats" could be served with Asbos under new plans to crack down on trouble sparked by visiting stag and hen groups.

Edinburgh Central Labour MSP Sarah Boyack said the Scottish Government had agreed to consider changing the law to make it easier for councils to tackle the problem.

Residents plagued by drunken revellers causing a disturbance in the early hours have long been campaigning for action.

The existing law allows tenants in short-term and holiday lets to be served with anti-social behaviour orders, but because stag and hen groups are only in town for the weekend, it is not seen as a practical way to deal with the problem.

Ms Boyack said she had held a "very constructive" meeting with communities minister Alex Neil on the issue and was now optimistic about progress on the issue.

She said: "The minister has agreed to examine options which would mean amending the Anti-Social Behaviour Act to extend the capacity of serving notices not just to tenants but to landlords and owners of short-term and holiday lets.

"The suggestion is councils could have the power to require landlords to do certain things such as a limit on numbers, noise insulation and so on, and they would have to have enforcement powers and a backstop to enable them to serve a stop notice if there was persistent non-compliance with orders."

Mr Neil said: "I am sympathetic to any resident who has to put up with anti-social behaviour linked to a party flat.

"I am grateful for Ms Boyack's input on ideas to tackle this issue and this government will consider legislative change where this can make a difference."

The meeting between Ms Boyack and Mr Neil came after yet another incident a few weeks ago when police and an ambulance were called to a flat in Grove Street, near Haymarket.

Neighbour Stan Player, who has petitioned the Scottish Parliament for action to deal with party flats, said: "We got wakened at 4am with a lot of noise and shouting. I phoned the police about 5am, then it was just getting worse and worse so I phoned again at 6am.

"Then at 6.30am all hell let loose. It sounded like a fight, people bashing against doors and it seemed to be happening in the stair.

"An ambulance arrived, there was someone in the stairs screaming in real agony, then there were lots of police cars. We believe there was a woman seriously assaulted."

Mr Player welcomed the move to allow landlords to be served with Asbos as a step forward. "That would be a help," he said.

Good idea I think - Let me know what you think to it......

Until the next time,

MR J

Surveyors - Upping the pain .....?

This from the Daily Mail made me think this week !

The most recent figures from Nationwide say house prices rose one per cent last month, and are up more than ten per cent in the past year.

Halifax says they're nearly seven per cent higher than a year ago, while the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors is predicting a post-Election bounce, with modest increases expected across most of the country in the next three months.

But mortgage borrowers say this good news isn't yet being reflected in the prices that valuers put on their homes, and that low valuations are jeopardising their chances of getting the mortgage they want, or of moving home.

A typical example is a reader from South London who paid £176,000 for a house four years ago. After spending £24,000 on improvements and getting three estate agents round, the house was valued at between £200,000 and £216,000 in February. But when the owners tried to remortgage last month, their bank's surveyor put a maximum price of just £160,000 on it.

The couple have a £155,000 mortgage so were rejected for their bank's best-buy fixed rate because it is on offer only to people with at least 20 per cent equity in their homes.

They're now paying the bank's standard variable interest rate and are worried that they will not be able to afford the repayments if interest rates rise - and that if they try to sell, a low valuation will mean potential buyers will not get a mortgage either and will have to withdraw from the deal.

Experts say low valuations continue to plague the market and that victims may struggle to overturn them.

If your lender just did what's known as a "drive-by" or " desktop" valuation and you think an internal inspection will produce a higher figure, you can ask for them to send someone round,' says David Hollingworth, of broker London & Country Mortgages.

You may be charged a few hundred pounds for the new inspection and there are no guarantees it will produce a higher figure. If you are unhappy after a proper internal inspection, you can try appealing against it by finding examples of similar local homes that have sold for more in recent months. Most lenders require details of at least three comparable homes.

'Unfortunately, this can be a struggle if the number of transactions taking place in your area is low, or if your home is particularly unusual,' says Melanie Bien of broker Savills Private Finance.

Websites such as www.houseprices.co.uk can also help by giving actual 'sold' prices for most postcodes, while the Home Valuation Calculator at www.thisismoney.co.uk shows how your home's value may have changed over different time periods.

You cannot expect high valuations from estate agents to carry much weight with lenders. They assume that agents overvalue homes to try to win business from sellers.
As there is no conciliation or independent ombudsman service for people unhappy with low valuations, the odds are you will have to accept the price your lender puts on your home.

If it's so low that you don't qualify for one of its best-buy deals, you may need to look elsewhere if you don't want to stay on its standard variable rate.

Rates may be high, but lenders that will remortgage high loan-to value properties include the Post Office, Halifax, the Clydesdale/ Yorkshire Bank, NatWest/Royal Bank of Scotland and LloydsTSB.

Shop around carefully out there folks, locally I know of both lenders and surveyors who will value properties VERY differently - Do your homework before you instruct or apply, it will save you time and hassle in the long term.

Until the next time.

Mr J.

My HIPS gone.....!

The recent Government change in Westminster will not have any effect on home reports north of the border, according to a leading Edinburgh property firm.

The Conservative Party has announced it will be scrapping home information packs (HIPs) in England & Wales, which has caused confusion in Scotland over whether home reports will also be axed.

But Edinburgh property solicitor Warners has stressed that, despite the sweeping changes planned in England, the home report legislation will remain in effect in Scotland – and added that it remained a beneficial addition to the country’s property market.

Uncertainty

Scott Brown, estate agency partner at Warners, said: “Ever since the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition took power, there has been some uncertainty about what’s going to happen to the property market.

“We’ve already had a number of calls from people in Edinburgh who are either buying or looking to sell their properties and who are concerned about the legislation. They have been asking whether they still need a home report to be able to sell their property or not, now that there is a new Government in place.

“Therefore it’s important to stress that the home report legislation is governed through the Scottish Parliament, so the new coalition has no control over it at all. If you’re planning to sell a property in Scotland, you will still need to have a home report in place, and if you’re buying, you will be able to request to see these reports before purchasing.”

Positive

He added: “Home reports have actually been very positive for Scotland, so axing them would be a bad move for the property sector. They have created a greater sense of realism among buyers and sellers, as these people are now able to use property valuations contained in the reports as a marker when judging how much to buy or sell a home for. It also means that more homes are being sold for ‘offers around’ prices, which is helping provide even more transparency in the market.

“I would therefore like to see the Scottish Government reassuring people in Scotland that home reports are here to stay, regardless of what happens at Westminster.”

Locally, Paul at Moray Property confirmed today that they were also getting enquires as to whether Home Reports were still required. Lets hope the Scottish Government gets their act together and conveys the situation to the actual people it affects 'the man in the street'.

It's a positive jungle out there - be careful !

J

Any fool can sell a house.....

Peter Rollings, the thoroughly nice chap from Marsh & Parsons wrote this great article below, I thought you, my reader may well be interested in, it's all about how anyone can sell a house....

It’s true. However, that’s the straightforward part. The role of your estate agent is not just to sell your property but to use their marketing capability and knowledge to obtain the very best price that the best buyer will pay and that is absolutely NOT straightforward.

Here is the first paragraph of a letter I received this week from a delighted client:

"We exchanged contracts on our house last Friday at more than 10% over the asking price, having instructed Marsh & Parsons only 10 days before. As the property had been on the market with another agent since the previous September, we were delighted with this result."

She was especially delighted as the value of the house was substantially in excess of £2,000,000 and after finding several suitable buyers, we actually achieved nearly 20% more than the best offer obtained in December last year by the other agent.

I hope this doesn’t sound too conceited, it isn’t meant to. What I am trying to say is that not all agents are the same. Just like not all restaurants or builders are the same—there are good ones, average ones, poor ones and, by and large, the average or poor tend to be cheaper than the good —unsurprisingly it is the same in our business.

One of the main reasons this particular client hadn’t instructed us before is that we were a little more expensive than a competitor and we wouldn’t cut our fee to match them. My view is that, as an agent, if you can’t even negotiate yourself an acceptable fee, what chance have you got of achieving an excellent price for your client?

In this case, as in many others, we already knew the buyer—we were selling their flat in Notting Hill and because of this it was simply a matter of encouraging them to pay what they had to in order to buy the house—in the first week of marketing the property, there were 19 viewings and competing offers from three other buyers. This is Local know how, better results in action.

There seems to be continuing interest in the 'Sell your home for free' type websites which have now been around for years. If I was a buyer then I would be very tempted to find a property through one of these websites. There is a good chance that, as you’re not dealing with a professional negotiator but the owner who has emotional involvement, you may get a ‘bargain’. Great news I hear some of you think and perhaps it is… if you’re the buyer. The thing is, as agents, we act for the seller and they pay us a fee (still the lowest in the developed world) to achieve for them the most amount of money for their biggest asset.

As Red Adair once said in an often used quote "If you think it’s expensive to hire a professional to do the job, just wait until you hire an amateur." I feel confident that our client mentioned above would agree.

Take heed & Choose carefully,

Until the next time,

Mr J