Renthusiast.info

Prophecy fulfilled ...

2009-07-13T19:45:00.003+01:00

Prior to the recession, Brooklyn’s Williamsburg was "fantasyland for luxury-condo developers."
In 2005, 130 new projects started and since then, over a thousand proposals have been filed with the local community board.
But that same year, a very special lady, so called "urban activist" Jane Jacobs wrote to New York Mayor Bloomberg suggesting he shelve gentrification plans for the Williamsburg waterfront. A year later she died.

“Even the presumed beneficiaries of this misuse of governmental powers, the developers and financiers of luxury towers, may not benefit, misused environments are not good long-term economic bets,” Jacobs wrote in her letter to Bloomberg.

Yet four years on, her prophecy is now realized and given the state of things, it’s unlikely that any significant development will happen in Williamsburg anytime soon. New York magazine takes an indepth look at the Williamsburg development catastrophe:

Part of what makes the present situation so dire is that it is still in the early stages of unfolding. There are already about 400 new apartments on the market in Williamsburg, and additional condos are completing construction every month. According to a study released last month, 2,818 new apartments will have hit the market by the end of this year, with another 2,766 projected by the end of 2010. On top of this, Fannie Mae, the country’s most dominant home-mortgage lender, recently implemented a policy requiring that buildings be 70 percent in contract before guaranteeing mortgages, thus delaying the moment when a developer can stop covering the taxes and common charges on a finished project…
The thing is a year ago, those inventory numbers would have been great news. Buildings around here have been selling out so fast that there didn’t seem to be an end in sight. Now, with the new restrictions, the bottom line is that most of the new buildings will have to be turned into rentals. The problem is that, for a lot of these guys, that’s just not an option.

However, one man's crisis could be another man's opportunity. Even though 2005 Jacobs' prophecy is very very powerful, Biblical prophecies are also quite telling and the Holy Book does speak of people who "rebuild the ruined cities and live in them" I wish I can be one of those people.

International buyers "unaffected by current situation" according to Primelocation.com

2009-07-08T11:17:00.004+01:00

Results for Primelocation's 2009 International Survey revealed that 28% of respondents claim to be: "unaffected by the current economic situation."
International Business Development Manager Ann Wright, said she believed this is happening possibly because of "recent press reports of falling property prices across Europe."
The International Survey also monitored the countries the portal’s visitors are most interested in buying in; France took top spot with 25%, Spain came second (16%) and was followed by Italy and Portugal which tied in fourth place with 11% each. The United States, Cyprus, Greece, Switzerland, Turkey, Canada and the UAE took the rest of the top 10 spots.
The survey also found that buyers prefer estate agents in the country in which they are buying. UK based agents are also popular because they "give the buyer the reassurance of an English speaking service and expert" and reliable advice of the individual countries buying processes. Not surprisingly, the survey also indicated that most buyers start their search online using portals.

Google launches Auzzie property search, is UK next?

2009-07-06T09:11:00.006+01:00

Google has officially launched a real estate search service in Australia via Google maps. Unofficially, this is nothing new as Google has been building a real estate search engine for a long time. Back in 2006, Google released a US real estate search service using Google Base and last year expanded the service to Google Maps . This morning I took the Google link for it's main Australia real estate search page (http://maps.google.com.au/help/maps/realestate/), replaced ".com.au" with ".co.uk" and got this:

[link for quality screenshot]

Then I refined a little further and typed London in the searchbox and got this result with 365,447 listings:

[link for quality screenshot]

That's an awful lot of listings when compared with Globrix, who's London search result netted
"10,000+" listings, with Zoopla recording "20,198 listings". Overall, Nestoria fared better in terms of search result numbers, but still nowhere close to Google numbers. In terms of London, Nestoria recorded "239 properties for sale in London" but offered redefined search parameters to include 7 different geographical options, totaling 108,598 listings:

Total Nestoria Results
Central London - 6,378
South East London 18,825
East London 13,916
South West London 19,524
West London 21,017
North London 17,047
North West London 11,891
Total 108,598 listings

Rightmove recorded "1000+ London listings", but similar to Nestoria, gave the opportunity to streamline search results using the following parameters, equaling 11896 + listings:

Rightmove London Results
Houses (1000+)
Detached houses (1000+)
Semi-detached houses (1000+)
Terraced houses (1000+)
Boats (1)
Flats / Apartments (1000+)
Bungalows (127)
Land (76)
Commercial Property (550)
Other (18)
Character (28)
Pre-owned homes (1000+)
Brand new homes (1000+)
Garden (1000+)
Parking (1000+)
Auction (148)
Shared ownership (705)
Retirement (243)
Non-retirement (1000+)
Total: 11896 + listings

Google's yet to be officially released UK property search engine appears in a position to do serious damage to the current main property search contenders in the UK, certainly in terms of search results, scraping technology etc. Not to mention the Google brand is way ahead of all the others. It's currently possible to upload property listings to Google Base although a lot of agents and property people I know don't seem to be aware of this.

Record numbers at property search engines

2009-07-03T17:59:00.006+01:00

In a press release this afternoon, Globrix announced unique visitors to the site reached a record 990,000 in June, the highest level of traffic ever reported for the Newscorp owned property search engine.
Meanwhile Zillow.com announced "multiple records for site traffic and user activity" in 2009 with an average of 8.3 million unique users each month a 67 percent increase over last years figures.
Globrix CEO Daniel Lee claims their traffic numbers are "all natural" citing most property portals buy Google traffic to boost numbers:

"As the recent PropertyFinder case has shown, you can have impressive levels of traffic but it’s not a sustainable business if you have to pay to get your users. You’re much better off investing in the site itself and then the users will come to you anyway" according to Mr Lee

Meanwhile Seattle based Zillow.com claim the housing downturn is forcing consumers to "have a lot of questions about their homes and their local markets", supposedly driving record numbers to the site. COO Spencer Rascoff believes Zillow's users are "voracious for information" such as listings and data; but also potential buyers and sellers are "asking questions in Zillow Advice, and getting answers from real estate professionals in their communities."

UK wealth exodus accelerates

2009-06-25T17:43:00.004+01:00

The UK is the most expensive location to raise children according to a new survey released by HSBC Bank International, coupled with low job prospects is forcing many high income earners to leave. Meanwhile Hong Kong and India have the highest salaries in the world for expats with half earning more than £100,000 p.a. The highest paying professions were
in finance and management with 43% of people working in these industries earning
a six figure salary. :

Cost of living appears to be also influencing decisions to leave. The survey said expats in the UK spend more of their income on accommodation than expats living anywhere else in the world, with accommodation by far the biggest expense.
Those considering moving home from the UK also cited limited career prospects as a further reason for leaving.
The survey found that high paying jobs in hedge funds and private equity were losing their appeal for expats, particularly after both areas have been hit hard by the financial turmoil of the last 18 months.
Higher paying expat positions in Asia might also be acting as a magnet for highly skilled expats working in the UK and other centres. According to the survey, Asia is home to the highest paid expats in the world, with one in four expats earning more than $200,000 per year in the region.
Last week, Knight Frank, the upmarket London-based estate agent, said 7% of non-doms have sold their house and left since October 2007, and 2% of high net worth individuals have left for more favourable tax jurisdictions.
[via Wealth Bulletin]

Nestoria celebrates ...

2009-06-17T15:55:00.008+01:00

It's been just about three years since Nestoria.co.uk first stepped on the property search scene. Since then, the company seems to have gone from strength to strength, now operating in four European countries, as well as creating the experimental Lukku Labs, bringing innovative ideas such as Where can I live Nestoholic, and UK Property Vision.
CEO Ed Freyfogle was gracious to answer a few questions we put to him.

1) What do you see as the greatest accomplishment for Nestoria so far?

It's hard to believe how quickly the three years since we've launched nestoria.co.uk have gone by. On the one hand we've accomplished a fair amount - the business is running well in 4 major EU markets, and we have plans for further expansion. On the other hand, we still have so many ideas of things we'd like to do with the site and with our partners. It's always hard to find the balance between our ideas and our resources.

The thing I'm most proud of though is the great team we've been able to put together. It's fun to tackle complex problems with smart people from diverse backgrounds. We experiment quite a bit with new ideas both on Nestoria and generally (see our lokkulabs.com initiative). Sometimes things work well, sometimes they fail. We learn a lot and that keeps it interesting.

2) What impact has the economic downturn had on your business?

It's been good for us. When times are good, people keep doing what
they've been doing. It's only when times are tough that you start to
question things and ask where you're really getting value for
money. As a result I think agents are turning their money away from
traditional print advertising to online. On the one hand we're able to
benefit from more money in the sector, on the other hand there's a
chance to partner with traditional players who haven't yet found a
successful online strategy and are keen to catch up. Anytime change
happens there are risks, but also opportunities. We try to stay small
and nimble to seize the opportunities.

3) A lot of companies with similar models that started out the same time as you have almost completely vanished; yet you guys are ranked by Comscore as within the top ten of all property based websites in the UK. Why do you think that is?

I'd disagree. There were many visually similar sites that launched around the same time as we did, but all had different models. I think our strength has been in doing one thing consistently and well rather than switching models. Likewise I think users like the simplicity of our site.

In general regarding the landscape of other property websites, we don't take a competitive view. We view every other site out there as a potential partner. In fact of the top ten we work together with most of them (and are keen to work together with the others).

4) What do you think the future holds for the industry?

For the property industry, as with most industries, the internet will only become more important, not less. I think the traditional model of 'pay to list' that most of the portals currently offer will continue to exist, but will increasingly come under pressure from more pay for performance options.

From the user perspective it's very interesting to see the feature developments of things like video over the past few years. I think consumers will soon ask why there isn't a youtube style video of every property listing. One thing is clear, technological innovation doesn't slow down during a recession.

5) What does the future hold for Nestoria?

More partnerships, more countries and more product experiments (we hope to have some announcements soon). But our goal is not to grow the team much. We like being small and fast. So we're always keen to build stable, long-term partnerships that allow us to focus on the next thing.

6) Finally, the UK government intends to introduce a 'telephone tax' on UK landlines to fund the so-called 'digital future'. Do you think this is a good idea?

I'm of mixed opinion. On the one hand using the internet should be as cheap and easy as possible. On the other hand, there are costs involved in the infrastructure.

For me personally I'm fine with paying for things when there is a corresponding value and service. The problem comes when you just throw money into a black hole and it's unclear what the benefit is. It's exciting to see the hard work of folks like mySociety to use technology to bring transparency to government starting to pay off.

7) Any closing comments?

I'd really like to thank all of our team, our partners (especially those who bet on us in the beginning), and most of all the users. Their feedback helps us get better every day. Please keep it
coming!

Carnival 146 - the ride continues ...

2009-06-15T19:25:00.007+01:00

Continuing on with last weeks roller coaster theme, the carnival ride continues this week with more sound advice for consumers and property professionals in these unstable times.

First off Zillow's Diane Tuman offered consumer insight into taking advantage of Federal Tax Credits for Energy Efficiency

Consumers who purchase and install specific products, such as energy-efficient windows, insulation, doors, roofs, and heating and cooling equipment in existing homes can receive a tax credit for 30% of the cost, up to $1,500, for improvements “placed in service” starting January 1, 2009, through December 31, 2010. So, if you were planning on doing these upgrades to your home anyway, make sure to follow the guidelines so you can get a tax credit!

Nickel submitted ideas on Paying Off Your Mortgage Early , including sound advice such as making overpayments, using the haphazard approach and of course refinancing. On the topic of refinancing, Handy Saputra at Home Loan Mortgage Resources offered tips on Finding the Lowest Refinance Mortgage Interest Rate before picking up the phone and calling your broker.

Finding the lowest mortgage refinance interest rate is going to require a bit of effort on your part. You may want to subscribe to an online service that alerts you of overnight rate changes. When the mortgage interest rate gets down to an acceptable low, then you will have to act fast to ensure it is locked in on your loan.

Meanwhile Jack Schmidt of SectorMatic Money Journal compared refinancing to someone having really big feet, urging us that if the shoe (and refinance) fits, by all means wear it!

With 'green shoots' supposedly appearing, many newly unemployed may be tempted to now get into the property industry. Sarah at the Higher Education and Career Blog suggests asking yourself a few questions before taking the plunge into current Real Estate Job Opportunities:

Can I work seven days a week if necessary? Can I work for a year with no income? Ask yourself questions like these, advises Barbara Lach, president of the Columbus, OH, Board of Realtors. “Real estate doesn’t work well as a hobby. You won’t be informed if you only work weekends. Your buyer won’t have the same advantages”.

Long ago, Jim Cronin recognized the importance of blogging in real estate, and now shows us The Easiest Way To Write 30 Real Estate Blog Articles Every 30 days. If you want to sell real estate in today's market then you better follow Jim's advice , and his example.

Recognizing fundamental changes are on the way in the real estate industry, Brian "Obi-Wan" Brady of Bloodhound thinks out the box, suggesting an open market NASDAQ type trading technology for real estate.

It’s so simple it’s silly; an open market, like the NASDAQ, for real estate. Watch offers for houses, in real-time, be accepted or declined. NASDAQ Level Two Quotes go beyond the bid and ask; they show the “size” of the market for those prices. The implementation of that transparency greatly reduced the previous NASDAQ market manipulation, that stymied the individual investor to favor institutions. It isn’t perfect but exposure to that data makes the market operate more efficiently. Apply that model to real estate and you will quickly determine what the “real” market is for a property.

And now for the really brave ...

Claiming that the San Diego market has gone 'white hot' Dan Melson of Searchlight Crusade suggests taking advantage of Segmented Markets , and provides examples of what's happening in his hometown of San Diego:

Market segmentation is what happens when certain things are much more in demand than others. Right now, the central area of San Diego is in high demand, simply because it's so close to everything. That's where the jobs are, all the cool nightclubs and restaurants, places to go and things to do ... the strip between Del Mar and Carlsbad has long been some of the most desired real estate in the world, and Rancho Santa Fe is the most expensive Zip Code in the country.

Lot's of great posts this week, keep 'em coming. Thanks to everybody who submitted and stay tuned to carnivalofrealestate.com for what's happening next week!

Political fallout and the property market

2009-06-05T15:03:00.003+01:00

Guest post by: Distressed Assets

The political fall out from the recent resignations of Hazel Blears, James Purnell and now John Hutton continues with Gordon Brown starting to look more and more beleaguered by the day. It will be fascinating to see how events unfold in the coming days.
All of this (whatever your thoughts are on Gordon Brown and the Labour party) is bad news for Britain, at least in the shorter term. Sterling has already dipped again today against the Dollar and the Euro after a recent rally. Steady leadership in any crisis is of huge importance and unless the current problems are resolved soon any green shoots of recovery will be trampled on. For the investor looking for value, however, this may not be a bad thing….
Is market confidence returning? The UK property market seems finally to be showing some signs of life. Recent data released by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), Rightmove and Halifax have all indicated market improvement: a recent RICS report disclosed that new enquiries were up to the highest level for nearly a decade and that sales have started to pick up slowly (albeit from a low base). According to a Rightmove statement released in May,
"This month sees a jump in new sellers’ average asking prices more reminiscent of a boom market. This is the largest May rise Rightmove has measured since 2003, when property was seeing annual rises in excess of 15%. ..."
Finally, recent figures from Halifax show the house price to earnings ratio down from its height of 5.86 in the third quarter of 2007 to 4.35 in the first quarter of 2009, near to its long term average of 4.02.
Where does this leave us? There is still some way until we are out of the woods as the macro-economic picture remains bleak. Unemployment continues to rise (7.1% during the period January to March 2009 up 0.8 on the previous quarter). The UK economic outlook is resolutely poor with even Alastair Darling, predicting that the UK economy will shrink by 3.5% this year (and he has been known to underestimate economic woes at times).
In a strange way this is great news for some property investors. The last thing many of us want is the market to recover too quickly: this window of opportunity is one that should be grabbed with both hands and made the most of. There is still shortage of good housing stock and there is less pessimism than at the start of the year: the Council of Mortgage Lenders recently said that it is likely to revise downwards its “pessimistic” figure of 75,000 repossessions in 2009. Auction results are also picking up: I attended the Allsop auction in London earlier this week and it’s noticeable that prices (and interest) are recovering somewhat- many lots sold at over-inflated prices with less apparent value than earlier in the year.

Luxembourg strengthens tax exchange partnerships

2009-06-05T10:42:00.002+01:00

Guest post: OECD
Paris 4 June 2009

Luxembourg has today signed a protocol to its double taxation convention with Denmark. The protocol, which allows exchange of bank information for tax purposes, brings the convention up to the OECD standard. Luxembourg signed similar protocols with France, on 3 June 2009, and the Netherlands, on 29 May 2009. In addition to these countries, Luxembourg’s tax agreements with Bahrain, India and the United States also meet the OECD standard on exchange of information.
Having withdrawn its reservation to the OECD standard on exchange of information in March 2009, Luxembourg has made significant progress in updating its treaty network in a very short time. Negotiations are also under way with other countries to update the exchange of information provisions in Luxembourg’s bilateral treaties with them.
Welcoming the recent signings, Angel Gurria, OECD Secretary General said: “ This is very good news. These agreements with six of its key economic partners show that Luxembourg has joined the international drive to combat tax havens and is moving swiftly towards substantial implementation of the OECD standard.”

For more information visit www.oecd.org/tax

estatecreate relaunches single property websites for clients

2009-06-02T17:29:00.004+01:00

Today estatecreate.com re-launches its service allowing estate agents to easily create stand alone single property websites for their clients. The sites can have their own personal domain name and carry the estate agent’s branding. estatecreate is the first company to offer this service to estate agents in the UK.

“For as little as £2 per month per site estate agents can offer their clients their own stand
alone website with a bespoke URL. It’s a great way to differentiate your service and win an instruction by showcasing your client’s property. estatecreate single property sites are the 21st Century’s answer to property brochures,” ” said Henry Yates, founder and CEO of estatecreate.com.
Greene and Co's Jacqui Daley, said: “Our sales team love estatecreate as it gives them a great product to offer clients. It helps them win instructions. We are also excited about using estatecreate for New Developments as it will make it easy to create a website that showcases the development and the detail of each unit”.

Dramatic fall in number of UK millionaires

2009-05-29T18:52:00.003+01:00

Guest post by Douglas McWilliams ceo
centre for economics and business research

The recession has had a big impact on the number of millionaires in the UK. When we last looked at the number of millionaires in August 2006, we estimated that there were then 376,000 millionaires (up from 230,000 in 2003) but that this would roughly double to 760,000 by 2010.
Our latest estimates suggest that there are now only 242,000 millionaires this year after the number peaked at 489,000 in 2007 –and shows that membership of the millionaires club was only fleeting for many.
The halving in the number of millionaires reflects the collapse in the property market, the fall in the values of shares and the 70% drop in city bonuses. It looks as though the experience for millionaires is relatively similar to that chronicled by the Sunday Times for their Rich List, which showed a fall in the number of UK billionaires this year from 75 in 2008 to 43 this year. The Sunday Times estimated that the wealth of those on the Rich List had fallen by 38% in the past year. The wealth of the average UK millionaire has fallen by rather less than this –we estimate by 24%. The difference almost certainly reflects the much higher levels of borrowing in relation to assets for billionaires than for millionaires and the different pattern of asset holdings (billionaires have less than 10% of their assets in property whereas the average millionaire in 2007 had 42% of assets in property).
The reason why the drop in the number of millionaires is so large is because a very large number of people had just crept over the millionaire threshold in the period from 2003 to 2007 –when the number of millionaires rose from 230,000 to 489,000. This was mainly caused by the rise in
house prices over that period. Having just crept over the threshold, most of these people have crept back under it again –many perhaps without ever knowing that they had become millionaires for a temporary period.
The decline in wealth for people in this category is reflected in sales of luxury products. Sales of Bentley cars are down this year to date by 66%; sales of BMWs are down by 35% against an overall decline in car sales of 29%. With property prices near to bottoming out, we would expect the number of millionaires to start to rise again in 2011.

© centre for economics and business research ltd, 2009

Buffett on housing

2009-05-03T05:11:00.001+01:00

The sage's forecast is not good
“There’s no signs of any real bounce at all in anything to do with housing, retailing, all that sort of thing, you never know for sure, even if there’s a leveling off, which way the next move will be.”

U.K. housing may recover in 2012

2009-05-01T17:40:00.002+01:00

Guest Post by Simon Packard

The U.K. housing market may not recover until 2012, a year later than earlier projected, as unemployment rises and the financial crisis deters buyers, Savills Plc said.
Prices will probably drop about 11 percent this year, less than the 14.7 percent decline in 2008, as would-be homeowners struggle to secure mortgages, Savills said in a report today. Savills, the U.K.’s largest publicly traded property broker, in November projected a 2011 recovery for the market. “Fear of redundancy and credit constraints are still major factors” that will hold back the recovery, said Yolande Barnes, head of residential research at the London-based company. “The residential market has seen the worst of the declines.”
House prices in the U.K. dropped for a 19th month in April, according to Hometrack Ltd., as the worst recession in at least three decades destroyed jobs. Values have fallen about 19 percent since the market’s peak in the third quarter of 2007 and will probably drop by a total of about 24 percent, Savills said. The report signals more pain for the U.K. at a time when price declines are slowing in the U.S.
U.S. home prices rose 0.7 percent in February from January, the first consecutive monthly gain in two years, the Federal Housing Finance Agency in Washington said on April 22. Prices probably will fall 5.1 percent this year to $188,500, less than the 9.3 percent plunge in 2008, according to the National Association of Realtors in Chicago.

Luxury Homes

London and the rest of southern England will recover first because these areas have a greater concentration of wealth, lower levels of household debt and fewer repossessions than other parts of the U.K., Savills said. Luxury homes in the U.K. capital will return to “modest levels of positive annual growth as early as the end of next year,” said Lucian Cook, a research director at Savills. These properties will probably fall another 5 percent to 10 percent, he said. London homes costing more than 1 million pounds increased in April from the prior month for the first time since March 2008, Knight Frank LLP said April 24. Prices fell 23 percent on an annualized basis, the property broker said.
In southwest London, there are 10 percent to 15 percent fewer luxury homes for sale than a year ago, said Lindsay Cuthill, who oversees eight Savills brokers in the Fulham, Wandsworth and Putney districts. Those neighborhoods are favored by bankers and the financial crisis has caused values there to slide 26 percent since September 2007, the largest decline for prime homes in the British capital.

Less Than Advertised

“Most sellers are having to accept offers below the guide price, which also has to be sufficiently attractive to get people to cross the threshold,” Cuthill said. In March, Savills sold a house in Fulham with 2,777 square feet (258 square meters) of space for 1.75 million pounds. The property was put on the market late last year “at a 2007 price” of 2.4 million pounds, Cuthill said. If the same home were to go on the market now, the asking price would have to be 2.15 million pounds to achieve the same sale price, he said. “Buyers have got to see on paper that a property’s at a discount to what it was in 2007,” he said.
Surveys of members of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors show increased demand from prospective buyers in the U.K.. While mortgage-lending is still near the lowest level since the liberalization of the market in the 1980s, there are signs of a fragile recovery.
The proportion of sales by indebted owners, divorce or death has increased from 15 percent of the market to 35 percent. Most affected are properties worth less than 2 million pounds, which were favored by bonus-earners in London’s financial services industry. The pound’s weakness has made U.K. homes even cheaper for foreign buyers. The currency lost 26 percent against the dollar in the past year and 23 percent against the euro.

blog editor: Savills is the official corporate sponsor for Renthusiast

Nestoria and Zoopla team up

2009-03-19T07:44:00.001Z

If you can't beat 'em join 'em

Sarah Beeny defines the "unplandlord"

2009-03-18T07:38:00.005Z

Gumtree.com has released their 2009 first quarter rental index which reveals dramatic new statistics on so-called "unplandlords". Sarah Beeny defines an unplanlord as someone who chooses to rent their house because they can't sell it for a figure that they are willing or need to accept. This increase is mirrored by a 19% hike in new rental properties advertised on Gumtree since the last quarter rental index . The surge in rentals across the UK backs up the fact that‘unplandlords’ are not in the profession out of choice.

"Nearly a quarter (23%) of all landlords questioned admit they are renting out because they wanted to move but couldn’t shift their property for what they felt it was worth, and a massive 81% claim they did not want to become one in the first place," according to Gumtree's research.

This situation poses a new problem as nearly a third of UK properties are now being managed by individuals who are "worryingly unaware of the processes involved in being a landlord". Gumtree's research provides worrying new statistics on UK landlords many of whom:

did not get a legally required gas safety certificate (46%)
did not install a smoke alarm (47%)
did not request references from tenants (54%)
failed to draft an inventory (64%)

Ms. Beeny recommends unplandlords checking with the Association of Residential Lettings Agents (ARLA) for advice on drawing up contracts and other necessary tidbits. However the ARLA is also aware that over 76% of estate agents have moved into lettings as a result of the market in the last six months. Most of these agents are not "meeting the required standards for lettings agents" according to the Association.

"In order to make the transition from an estate agent to a lettings agent, they need to have studied more than a hundred different pieces of legislation, and pass minimum competency tests to ensure their ability to advise clients to the required standards." according to the ARLA.

North London development bucks trend

2009-03-10T09:21:00.004Z

Despite the turmoil of the UK property industry, the continued mortgage drought and the reduction of over 17,000 of first time buyers from the market in 2008, Notting Hill London is pleased to report that its New Barnet Green development has experienced unprecedented market-beating activity from first time buyers and now only one apartment remains at the development.
Launched only last year, New Barnet Green, in New Barnet has proven immensely popular with first time buyers and young professionals. This popularity is down to a combination of great location, high specification and unique design, while still being within financial reach for those looking to get on the property ladder for the first time.
The success experienced by Notting Hill London highlights that buyers are still active in the market as long as they are offered the right property at the right price. It is a mixture of the development’s unique selling points which have ticked all the requirements for potential purchasers and resulted in the sale of 20 apartments at New Barnet Green despite the downturn in the market.
Barnet is an extremely desirable location for young professionals as it is within a commutable distance of Central London and offers an improved quality of life on North London’s leafy borders. On the most part; property prices in the area are out of reach for first time buyers, however, at New Barnet Green, prices started at a very affordable £249,999 – offering exceptional value for money.
New Barnet Green is a private gated development, consisting of four buildings, with apartments expanding throughout the ground, first floor and second floor levels. The scheme comprises 21 two-bedroom apartments, many with balcony or terrace area. Video-entry security, private parking and cycle storage is also located onsite. Kitchens come with contemporary timber finished units, stainless steel sinks, integrated gas hob and oven, built in washer/dryer and laminate flooring. The bathrooms comprise white steel bath and thermostatic shower with glass screening, heated chrome towel rails and ceramic floor tiles.
The scheme has access to local countryside, woodlands and parks. The neighbourhood of New Barnet is a small yet bustling north London suburb, which boosts a range of local amenities including Brent Cross and The Spires Shopping Centres, LA Fitness, Golf Courses, a selection of supermarkets and a variety of cafes, bars and restaurants.
New Barnet Green is about a five-minute walk from New Barnet Rail Station. There are 21 fast train connections every twenty minutes to Highbury & Islington and Moorgate with journey times taking less than 30 minutes.
For - even greater escapes - the M1 and the M25 provide easy access to the North, South, East and West.
The price for a two-bedroom apartment at New Barnet Green, which is offered with new 125 year leases and 10 year NHBC cover, is £249,999 inclusive of car parking.

"Innerviews" with zoopla's Alex Chesterman

2009-02-26T15:55:00.008Z

Last weekend zoopla! relaunched their site with a much simpler interface as well as 300,000 new listings from agents. I spoke by telephone with zoopla! CEO Alex Chesterman shortly after the relaunch. He told me that they plan to grow the listings side of the site to a half million "within the next few weeks". Previously zoopla! users looking for properties had to use other site for listings, although they could get extensive property information from zoopla!.

Although zoopla was the first site to offer land registry data dating back to 1995, the next step is to offer a onestop shop where users can get both property sales information as well as current listings.

Zoopla also used the opportunity to launch their much anticipated "pay-per-lead" business model which they hope will shake-up the current subscription based model and the dominance of companies such as Rightmove and Findaproperty.com:

Agents marketing on Zoopla.co.uk pay nothing to list their properties and only pay for qualified leads they receive, aligning the interests of the agent and the portal in a true partnership with no fixed fees and no minimum commitment. At only £1 per buyer and £5 per vendor lead, the model delivers a highly cost-efficient marketing opportunity to agents and sets the site apart from other leading portals, which continue to charge subscription fees", according to the press release.

How the business works

Zoopla's value estimate service is "based on limited information," and should only be used as a guideline only. While zoopla! valuations indicate how market values change and also give price comparison history, Alex recommend users not to take them to bank in an attempt to get a mortgage or some other kind of finance, but instead users are encouraged to use local professionals for advice and service; which is where zoopla's 'ask an agent' feature comes in; encouraging users to create relationships with local professionals building a reliable communication and relationship pipeline.

Vendor leads

In truth, vendor leads are probably the bread and butter of the estate agency business. The more listings you have, the more variety you can offer, your client, and of course with more variety, comes greater prospects for a successful sale, a real treat in today's market. Current search and portal business models serve agents well with buyer leads making it easy for buyer and agent to make contact, but nobody is sending vendor leads to the agents. Because the bulk of zoopla's users are people looking to sell their properties, they are in a privileged position to begin providing agents with vendor leads. This is the gap in the market that Alex Chesterman and zoopla is now aiming to fulfill.

Rapid Growth

There is "no secret" according to Alex. In 12 months, zoopla has outperformed "just about everybody else in the industry," with about a million unique monthly visitors, according to their internal stats and also some of the independent rating agencies.
"Digital marketing experience; interesting unique services; not just another property site; appealing to users," are some of the phrases Alex used to describe zoopla. His aim is to make them the one stop shop for "all things related to property information," the ultimate destination to users, appealing to all aspects while also "not outspending on traffic".

Mega Funding

Zoopla's announcement last month created a shockwave throughout the tech and property world. Right in the heart of a very severe housing slump and the worst economic recession in living history; an unknown player ups and raises almost £5 million in the blink of an eye to run an as yet unproven business. So to what does Alex attribute the ability to raise such a generous amount of money in such a very very bad climate?

Good business can still get funded even though it's a very tough time for property businesses in general. Zoopla's team and growth metrics represent an appealing combination. A tough economy is traditionally seen as great time for incumbents, but the reverse is also often true for transformational models, offering great business opportunities and providing transparency and efficiency to the marketplace.

Competition

Alex admits that there are a "couple of smaller players with similar models," as he put it, but the industry is moving away from subscription and zoopla is the "leading business delivering efficiency."
Pretty much all UK property portals are competition, anywhere there's consumer listings and price information, Alex feels that's competition; specifically Globrix, which he described as a "consumer brand in the property search space." Nestoria however he doesn't feel is "direct competition" because they work "exclusively with the portals".

Rightmove helped agents move away from traditional print advertising to an online subscription model. Zoopla wants to take it one step further by introducing a performance based listing service that works. Pay-per-performance works well for a lot of industries, however it is currently missing from the estate agency model. We have a very large audience, active sellers, and the valuation side encourages repeat users with sellers looking for the right asking price.

International Expansion

"Very much on the agenda," but they're remaining "very focused on the UK for 2009". In terms of strategy, zoopla's looking at English speaking countries like Australia, Canada and the US, which he described as "appealing". There are still a number of issues to work out like pricing, "agency efficiency" and "listing transparency" before they get started.

Great Opportunities

"There are great opportunities in times like this" is pretty much the last thing he said before ending our conversation ... and the man definately seems to know what he's talking about.

Confusing tax regime affects UK landlords

2009-02-19T08:51:00.004Z

Guest Post by David Lawrenson

The current tax regime is confusing and makes landlords continue to use energy inefficient boilers. The government needs to extend the Landlord Energy Savings Allowance to cover the replacement of old boilers. Many landlords will keep an old boiler going for longer than might be best from an environmental point of view.
Tax wise, most landlords letting furnished property have a choice. They can either opt to deduct 10% of the net rents as an annual wear and tear allowance or they can choose to wait for years until the item needs to be replaced to claim the alternative renewals deduction. Unsurprisingly, most go for the wear and tear allowance.
What many landlords don’t realise is that the 10% deduction is given to cover the sort of assets that a tenant or owner-occupier would normally provide in unfurnished accommodation such as living room suites, fridges, cookers and washing machines. Non moveable items like boilers don’t seem to count under this definition and so a landlord letting furnished property and claiming the 10% wear and tear deduction could replace an old boiler with a modern new efficient one and still claim the cost as a valid expense. But even here, the current rules are unclear because HMRC will not allow a deduction for the replacement of fixtures that constitute an improvement.”
Helen Demuth, of tax experts Smith & Williamson notes that the HMRC did not use to allow a deduction for double glazed windows since they were an improvement on single glazed windows., but that they now allow double glazing as a deduction. On the same basis, condensing boilers are an improvement, and like thermal insulation requirements for most windows, they are mandatory. It would be helpful if HMRC could confirm that the costs are deductible.
The current confusion means that when a landlord is faced with the cost of replacing an old boiler, he is more likely to try to keep it going than to replace it, especially as repair costs can also be claimed as a valid running cost. This is bad for the environment and bad for the UK’s carbon footprint. It would be useful if HMRC could announce that they will always allow condensing boilers as a deduction when replacing existing boilers. Also, condensing boilers should be included in the Energy Allowance where the property has not had central heating before.

David Lawrenson is an independent property expert, the author of the UK’s highest selling property book, ““Successful Property Letting -How to Make Money in Buy to Let” and a full time property investor and landlord. Contact David Lawrenson on 0208 690 3138 or 07834 081 600 or email david@lettingfocus.com

Enormo's enormous growing pain

2009-02-18T12:35:00.009Z

After a "four-month branding process", Enormo has again redesigned its identity in an effort to "create an upbeat identity for the site".

At a time when the property industry is suffering the ripples of the global credit crunch, Enormo’s fresh orange design and clear presentation of properties reflect the search engine’s positive place in the sector.

Enormo also announced the creation of 17 new 'gateway domains' including enormo.co.uk, supposedly offering a highly-tailored UK user experience and "interface language." Geodata refinements are supposed to improve the search experience for UK buyers looking for international properties. But yesterday as a UK user, I found a few problems while looking for UK property. I checked out the new site after getting the press release and did a quick search for 2 bed apartments in Knightsbridge, when I came across three unbelievably priced flats, ranging from £157,950 to £295,000. Given that the average asking price for 2 bed flats in Knightsbridge is well north of £2.5 million, I thought this was too good to be true and decided to investigate further. Unfortunately for me (my day job involves sourcing discount property for clients), I was disappointed to learn that none of these properties actually existed in London, one was in Cheltenham, the other towards Halifax and the third somewhere in a place called Gosforth.
I contacted Enormo about the issue and Rosie Cade, Enormo's industry liaison responded via email, stating that because Enormo covers around 50 countries with listings in multiple languages, these things "will occasionally happen" and that Enormo will gladly rely on feedback from the "real estate community":

What's happened in this instance is that our semi-automated extraction tool has been confused by the 'Knightsbridge' in the listing description text and has chosen London as the most likely location for the properties. What we'll now do is make sure Enormo knows that these listings belong to other Knightsbridges (ie not the London one). In fact, one of the 'new features' of the relaunched site is the ability for users/agents to get directly in touch to tell us about mistaken places: there's now a link inside one of the site's error pages that allows them to flag up 'bad' locations. This feedback is then prioritized in our development schedule, because we recognize that Manchester-dwellers, for example, are going to be more spot-on with location issues than our geodata, however sophisticated we make our system...

That seems like a lot of work for a site that boasting 7 million listings in over 50 countries and 4 million monthly visitors. Enormo promises its next focus is to develop "communication channels for everyone involved in the house-buying process," God knows they will surely need them ...
See also:

Introducing the UK's most award winning development

2009-02-17T16:34:00.011Z

Cambridge's Accordia Living, winner of the 2008 Stirling Prize is the UK's most award winning development with a staggering 19 accolades to date in recognition of its outstanding design and classical contemporary architecture.

Here's a list of some of the awards gleaned so far by Accordia Living

2003
- RIBA Housing Design Award

2004
- Mail On Sunday National Homebuilder Design Award

2006
- Building for Life Gold Standard Award
- Evening Standard Best New Family Home Award
- Housing Design Awards “Overall Winner” and “Medium Housebuilder”
- Mail on Sunday National HomeBuilder Design Award
voted ‘best of the best’ winning ‘Best Housing Project of the Year’.
Accordia ‘Air’ won ‘Best House (three storeys or more)’.
- What House? Award - Best Development

2007
- British Homes Awards - Development of the Year
- The Wood Awards - Highly commended in the private category
- Civic Trust Awards - Exemplary new residential scheme
- Daily Telegraph Your New Home Awards - Highly Commended for Best Architectural Innovation

2008
- Daily Mail UK Property Award: 4 Star Award for Best Development
- Hot Property Award: Gold Award for Design and Innovation
- Whathouse Awards
Gold for Best House
Silver for Best Development
Silver for Best Apartment

RIBA Stirling Prize

And here's some images of the award winning development ...

Pam Reardon, of Redeham Homes, Accordia's developer claims that all the awards have led to a "positive effect" on generating sales, and of the 203 units in the development, 20 remain available for sale according to the website, quite impressive in todays economic environment, lending strength to the idea of "living in a garden," the themed concept behind Accordia.
Prices at Accordia currently range between £245,950 for a one- bed flat, £414,950 for a two-bed, and from £589,950 for a three-bed townhouse. Check the website for more information.

Estatecreate shakes up the marketplace

2009-02-17T14:32:00.005Z

Estatecreate.com, the website which allows users to "create a website for your property and then automatically list the property details on lots of different property listing sites", is today announcing the launch of a partnership with the Independent; offering a version of the service within their online property channel.

Other search partners for estatecreate include Friday Ad, AdTrader, Google Base, Zoomf, Globrix, Vast, Enormo, Trovit, Fish4Homes Oodle and Facebook Market Place. Founder and CEO Henry Yates claims estatecreate currently reaches over 2.5 million people each month.

For £5.95 per month you can have your own website and reach the person that wants to buy or let your property, potentially saving 1,000s of pounds in agent's commission. We are allowing property owners to challenge their agent. When our customers get leads they can either negotiate direct or introduce the prospective buyer or lessee to their estate agent in return for reduced commission. At a time of falling house prices and rents this is a perfect opportunity to share this saving with a buyer; according to Yates.

In a blog interview with Nestoria, Yates claims that the runaway success of Facebook and Youtube are having 'a huge impact on consumer behaviour':

In terms of search, people no longer start their search for a property with an agent. Instead, they start their search using sites, such as Nestoria, that allow consumers to easily search for property knowing that they are seeing the majority of properties for sale on the market. Sites such as Facebook and YouTube have made people much more comfortable using web applications and publishing on the web. We believe that these sites have paved the way for consumers to embrace web applications such as estatecreate to market classifieds.

New free to list entrants such as Globrix, Zoomf and Zoopla! will force the market to begin moving away from an annual subscription model towards a performance based model, creating a 'fragmented portal market,' Yates feels that this fragmented portal market will make it easier for portals to begin taking on private listings. Yates also feels that he can develop a solution for agents as single property sites are apparently quite popular in the US.
About Henry Yates:
Mr Yates founded estatecreate and is officially launching the site today; Previously he co-founded Face, the research and planning agency (sold to Cello PLC) and Univillage.com, the social network for students (sold to Sub.tv).

Oodle announces another new partnership

2009-01-30T08:46:00.008Z

UK based TNT, a publishing company aimed at the Antipodean and South African communities, has partnered with Oodle, the online classified search service in an effort to "enhance the volume of property classifieds on its web site."
Launched in 1983 TNT offers free newspapers targeting Australians, New Zealanders and South Africans living and working in the UK. Finding accommodation has long been a cornerstone of TNT’s offering. Now, when users search for properties to share, rent or buy, they not only get results from TNT’s existing advertisers, they also receive results from Oodles search index of over 420,000 Properties to Let.

Although there is evidence suggesting that more people are moving out of the UK, TNT's CEO Jim Murray Jones believes that the timing of the partnership is "perfect", because it coincides with "an expected uplift in new visitors, following changes that see one-year working holiday visas for Australians and New Zealanders replaced by two-year working visas".
The partnership with TNT represents another major milestone for Oodle. Last month they announced partnership arrangements with Facebook and Myspace. Previously they teamed up with sun.co.uk, the UK's number one tabloid as well as Magic Radio, London's number one station.

In related search partnership news, earlier this week Globrix announced a partnership with UKVillages.co.uk, the first media partnership for the search engine, which is outside the realm of the Newscorp family.

Politicians speak on recession

2009-01-26T14:11:00.004Z

Chancellor Alistair Darling, shadow chancellor George Osborne and Liberal Democrat treasury spokesman Vince Cable give their reaction to the confirmation that the UK is officially in recession. What's your reaction? My take? The Cable Guy gives the best answer in so far as he at least attempts to answer the question "What caused the recession." [via BBC]

The end of Wall Street

2009-01-24T12:59:00.003Z

Journalists and reporters from the Wall Street Journal offer their perspective on the financial crisis and why it's the end of Wall Street as we know it; very sobering analysis
part 1

part 2

part 3

Nestoria partners with AOL!

2009-01-21T23:44:00.006Z

OK I'm usually the guy that gets the breaking news on Nestoria; but not this time. With Zoopla's big funding news this week, and now this, the property world is definately moving online. Welcome to the big leagues; it's about to kick off big time ...