Recent Articles in How to work with us

The property market needs practical solutions not 'voter grabbing' policies!
Nov 20, 2019

I was recently chatting to Clive Bull on LBC about the up and coming election and housing policies. He asked me an interesting question: are you looking forward to hearing about new government housing policies? My answer surprised me a little, as normally I would just say yes and then go on to talk about existing and proposed policies and their pros and cons, but as I was thinking on my feet, what I actually said was ‘no’, what we really need is practical solutions, not policies. And I do think this is key to sorting out housing problems.

A pre-Xmas price bounce for property?
Nov 13, 2019

It’s significant that both Rightmove and LSL are reporting prices falling in England and Wales, year on year, for this month, and albeit these are ‘tiny’ falls, they indicate a slowing market. With an election upon us, housing is going to be a key topic, but perhaps not as high as it would be without Brexit still ‘being on the list of ‘to dos’.  For all the latest on property prices, read Kate Faulkner's comprehensive report.

How savvy are the UK's teenagers when it comes to buying a home?
Nov 5, 2019

With much of the press regularly reporting that it’s impossible for youngster’s to get on the housing ladder today, I thought it would be interesting to see what teenagers in my local area – Nottingham – thought about their chances of getting on the property market. Rather than interrogate budding buyers myself, I thought it best to let one of their peers run the research – and film the results.

Time to replace licensing with a Property MOT – let’s look after tenants, not keep failing them!
Nov 1, 2019

A while ago I started, on behalf of The Lettings Industry Council, to look at how well licensing was working, and at that point was fairly happy to remain neutral on whether it was a good idea or not. Sadly, though, my research has resulted in my feeling that licensing is an utter waste of time and money, and not really helping tenants at all. Few councils have prosecuted at anything like the level Newham have achieved, and some have introduced schemes and granted licences without ever having seen the property! Read my article to find out the reasons for taking this view  and take a look at  the TLIC’s solution/alternative - the Property MOT.

Summary of latest rental report from Zoopla Q3 2019
Oct 24, 2019

BIG NEWS STORY:
Rental affordability is ‘spot on’, not that you’d know that from the headlines! The real story from the rental report is that all the headlines accusing ‘greedy landlords’ and ‘letting agents’ of charging extortionate rent and rents ‘sky rocketing’ are incorrect.