Recent Articles in Property prices and rents

Belvoir reviews current rental market trends
Nov 29, 2019

Over the last eleven years I have produced the Belvoir Index to give landlords an up-to-date and accurate picture of what’s actually happening to rents in their area, as opposed to just looking at ‘averages’.  The Belvoir Index offers invaluable rental information, not only for the UK on average, but also for each country and region and, most importantly, for individual offices. We not only assimilate and evaluate data from many of the offices around the UK, we also ask for individual feedback from offices in towns and cities in each country. Read the full article to find out what's really happening to rents in your area.

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.