Maidenhead Property Articles

The Bank of England has decided to keep the interest rates at the same level to ease the current economic situation.

Adil Akkus of Appleton Estate Agents Maidenhead comments that this will help the property market in Maidenhead but the government needs to do a lot to help the Bank of England as the current mortgage offers are still very limited.

Both Rightmove and Findaproperty have both published reports with interesting statistics. They both indicate that the asking price for the new properties that are coming on the market is lower than last month. Righmove shows this figure to be 1.6% down whereas Findaproperty shows it to be 0.5% down.

Both portals have been very downbeat about the asking prices they report to be over £200,000. These figures are significantly higher than the actual amounts paid for the properties that Nationwide and Halifax insist to be around £160,000.

The property market in Maidenhead and surrounding areas of Berkshire and Buckinghamshire still seems to be very buoyant. The online marketing director for Appleton Estate Agents Cookham, Adil Akkus commented: “We are seeing strong signs of return to 2 year ago in the sale market. The letting market is still tough with the lower rental rates but soon it should follow as well. Just take a look at the local printed media, and the property advertising section. When the market bottomed, this section was down to half the size but now it seems to be back to its old size”. Adil stressed: “We have never reduced our advertising even at the toughest times. This shows our commitment to our landlords, and our commitment to marketing their property in the best way possible, which the local printed media forms a key part of”.

For more articles on this subject or others, visit our property articles site.

One of the main arguments in the property market recently is whether it is possible to replace advertising in the printed press to the online environment. Now this debate is expanding: Is it time to replace the physical High Street presence with a virtual presence?

Only four or five years ago, not having High Street presence with expensively kitted offices was a big disadvantage in getting new properties on the books for sales, lettings or management. People wanted to go into a five-star office to be treated as royalty. There was a very unfair pre-judgement that being an Internet-based estate agency meant not providing the best property consultancy.
What a difference a few years make…

Nowadays, the High Street estate agency offices are not the busiest places. Most people start their research through the Internet and many of them tend not to go near, let alone into, and estate agency office. The landlords/tenants and vendors/buyers contact the agents via the Internet, emails and telephone. As this is the most convenient way of doing it now that almost every home in the country has some sort of Internet connection. People do not have time to spend chit-chatting in an office any more.

Also, people are looking for more competitive fees too.

Especially with the current credit crunch, the traditional estate agents are getting less instructions and they are having to provide the same level of service at a lower price now. As a result, we are seeing some traditional estate agencies closing some of the High Street offices due to cost-cutting pressures. They are then trying to cover those areas from other branches.

Of course, there are still some dinosaurs in the industry. Just recently, one new estate agent who opened up a very expensive office in an upper class area told me that only the “boffins” would go and search the Internet for properties. He even went further telling me that he had not heard of most of the main property portals. Luckily, these types of people are on the decline and are no longer giving the true property professionals a bad name anymore.
According to some recent studies, the number of online listings have gone up by 58% in just the last nine months.

Whether or not we will still see the estate agents row in the High Streets in five or seven years time is another discussion but we are experiencing a definite trend towards using the technology to provide more competitive property services.

One of the biggest differentiators behind the Appleton Estates brand has always been providing a better property consultancy by removing all the chains that the traditional estate agency has demanded in this country. And, the biggest drive for us has been being on the leading edge of the technology. Appleton Estates has been one of the first “virtual” estate agencies in the area. We have believed in what we have been offering and our belief is now paying significant dividends.

Amid signs of a UK economy slow-down, the Bank of England has cut interest rates to 5.25% from 5.5%.

This was a widely expected move by many analysts. Some experts had predicted even more cuts similar to the US Federal Bank’s move.

However, the Bank signalled that further cuts were not imminent due to inflation concerns.

In its statement, the Bank said: “Inflation at 2.1% in December was close to the 2% target, but higher energy and food prices are expected to raise inflation, possibly quite sharply, in the coming months.”

“The Committee needs to balance the risk that a sharp slowing in activity pulls inflation below target in the medium-term against the risk that elevated inflation expectations keep inflation above target,” it added.

Some key players in the property sector are still not satisfied that this move will be helpful for the UK housing market. They are pointing to the data indicating that market activity is 25% down on a year on year basis in terms of mortgage lending and sales volumes. Most people, however, seem in agreement that in 2008, a potential housing crash is very unlikely.

The Association of Residential Letting Agents (ARLA) claims that the level of tenants searching for a property to rent has hit a five year high in the UK.

ARLA highlights several potential reasons for the increased tenancy demand including increased levels of immigration, concerns about the housing market, and more people living alone.

The South East of the country is heading the list where there is a shortage of rental properties.

The ARLA survey suggests increased tenancy periods where tenants are preferring to stay in the property well over twelve months. Also the vacant rental property period seems to be well under a month.

Appleton Estate Agents Maidenhead have been seeing a similar trend as well.

Off-Plan property purchase scheme has become very popular amongst the investors in the recent years.

Purchasing an off-plan property simply means buying a property before it is built. Appleton Estate Agents Maidenhead state that these properties tend to be mostly flats. For the buyers, one of the biggest advantages is the flexibility to influence the finishing, such as the worktops, carpets, etc.

For the property investors, this scheme has a lot more significance associated though:

The property development companies aim to secure their financial position as quickly as possible. They aim not to get their capital tied up in a development for long periods so that they can start up their next project. Like any other retail trade, they tend to choose discounting as an effective way of luring the buyers in and release their capital as early as possible.

Some of the investors do claim getting up to 15-18% discounts and in some cases even getting their stamp duty paid this way.

Appleton Estate Agents Maidenhead insist the key benefit for the property investor is that typically the prices increase as the development property progresses.

When the development completes, the investor still retains the option to complete the purchase. Investor may prefer to keep the property and rent it out or sell it and realise the capital growth that has been achieved during the build, including any discounts he/she has had. Selling before the completion of the property is called Flipping and some developers may have clauses against this if they are offering discounts.Flipping is popular by some investors as they can get their capital out as quickly as possible, similar to the developers and move on to their next project with some profit.

Either way, Off-plan property purchasing is often seen as a very good opportunity.

As Appleton Estate Agents Reading, we encourage our customers who wish to go down this route to ask for financial and professional advice before making any commitments. Not all the discounted off-plan properties should be treated as good rental investment. If you have any queries, feel free to contact us for further consultation.

The government has announced that in England and Wales, the controversial Home Information Packs (HIPs) will be mandatory for all properties sold from the 14th of December.

Initially the HIPs were required for the sales of all properties with 4 or more bedrooms. Since September of this year, the scheme was extended to cover all the properties with 3 or more bedrooms.

Since their introduction, the HIPs have been very controversial as most people claim that they make the sale process more complicated and costly without significant tangible benefits. The average cost of a HIP is around £300-£350.

Following on from the initial expansion of the scheme to cover 3 bedroom properties in September, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) has claimed that more than half of its members have recorded a fall in the number of three-bedroom-plus properties coming on the market.

However, the government is still insisting that the HIPs will bring benefit to the consumers. They claim that the packs will especially provide more information for the the first-time buyers.

Appleton Estate Agents Maidenhead argue that the HIPs will not add a lot of value to the property purchasing process though.

During October, the property prices fell by 0.7% as the winter has slowed down the buyers’ interest.The vendors were forced to drop their asking prices according to new figures published this week. Leading up to November, the average asking price was reduced by over £1500 in England and Wales. According to Rightmove, the average property prices thus dropped below £240000.

This drop has effectively brought the house prices back to July levels.

Analysts are widely expecting further price reductions before the end of this year and early part of next year. If the financial markets can achieve some stability, the analysts are saying that  small price increases might be possible later in 2008.

However, noone is still expecting a wide recession in the economy; therefore they are ruling out a majot price correction at this stage.

Property in Maidenhead

The Bank of England has signalled potential interest rate cuts for 2008.

This has been welcome by millions of mortgage payers who have been struggling to keep up with escalating interest rates.

The Bank of England has increased the interest rates 5 times over the past 15 months - peaking at 5.75%.

However, there were also some worrying news in the its quarterly Inflation Report. The Bank forecasts the economy would slow down in 2008 and inflation would increase.

The Bank noted a significant amount of uncertainty over for the economy in the upcoming months, particularly due to the vulnerable world financial systems.

The bank also indicated that there were some signs the house price inflation was softening.