Property Articles

An increasing number elderly people are considering to make use of the money locked up in their home to enjoy their retirement years through equity release schemes.

With the UK property boom over the last decade, most people have seen the value of their home increase significantly. The equity release plan is a way of people trying to make the best of this increase of their home.
Especially the retired people are keen on releasing some hard cash out of the rising value of their homes in order to increase their spending.

The equity release plan allows the home owner to release tax-free cash from their home in order to boost their finances in retirement.
There are several different schemes on the market but most of them have the same principal of giving the owner a loan on the value of their property.

There are two main equity release plans widely on offer:

• lifetime mortgages,
• home reversion plans.

The lifetime mortgage seems to be the more popular of the two plans.

The owner receives the loan as cash, as a lump sum or on a monthly basis, and continue living in their home.

The lender then recovers the loan either by selling the property after the owner’s death or when the owner sell the property - for example to move into a care home.

Whatever you do, please seek expert independent financial advice. The equity release schemes are often easy to get into but generally hard to get out of.

A recent research highlights that more than 77% of property investors target their local area for investment; mostly within a 5-mile radius of their principal residence.

Adil Akkus, the director at Appleton Letting Agents in Reading commented: “The landlords who manage the day-to-day running of their investment properties need to target those areas that are as close to their main residence as possible in order to be able to deal with any problems. A good relationship with their tenant is very important.

However, at Appletons, we provide our landlords a great flexibility with our distinguished residential property management service. Many landlords who opted for investing further afield, in the Maidenhead, Reading and the surrounding areas of Berkshire, have employed our management services over the years. We oversee the everyday management of their properties, leaving the investors to concentrate on other areas of their portfolio management.

We have a considerable amount of very satisfied landlords from overseas as well as from other areas of the UKc.”

Landlords across the UK are expanding their portfolios as demand continues to grow within the buy-to-let market. Now 8% of the overall housing stock in the UK is accounted for by the buy-to-let mortgages; moreover the buy-to-let market is worth more than £73 billion.

We are very pleased to announce that Appleton Estates has joined The UK Association of Letting Agents.

Here is the Code of Practice that the members adhere to:

Principles

• All members must deal fairly with landlords, tenants, suppliers of services and members of the general public and not discriminate.
• All members must adopt the principles, listed below, when dealing with the following:

Landlords

• To agree with the landlord, in writing, the terms of appointment including fee structure and the other services for which additional fees may be charged.
• To draw the attention of the landlord to their possible need for services not supplied by the member agency.
• To disclose in writing to relevant parties any existing conflict of interest - or any circumstances which are likely in future to give rise to a conflict of interest.
• To manage the client’s property in compliance with all current applicable legislation.
• To ensure that the balances of rent are promptly paid over to the landlord.
• To ensure that tenants’ deposits and any tax withheld are kept separate from the company’s accounts at all times, and that accounts can be individually identified. Such funds shall be held in a recognised bank or building society in clearly designated client accounts.
• To keep detailed records of all transactions relating to the landlord’s property.
• To ensure that repairs and maintenance requirements are dealt with promptly having regard to the urgency and the availability of funds.
• To provide the landlord, in the case of major works, with a written estimate and to obtain consent before proceeding.

Tenants

• To ensure, as far as is possible, that the tenant understands the tenancy agreement and their obligations.
• To ensure the tenant is made fully aware of the importance of the inventory and to recommend the tenant be present at both check-in and check-out. To advise the tenant to check the inventory supplied at the start of the tenancy and to request the tenant to sign and return the inventory within seven days, making it clear that if they fail to do so, the inventory and the schedule of condition will be deemed correct and used for check-out purposes.
• To deal promptly with dilapidations and deposit return at the end of the tenancy.

Suppliers and contractors

• To ensure, as far as is possible, that the contractor clearly understands what work is required and to obtain a quote for the cost of work before allowing a contractor to proceed, or to inform the contractor at the time of instruction of the maximum amount of expenditure without further reference to the agent.

At Appletons, we are pleased to welcome our new team member Susan on board as a trainee lettings negotiator.

“Both Susan and our team are very excited about having Susan in the team. She is certainly going to help us get to the next level” said Sarah Akkus, the managing director of Appletons.

The speed limit is being cut from 50 mph down to 40 mph between Maidenhead and Reading. This is going to be effective from April 23rd.

Although a lot of people are sceptical about the move, please be aware of the speed limit changes if you are using this road.

According to the Council of Mortgage Lenders data, the property investment has never been more popular. The data shows that 330000 buy to let mortgages were taken last year. This is a very significant 50% increase compared to 2005 and a continuing 9-year trend.

Another piece of evidence to support this massive trend is the Sunday Times “Rich List”. A close analysis of the “Rich List” shows that 20% of the people on the list have made their wealth through property.

Most investors argue that:

• A property that was purchased for just £4,000 30 years ago would be worth around £225,000 today.
• Equities or Stock markets can be very volatile, as with the .com crash. Property investment, however, has been a stable investment historically.

Advantages

• It is widely accepted that property investment offers stability, simplicity and excellent returns.
• It allows you to invest with someone else’s money (The Bank’s) and pay it back with other peoples’ money (the rental income).
• Investors can release equity against their property for the purchase of another one.
• It is a well documented macro economics forecast that the value of a property doubles every 7 to 10 years on average.

Everybody should be aware that capital returns do vary according to the market in which investment is made. However, chosen in the correct location, property can offer better returns compared to any other form of investment.

Please be aware that the property investment carries risks. If you are considering a property investment, Appletons strongly advise you to get financial advice before investing in any property scheme. If you wish, we would be happy to put you in touch with a financial advisor.

According to a BBC report at the end of March that the Internet advertising has surged by 41.2% in 2006, overtaking newspapers for the first time. (Please click http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6502773.stm to view the story.)

As more and more people are recognising the incredible potential of the Internet sector, it is no surprise that our Internet focussed advertising campaign aimed at reaching more and more potential buyers and tenants is proving an enormous success. For any searches in the biggest search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Microsoft, Appleton Estate Agents is extremely well placed for the “estate agents” or “letting agents” related searches for Maidenhead, Cookham, Marlow and Reading.

We are also advertising with the biggest property portals as indicated in one of our previous articles.

Our technical director, Adil Akkus, is spending an enormous amount of time optimising our unique website to maintain and better our search engine rankings. Adil said “the Internet is going to differentiate the success and failure for the 21st century businesses. The Internet is beyond just a case of having a pretty website now and a website is useless if people cannot find it effectively.”

At Appletons, we have uniquely harmonised the power of the Internet with our local expertise and best-in-class service.

This month the famous Tenancy Deposit Protection Scheme has come into force and protection of deposits is mandatory under the law from 6th April 2007.

Virtually all new contracts to let a property are assured shorthold tenancies. Tenancy Deposit Protection has been introduced:

1. To ensure good practice in deposit handling, so that when a tenant pays a deposit, and is entitled to get it back, they can be assured that this will happen.
2. To assist with the resolution of disputes by having an Alternative Dispute Resolution service (ADR). It will also encourage tenants and landlords to have in place, from the outset, clear agreement on the condition of the property through best practice, such as the use of inventories, and agreement on the condition of the property.

At Appletons we are well prepared and placed to have everything in place.

We have informed all our landlords of the new regulations in advance. If you still have any questions please do feel free to contact us.

Alternatively you can refer to http://www.communities.gov.uk for more information.

Appleton Letting Agents in Reading and Maidenhead has been advertising in the top 6 out of 7 property web portals in the UK, according to the results of the Key Measures Report by ComScore as of today.

ComScore is an internet marketing research company and it has recently carried out an independent analysis of UK property websites.

There is usually a lot of argument in the world of UK property portals about the statistics and the amount of visitors those sites have been receiving and in turn directing to the individual estate agency websites.
According to the ComScore data, RightMove has just made it to the top of the pile.

Our detailed research shows that our website is actually not only registered in the 6 of the top 7 web portals but also registered with a considerable amount of other portals in the top 100 list.

Additionally, our ongoing effort in optimising our website for the Reading, Maidenhead, Cookham and Marlow areas is paying dividends. Appletons website is really well placed within the top 5 listings of the major search engines as well.

Landlords, please remember that more internet referrals means more viewings at your property, which means quicker lets or sales!!!

The Government has come up with some new proposal of reforms for the HIPs. It also clarified the mandatory contents and the introduction deadline.

From the 1st of June 2007 in England and Wales, legally the sellers of residential property or their estate agents will be required to have a Home Information Pack before putting it up for sale.

The latest information we, at Appletons, have received from the Government indicates that the following documents have to be present in the HIP:

• An index (i.e. a list of the contents of the Pack)
• A sale statement (summarising terms of sale)
• Evidence of title
• Standard searches (i.e. local authority enquiries and a drainage and water search)
• An Energy Performance Certificate
• Where appropriate, commonhold information (including a copy of the commonhold community statement)
• Where appropriate, leasehold information (including a copy of the lease, information on service charges and insurance)
• Where appropriate, a New Homes Warranty
• Where appropriate, a report on a home that is not physically complete

Also all the searches and the Leasehold information have to be produced within 28 days of the property being marketed and there will be fines for marketing the property without the HIP.

For more information, please refer to the official information at www.homeinformationpacks.gov.uk.