Property Articles

The Bank of England has kept the base interest rates at 5.75 today.

Amid the recent financial problems due to the U.S. mortgage issues, the Bank has recently intervened in the marketplace and today’s news was expected.

Unlike the predictions of the base rate going up to 6% by the end of the year, some analysts are now expecting the rates to be kept at the same level and some even argue that they should be reduced.

Either case, this should be good news for the investment property landlords.

With strong rental demand in the Maidenhead and Reading area, many letting and estate agents are struggling to find new properties to offer to applicants and, in a desperate attempt, are reducing their fees drastically to attract prospective landlords.

At face value, this may sound like positive news. However, the landlords should be wary of offers that seem too good to be true.

Landlords should keep in mind when picking a letting/estate agent that you get the professionalism and service you pay for. Slashed fees may result in a poor letting/management service. Even worse, the agent may end up having insufficient funds to survive.

The letting and management of residential properties is a very complicated and costly process; it demands significant time and resources as well as money. Some people have a misconception of thinking of lettings only requiring to advertise in the local paper.

As a start, having well-trained and knowledgeable staff is vital. Vetting the prospective tenants carefully is very important too. Keeping up-to-date with all the complex legislation is must for both the landlord and the tenant’s sake. Addressing the management issues promptly is very key and tend to be a round-the-clock responsibility for the managing agent. This list can be extended significantly with lots of other issues that people tend to take for granted.

Naturally, landlords will, of course, aim to keep their outgoings to a minimum and will seek a competitive letting/management rate. However, landlords paying unsustainably low letting or management fees must be aware of the risks of associated, such as the property not being marketed in the correct manner or to the right people.

As we have seen in Maidenhead area before the agents being driven to insolvency due to unrealistic fees is a very real possibility.

When choosing a letting agent, the we advise the landlords to base their decision not only on the agency fees alone. They should also take into account the overall service that the agency provides, their experience in the lettings and management business as well as the knowledge of the local area, their reputation and professionalism too.

What is conveyancing?

Conveyancing is the legal process whereby the ownership of a property is transferred from the seller to the buyer. In simple terms, it is the legal process of buying and selling property.

Who does the conveyancing?

In general, the conveyancing work is carried out by a solicitor or a licensed conveyancer. One lawyer cannot act for both parties, as this would cause a conflict of interest so therefore both the buyer and seller will have their own representation.

Nowadays, with the increased popularity of the Internet, the e-conveyancing is on offer as a less expensive alternative too.

The recent data from Nationwide shows that there are clear signs of a slow down in the housing market. Although the house prices have gone up 0.6% in August, Nationwide says that the annual house price inflation has fallen down to 9.6% from 9.9%.

These finding have been backed up by separate sets of data that has recently been published by Halifax and by the Land Registry as well.
The recent actions that the Bank of England have taken seem to be the key factor in this.

According to the Land Registry, the house price inflation in England and Wales slowed down in July. The recent survey it carried out recently shows that the increase was only 0.1% in July. This is claimed to be the lowest during the previous 13 months. As a result the house price inflation has dropped down to 8.8% from 9.1%.
London and the South East seem to be still leading the price increases; keeping the rate divergence between London and the rest of the country.
Some experts argue that the recent 5 increases in interest rates by the Bank of England is paying dividends in slowing the house price increases down.

We hope that none of our landlords or tenants has suffered as a result of the floods.

If it was a few years ago before the Jubilee flood relief, a lot of the properties near the river would have been affected by this year, it has not been as bad as some of the recent incidents.

It is encouraging to see that after nearly 2 months of discussing the topic here, there was a big nationawide coverage of the topic by BBC this week.

The people’s feelings as well as some of the MPs’ opinions seemed to be along the same lines with our article.

According to the Association of Residential Letting Agents (ARLA), the rental demand far outweighed the supply in the last 3 months.

This is inline with the reports published by the National Association of Letting Agents (NAEA). NAEA attributes this to high immigration from Eastern European countries, a positive employment trend and a strong demand from the first time buyers who are priced out of the market.

Estate Agents Marlow

If you are searching for Marlow Estate Agents, then you have come to the right place. We are one of the best estate agents Marlow area with an exceptional reputation for outstanding residential property services.

Our vast range of residential property services includes the sales, rentals and management as well as house staging. We have been successfully dealing with town houses, cottages, flats as well as new developments.

If you are a landlord or tenant or an investor, please contact us for advice on purchasing, lettings, management, rent reviews, general maintenance, rent collections and sales market appraisals.

Information on Marlow

Marlow is a picturesque Buckinghamshire town in located on the Thames and surrounded by beautiful countryside, with the Chiltern Hills to the north.

Location

Marlow is very close to another well-known pretty towns, such as Henley-on-Thames to the south west and Cookham.

Marlow also very close to other bigger towns such as High Wycombe, and Maidenhead, Slough, Windsor and Beaconsfield.

Amenities

This charming riverside town offers a wide range of the attractions with excellent shops, good schools, exciting
sports facilities, such as the Bisham Abbey and a wide choice of trendy restaurants and bars.

Probably the most notable feature of the historic Marlow town is probably the famous Suspension Bridge that was built in 1831.

Transport

With access to the M40 in 5 miles and the M4 in 10 miles, Marlow has excellent road connections to London, the M25, Birmingham and the west of England.

Marlow has its own railway station with connections to Bourne End and Maidenhead. Commuting to London and Reading by train is simple via Maidenhead.

There are also bus connections to Reading, Henley and High Wycombe.

Heathrow, with national and international flights, is 25 miles away.

In the UK, everyday more and more novice landlords are tempted into the buy-to-let investment sector not only by a range of new and competitive products by the mortgage lenders but also by the success stories of the other property investors.The buy-to-let mortgages are now a lot easier to obtain and a lot more competitive compared to five or six years ago.

Although traditionally the lenders required a 130% rental to mortgage repayment ratio to secure a margin of safety during the vacant periods, some lenders are now allowing the predicted rental income to be 100% of the mortgage repayments. There are even products out there that require no indication of rental income.

The financial experts seem to be divided about these new products in the marketplace. Some experts argue that a lot of the novice landlords may be badly exposed by further interest rate rises that are widely forecasted for the rest of 2007 and potentially in 2008 too. According to this group of experts this situation is creating a lot of high risk investors that will be adversely affected by even marginal interest rate increases and this could potentially be the downfall of the buy-to-let investments in this country. Whereas the others argue that “when used properly by the experienced landlords”, these products do offer a lot of choice and flexibility, which can only strengthen the buy-to-let market.

Overall, it is down to the individual landlord to decide how much risk they wish to take but our advice to any novice landlords would be to seek independent financial advice from the experts before making any such decisions.Appleton Estates would be happy to put you in touch with Independent Financial Advisers should you wish to explore the buy-to-let property investments.