Property Articles

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!!!

According to the Council of Mortgage Lenders, more first-time buyers are opting for fixed rate mortgages this year with the expectation of the interest rates going further up in 2007.

Although most people think that even the steep rate increases haven’t slowed down the house prices going up so far and in general people are expecting further rises, Nationwide have claimed there were signs of the housing market cooling off.

According to some analysts, the forecasted £9 billion of bonuses in the City has a very impact on the housing market. These analysts estimate that approximately 60% of these bonuses get invested in the property market. This then starts pushing up the property prices; starting in London and trickling out to the rest of the country.
The Council of Mortgage Lenders reports that, in January, 85% of first timers took out a fixed-rate deal, which is the highest proportion on record.

70% of all the house movers preferred a fixed-rate deal.

Following the three rate rises since last August, The average interest rate of these mortgages was 5.27%.

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.

Leasehold is a common type of property tenure in England where the ownership of a property is subject to lease from the freeholder. The freeholder is the legal owner of the land where the property is built upon.
Leasehold tends to be mostly applicable to flats or maisonettes rather than houses. The lease period is usually around 99 years or more in England.

Leasehold property is bought and sold on the market like any other property but there may be some extra paperwork to go through during the purchase.

Unlike a tenancy, the leaseholder has the right to occupy the property until the end of the lease period rather than having to periodically extend it (e.g. weekly, monthly).

Due to the growth of our business, at Appletons we are looking for a trainee lettings negotiator.

The Bank of England has decided to keep the interest rates unchanged at 5.25%. Although some analysts expected another rise this month, the Bank of England seems to be waiting to see the impact the recent rise before taking another action so soon.

Over the last 10-15 years, property investment has become a very popular investment method. Each day more people are investing in property as a vehicle to build wealth and secure their future. Buy-to-let is now even considered a legitimate pension investment.

The idea behind it is very straightforward. You make the initial investment in a property that somebody else lives in and pays you rent. In principle, you expect the rent to at least cover the mortgage payments. More importantly the property increases in value. A significant number of property investors have build sizeable buy-to-let property portfolios this way and it is well documented!

Some property investors have mentioned that over the last 100 years, the property prices have double every 10 years on average. And, this is the key expectation for their invesment. They don’t really expect to make much money out of the rent as long as it covers the mortgage.

There are 3 key areas for a successful property investment:

• finding the right property
• finding the right lender
• finding the right letting/property management agent

If you are looking to invest in property in Maidenhead, Marlow, Cookham and Reading areas, Appletons provide an exclusice investment property search service.