The Property Sales People

I’m writing this on 26th December which some might say is a bad time for predictions as the stomach is still churning and digesting yesterday’s Turkey dinner and copious mounts of alcoholic beverages. On the other hand it may focus my mind on whether the next 12 months are going to give any of us that ‘full’ feeling. The danger with property market predictions is that they are generalisations.  When the Halifax or Nationwide make their comments they are talking about the UK as a whole. When I make a prediction I’m talking about our particular little area of the country - incidentally East Cambridgeshire made it to No.4 in the ten best places to live in the UK http://bit.ly/vf0C4v (according to Simon Ward of www.lovemoney.com   using Halifax Quality of Life survey data, and who am I to doubt him!) The London market is buoyant with foreign investors buying and some reports will say that prices moved up even in the closing months of 2011.  The north of the country has over the years los

This year's (2012) pantomime in Haddenham near Ely is Robin Hood. It's Panto Time in Haddenham Oh no it isn't! Oh yes it is! HAmDramS are resting over the Winter, before putting on a new production in the Spring. In the meantime, the village is in panto mode once more. This year the Arkenstall Centre presents Robin Hood written and directed by HAmDramS member Robert Bush Featuring a familiar cast of HAmDramS regulars and a cast of fantastic children, this is a show you won't want to miss! Wednesday 11th - Saturday 14th January 2012 Evening Performances start at 7.30pm - - Saturday Matinee Performance at 2.30pm Tickets go on sale on Saturday 3rd December at the Arkenstall Centre in Haddenham A fterwards, from Haddenham Galleries - 01353 749188 Block bookings for 10 or more (except Sat eve) telephone 01353 740680 Licensed bar and charity raffle in aid of the A

This week we heard about someone who had received their 3 rd letter from the Cheltenham & Gloucester (subsidiary of that public/tax payer bailed out phenomenon known as Lloyds TSB) asking them how they proposed to pay off the balance of their mortgage in 5 years time when it reached the end of it's term. They had dismissed the first letter as an error and replied to the second letter giving as much detail as possible. I add here that the outstanding loan is interest-only so there is no capital being repaid. They have never missed a repayment – even though their business has been through and is possibly still going through the worst period in it's 25 year existence. They recently virtually paid off one mortgage account with a £25,000 cash payment and continue to overpay the balance of their loan. Not good enough for the C&G – they want details of exactly how the balance will be cleared in 5 years time! With documentary proof of the value of endowment policies that

This Sunday I was scanning the Gadgets supplement in the Sunday Times on my iPAD and came across this latest photographic offering from Microsoft. A free download of Photosynth to your iPhone and away you go creating panoramas and 'Synths'. The product reminds me of something we dabbled with in the early '90's called iPIX. This involved a fish eye lens attached to a digital camera and you took 2 hemispherical photos of a room (imagine standing at the centre of a tennis ball). The 2 photos were then stitched together using some software which you could then upload to the web. I eventually grasped how to add it to a web page but it wasn't easy - or quick. This came to an end when the original iPIX company went bust. The simplicity of Photosynth and the ability to upload to your Facebook page as well as it being hosted on www.photosynth.net means this could be a winner - certainly when compared with iPIX! I'm going to have a go and report back on my next blog post

We have just made a major investment in reaching out to homebuyers and sellers by launching our 'intelligent' newsletter which recipients can tailor to their own interests by choosing the subject areas that they want to read about. The company we have partnered with to produce this is BriefYourMarket who have a highly effective relationship with our estate agency software provider, ExpertAgent, who enabled  data from the last 5 years to be available. Obviously the initial 'test' send out whittled numbers down from over 5,000+ e-mail addresses to more manageable numbers to actually receive the newsletter. The last thing we want to do is upset people by sending them e-mails that could be construed as 'spam' and from hereon only people who subscribe or remain subscribed will receive it. I'm interested to learn if anyone has a particular subject that they would like one of our contributing writers to talk about. Send your requests to editor@clarkhomes.co.uk an

I just had to display this for everyone to see! Yvonne has been very stressed during this transaction so conveyancing solicitors will need to bear with her... Sent: 16 June 2011 18:15 To: Barbara Harding Subject: re our exchange Thank you to you and David for the little extra support you gave me latterly in the process it was much appreciated.  We were afflicted with just about very problem you can get in a conveyance..except someone dropping down dead !  I dont know that everybody knows everything which gummed up the works along the way but certainly I now have a very clear idea of what is good and bad in legal and estate business.  YOU and Barbara Brooker were great and even a Hertford estate agent I met on the way called Senel Ibrahim (of Lanes) rang me up at intervals to ask how we were getting on..we were hoping to buy in Hertford initially but the properties went up too much in price. In theory every property should have its own  one to one manager 24/7 but in p

Sent from my iPhone Begin forwarded message: From: "HomeLet" < info@homeletnews.com > Date: 9 June 2011 18:15:46 GMT+01:00 To: < david@clarkhomes.co.uk > Subject: HomeLet  launches most comprehensive report on rental market Reply-To: "HomeLet" < info@homeletnews.com >         Be streets ahead of everyone! Find out all the facts, figures and trends of the lettings industry available nowhere else in the UK. Our RPI is the biggest and best in the country, and the only one to show such detailed lettings industry information. It highlights: The number of tenants in 11 UK regions Whether tenants are male or female What type of property they used to live in Monthly change in rental prices Change of regional rental prices The data has been gathered from over 3,000 of HomeLet’s letting agents nationwide â€" far more robust than any other RPI currently on the mar

In a report in today’s Times it was reported that 1000’s of acres of public sector land that is deemed surplus near hospitals, schools and military bases must be identified by the autumn of this year to enable a potential sell-off. Part of the proposal is a ‘Build Now, Buy Later’ plan whereby developers can pay for land once homes are completed. It is not clear in the article whether this means physical build completion or legal sales completion. The only way it would help developer/builders with a cash-flow problem is if it were the legal sales completion where money changes hands from buyer to seller. Let’s just look at the ‘headers’ again: ·          Housing Shortage ·          Surplus Land ·          Developers/Builders with cash flow problems. There is a housing shortage that is true. It was talked about before the more recent implosion of the financial system that helped create the current recession that has in turn caused a house price correction. House builders will not bui

So the house builders and the lenders have had a meeting to discuss how they can create 95% mortgages. Basically a good thing, as you would imagine most estate agents would say. But what proportion of the housing Market is represented by new homes sales to first time buyers? Also any first time buyer who purchases a new home is then a cost to the second hand Market of who knows how many sales! If I think back 30 years my wife and I as first time buyers were providing a deposit of 10%. To do this we sold her car, saved up by not going out as much and generally committed ourselves to the task of buying our first home together. Ah, you might say, but house prices were so much cheaper then. True but my salary was just under £2,000 per annum with the prospect of perhaps another £1,000 in commission from selling at lease 6 houses per month personally. The first 4 didn't count towards commission but were to cover my costs to my employer! I personally don't think 95% mortgages are

Britain's housing market is an unexploded economic bomb - MoneyWeek By all means read this thoroughly depressing article but bear in mind that for our part we have had the best 3 month run in terms of sales, new instructions and contract exchanges since 2007 when we agree that the 'top' of the market was reached. As a broad brush generalisation estate agents are not interested in rising or falling house prices - they earn their living from actual sales so it is the volume (number) of transactions that is the real issue. Our view is that volumes are up! Home owners can only put off a move up or down the market for so long before other pressures come to bear and they simply have to do it. If you still feel like you need to be reassured that the only way is down then take out a subscription for a regular copy of the Daily Mail!

Check out this application on the App Store: Speed-Up Conveyancing PD Mobile Media Limited Category: Business Updated: 08 Feb 2011 iTunes for Mac and Windows Please note that you have not been added to any email lists. Copyright © 2011 iTunes S.à r.l. All rights reserved Sent from my iPad

I've just been e-mailed this link  http://mastersinpublicadministration.com/moving-on-top-10-moving-blogs by Joseph Morris which is worth checking out if you need some assistance in the business of moving house! It's USA biased but there are some useful threads there.

Councils to help first-time buyers on to housing ladder Extracted from BBC online news Councils are to help first-time buyers get on the housing ladder by topping up their deposits. Five councils are pioneering a scheme aimed at buyers who can afford the monthly mortgage repayments but do not have a lump sum saved up. Many first-time buyers find it difficult to purchase a home because lenders are asking for hefty deposits. The councils will put 20% of the price in a Lloyds TSB account, with the lender asking for a 5% deposit. The funds will not go to the buyer and the mortgage rate will be lower. The councils risk losing money if a buyer defaults, but they get a generous interest rate themselves. The scheme could benefit up to 300 first-time buyers in each area, but if other councils join, thousands could potentially benefit. Another 10 councils are waiting to join the scheme. The scheme is called Local Lend a Hand. "We know that a lot of young people turn to the Bank

Mary Portas 'Queen of Shops' does Estate Agents Well done Mary! You succeeded in finding the rare dinosaur firm of estate agents that choose to use cliches to describe property and whose sales staff know nothing about the property they are selling! How have they managed to get away with it for so long? Especially with Trading Standards having the power of the Misdescriptions Act to defend the public from agents not telling it like it is. We try to be factual, clear and honest and I believe over the last 20 years in business in Ely we have never stretched the truth. Having staff who don't know anything about a property they're selling or showing someone round, is counter productive. Several people and Ms Portas herself banged on about how much they were paying an agent to sell the property. Exactly, we only get paid if we sell it, no upfront fees, no abortive fees, no withdrawal fees. So we don't send people on viewings who know nothing about the property as we

SimplyBusiness.co.uk report on the Changing Face of Britain’s Landlords as Young Entrepreneurs enter the Market Analysis from SimplyBusiness.co.uk has indicated a significant change in both the age and gender of private landlords in the UK. The traditional face of the archetypal British landlord is changing according to the study which shows there is a new, younger breed of landlord entering the private rental market; which would indicate that when it comes to property, many still think that there’s money to be made. Comparative data of landlord insurance policies sold by SimplyBusiness.co.uk in 2006 (versus 2010) shows a marked increase in landlords aged 18-34. Likewise the gender gap is beginning to close as 39% of landlords insured via SimplyBusiness.co.uk are female, versus 36% in 2006. Interestingly, when comparing the types of property being insured, there hasn’t been a statistically significant change since 2006 with terraced housing still accounting for the largest