The Property Sales People

Best wishes for Christmas 2010 and New Year 2011! This year we are closing our doors at lunchtime (12:00) on 23rd December and re-opening at 9:00 am on January 4th. For the benefit of our tenants and landlords you can still reach us during this period by dialing 01353 645809 . Please leave a message with your name, brief description of the situation and full contact details. Our system will e-mail the voice mail to the mobile of the duty person who will be back to you as soon as possible.

Well worth a read! What's the saying? "Don't believe everything you read in the papers" Comments from DC & Co in due course. http://issuu.com/tdpg/docs/tdpg_research_property_market_insider_winter_2010?viewMode=magazine&mode=embed

Ever wondered what 'period' your home belongs to? Or if the selling agent got the date right! Here's the (not exhaustive) guide: How to age a home Tudor (1485 - 1603): half-timbering, steep roof, tall and narrow windows, large chimneys Jacobean (1603 - 1660): flat roof, columns and pilasters, decadent detail Georgian (1714 - 1837): two chimneys, matching housefronts, large sash windows, brick walls, contrasting window frames, porticos Victorian (1837 - 1901): slate roof, three stories, bay windows, ornate finish, Gothic and Renaissance revival, ordered room layout Edwardian (1901 - 1919): red brick, gables, semi-detached, mansion blocks, functional design, less decoration 1920s and 1930s: functional, smaller, mock-Tudor and Georgian revival, plain doorways and lintels, Art Deco, geometric 1940s: angular and shiny surfaces, wooden panelling, tiled fireplaces 1950s: open plan design, streamlining, picture windows, minamalist, high-rise, prefabs 1960s: Lar...

When everyone is diving in then it's probably best not to be buying. The reverse is often true but Mike Woodfine from The Money Centre advises would be investors on the correct attitude to borrowing mortgage money. Read the Yorkshireman's advice here  http://bit.ly/arQLwu  !

Tory Minister Vows to End Era of House Price Booms The latest nonsense to issue from the mouth of a Con-Dem minister has left me agitated, not to say irritated! The Daily Mail of 13th October reported Grant Shapps’, the Housing Minister, speech to the Housing Market Intelligence conference. Read in full here http://bit.ly/dpGL4K if you are suffering from low blood pressure. He stated: “...middle class families ... should not rely on their homes to fund retirement”. We have had a Labour Government mount a several billion pound raid on pension funds, a stock market lose our pension funds a fortune and now we have a Tory telling us that property as a pension is a mortal sin! I suppose if you are an MP or a senior civil servant then you won’t need to worry about the investment in your property as you have a gold plated, brass constructed pension that the middle-classes have, and are still being asked, to fund from their heavily taxed income, whilst paying into their poorly performin...

It feels to me like the UK property market is holding it's breath waiting for the public spending cuts to finally be announced. In a late August blogpost I stated my irritation that the cuts were announced but not going to be implemented or details given until October. Well, in advance of the actual announcements, the BBC have created a page on their website where you can check out how resilient your area may be. This is based on a number of factors to create to a figure between 1 and 324. 1 being most resilient and 324 least. East Cambridgeshire scores 45 whilst nearby Fenland 235 and South Cambridgeshire 10! Check out the site here: http://bbc.in/aY28rC

At the last minute we are getting our sash windows painted this week. The windows are hardwood replicas of the original Victorian ones, complete with sash cords and brass pulley wheels and were made by R S Button Joinery in 2003. This is the second time they have been painted since then so I feel they were a good investment. Luckily we were able to use the old-style narrow gap double glazed units to keep the style correct and not have over-large glazing bars. English Heritage have advice on sash windows  here  http://bit.ly/aQVYOH