Desouza Property News

With a potential rise in interest rates predicted, many landlords are wondering what effect this will have on their mortgages. Malcolm Harrison, an independent property industry specialist, stated that while buy-to-let landlords will not notice much of a difference if interest rates go up in the coming months, those who were forced into the profession will. He pointed out that it will depend on the type of mortgage they have got out on the properties they are renting out to tenants.

"There shouldn't be a great effect because we're starting from such a low base rate. We haven't got these vast jumps that we used to have," said Mr Harrison.

He added that many landlords are now looking at fixed-rate mortgages as when interest rates do rise, the tracker options will not be as attractive.

Interest rates have been at a record low of 0.5 per cent for two years and at the latest meeting of the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee, three members called for an increase.

Labels: agents, commercialproperty, holidaylets, internationalproperty, shortlets

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Housing Minister Grant Shapps said: “The NAEA are launching a licensing scheme that will ensure their members become known for their professionalism and integrity. In future, anyone looking to buy a home or sell theirs should ask the simple question of their estate agents: ‘Are you licensed?’. By ensuring they enjoy the trust of people buying and selling homes, estate agents will inject greater confidence and movement in the housing market”.

Peter Bolton King, Chief Executive of the NAEA, said: “Nobody would knowingly get into an unlicensed taxi. However, thousands of people are willing to entrust one of the most important transactions of their life to people who are not qualified or experienced. From now on, estate agency in the UK is a two-tiered industry – those agents who are licensed and those who are not. I think the public will welcome the distinction “.

The August data from Land Registry's House Price Index (HPI) shows an annual price increase of 6.7%. All regions in England and Wales experienced increases in their average property values over the last 12 months. The region with the highest annual price change is London with an increase of 11.4%.

The most up-to-date figures available show that during June 2010, the number of completed house sales in England and Wales rose by nine per cent to 59,390 from 54,710 in June 2009.

The HPI uses a sample size that is larger than all other statistical measures available and is calculated using Land Registry's dataset of all residential property sales completed in England and Wales since January 1995.

New research by the housing charity Shelter reveals that almost one million Britons have fallen victim to scams involving a private tenancy or landlord in the last three years.

Despite Government claims that current laws do protect tenants, an exclusive YouGov poll for the charity uncovers a very different picture with many people admitting to having been victims of underhand practices when privately renting.

Other results from the survey show that a fifth (20%) of tenants still have not heard about the Tenancy Deposit Protection Scheme introduced by Government in April 2007. Yet as the charity's investigation shows withheld deposits are a major issue for tenants, with one in four of landlords admitting they weren't aware of the schemes either.

Labels: agents

The value of property portal marketing through estate agents is still on the up.

Miles Shipside, a Rightmove director, comments: “September heralds the start of the key autumn market and we hope this campaign will drive even more buyers, sellers, landlords and tenants to visit the site and take advantage of the services that Rightmove member agents provide. Rightmove have been investing in TV advertising for the best part of a decade as we feel it is the best means of attracting traffic and promoting the agents who advertise with us.”

Desouza Estate agents continuing to market properties in all the right places.

Rightmove have re-launched their successful ‘Safari’ television advertising campaign for the third time this year. They had previously run the advert in January and March of this year and both occasions lead to record breaking traffic levels. Traffic has remained high throughout this year with Comscore figures for July showing Rightmove in the top 10 most popular websites in the UK.

Labels: agents, commercialproperty, internationalproperty

Estate Agents still the only way to generate maximum exposure for your property and attract higher rental income.

Following Zoopla’s TV advertising, findaproperty.com has just launched another six-week TV, radio, online and print campaign. The portal says this campaign represents an investment of over £1 million, and is part of its multi-million pound marketing push for 2010. “The spring promotion saw brand awareness and site visitors reach record levels, prompting a huge 46 percent increase in enquiries,” says Sheraz Dar, brand director of findaproperty.com parent company The Digital Property Group. “We’re set to continue our investment in each of our brands for the remainder of 2010 and will keep building the scale of primelocation.com and globrix.com audiences alongside that off Findaproperty.com”.

Labels: agents

Good signs for Landlords as Property Wire predicts rents to rise again.

Labels: agents

Labels: commercialproperty