Photo source: Pixabay http://bit.ly/2iDa0yK
48% of tenants in Europe, although they desire their own home, think they will not be able to have it. The percent raises to 56% in the UK…
What is really interesting about the study is also knowing in which European country is more wise to rent a home instead of buying it…
Photo source: Wikimedia Commons – Aberdeen Neighbourhood http://bit.ly/2hLjBns
Are you wanting to move but finding it hard to decide what area you are looking to move to? One thing you need to remember is could you live in a quiet town out in the sticks or in the busy centre of a city.
It not an easy decision to make. It may be your dream to live out in the country side, in the fresh air and enjoying the slow pace of life but you may end up finding it too slow or too much of a distance for getting from A to B with the long country roads. But then again, your dream may come true exactly as wished and it turns out to be the best decision you ever made.
There are a number of things to take into consideration when moving to a different part of a town. It can take time to get to know the area well enough to know whether you would like to live there, and many issues will not apparent from just visiting.
At first you will need to choose an area that you can afford to live in, the sort of property you want to live in. City Centres tend to be more expensive than the countryside, the South tends to be more expensive than the North and London is obviously much more expensive than pretty much anywhere else.
You will also need to decide what type of property you want, whether it is a new build, house, flat or a bungalow. Also, what is the minimum number of bedrooms you would consider, do you want your own front door, or are you happy with a conversion flat.
There is also employment to think about. If you are moving from the city to the countryside, consider that you may want to adapt your work-life balance or spend more time with your kids, all of which might require employment opportunities closer to home. Ensure you leave room for career flexibility. Don’t move to a one-industry town if you are about to leave the industry. Ambitious people may require access to larger centres of employment and job markets.
Spend days wandering the area you are interested in. You will probably spend years there – it is worth investing time to make sure you are happy where you end up.
Visit the parks, the pubs and shops, see if you can you feel yourself living there. Even if you rent at the beginning, it is better to rent somewhere in a village and find you can’t stand village life, than buying and selling in distress a couple of years later.
Once you have chosen a rough area, drill down – life can vary dramatically street-by-street, or village by village. Chat with the estate agents – they usually have good insider information about the local variations.
If you do choose to move to the city, one side of a suburb can be very different from another. Council Tax can be dramatically from one side of the street to the other. Transport link, what may take five minutes from one street to a bus stop my take twenty minutes from another.
Then you will need to make sure you are moving somewhere child-friendly. Good schools are vital. Visit the Ofsted’s website to find out information about the schools in the wanted area. Also, the local councils will generally tell you the precise catchments area of their schools in recent years.
Living where lots of other families already live is a good bet, and will ensure lots of facilities for families.
Good news for future sellers! During the last couple of year, the rhythm of selling has grown faster and faster. The average period for signing a sale is now 61 days, depending, of course, on the region the property is located.
You want to know how many days you will have be looking for a buyer so you can plan accordingly, so read this article on Property Wire to find out which regional cities are the fastest and which have the slowest rhythm.
Except if you are one one the lucky few that manage selling really fast their house, we can guarantee you one thing: the process is stressful. It goes for the sellers and for the buyers, as well!
The entire process was the subject of a study and it seems that both parts implied feel the stress. But there is also some dissatisfaction with the real estate agents…
Making things easy for the sellers is difficult. The buyers can, however, be helped. In their case, the Government promises to try to ease up the process.
If things are going smoother for those searching for a home, there is still one most stressful thing: the decision itself. Making up your mind and coming at peace with what you choose is crucial before buying.
Photo source: Property Reporter http://bit.ly/2ib8ZBf
We seem to get a lot of feedback about the property market on the regional level. London scores are getting lower and this causes an overall draw effect on the UK property market. All in all, the impression is that the market is definitely resilient to political uncertainty.
Details and some interesting point of view in the article on Property Reporter.
Not as a surprise, the highest price per square meter is in London. The prices here doubled between 2004 and 2016.
However, the difference between the lowest price per square meter in the UK (Blaenau Gwent in Wales – £777) and the highest (the London borough of Kensington and Chelsea – £19,400) is enormous. The main causes and some of the effects on the long term you can find in this article on PropertyWire.
It seems that interest rates will stay low for a while yet, and that has encouraged investors to look to commercial property in the UK for a steady and reliable yield. Over the last 17 years, we have seen income make up the majority of the return enjoyed by investors.
Photo source: Property Division http://bit.ly/2y6aPte
While stability in time is certain both for bonds and investments in the right properties, what is the right choice for investors. The analysis on Property Division takes a lot of variables into discussion and it is of help for investors in London nowadays.
Photo source: Property Division http://bit.ly/2hKFy8Y
Valuable advice for Buy-to-Let landlords to be ready for 2018:
More in this article on Property Division:
Photo source: Property Reporter http://bit.ly/2yWdhQP
If the housing plan reaches its target, the number of new homes built will definitely satisfy – or at least keep pace with – the demand. We are talking about 100,000 new and affordable homes each year.
The target seems now very far away and the main cause is lack of lands to build on. Latest research and solutions suggest swamping green-belt lands might be an efficient answer. This measure means that new properties can be built on lands on which the protection will be removed, in return for creating a new area of protected land elsewhere.
The same resolution to build on green-belt lands was promoted a year ago. At that point, the opposition was strong enough against the idea.
Last year the question was if swamping green-belt lands was a step in the right direction, as this article on Property Reporter puts it. Since a year after the specialists reach the same point and with the same resolution, maybe it is the only answer.
Even from the mere definition on Wikipedia, you know what to expect of a Smart Home. It is the ‘house of the future’ as we have seen it in movies a long time ago.
Complete automation of systems inside a house and the possibility to remote control them became a reality in the last few years. Because of the house’s ability to ‘respond’ to requests and needs of the inhabitants, it was named in the real estate domain a ‘smart home’. But is it smart enough to fascinate an English buyer?
Photo source: Property Reporter http://bit.ly/2x5GpDi
Latest research shows that most Brits are afraid of smart homes because of reasons like:
More details in the article on Property Reporter:
Distrust in this type of a ‘connected house’ can be caused by lack of knowledge. Maybe testing the house before can prove to be a good way to increase confidence in home systems and technologies.