First Time Buyers

Photo source: http://bit.ly/2zsBj8V

Moving home is often cited as one of the most stressful experiences in life. However, you can make the process a little less stressful by following advice and avoiding common mistakes.

  1. Picking the Wrong Agent

Not all estate agents are the same. Check out their fees and whether there are hidden costs and what their success rate is. Many people simply settle on the first company they come across and end up regretting it. As with any venture, it pays to shop around and ask the right questions before you enter into any arrangement.

  1. Overpricing

Another mistake that sellers make is over estimating the price they’ll get for their property. This is more common nowadays where many bypass traditional estate agents and simply pick a selling price out of thin air. Do your research and see what similar properties in your area are going for and set a reasonable price.

  1. Using poor quality photos

These days, the majority of homes sold in the UK are placed in online listings. Don’t accept poor quality images. If you’ve chosen a good estate agent, they will make sure your property is looking its very best through high quality photographs. These are the first thing a buyer will see and you only get one chance to make a good first impression. Therefore, it is essential that your agent is using photographs that will really appeal to potential buyers.

  1. Not fixing things that are broken

There are plenty of houses for sale – and you want to make sure buyers won’t discount yours. They will, though, if things are broken when they come for a viewing. You may well be planning on fixing whatever’s broken before you move, but your buyer doesn’t know that. Get it fixed before you put your property on the market

  1. The Exterior

You’ve probably spent a long time making sure the inside of your house is not only clean and tidy, but also well decorated, perfectly laid out and just generally ideal for showing off to that buyer who’s coming around. But don’t forget, as much as the inside of the house will dazzle them, the exterior gives it that kerb appeal, and can help them form an opinion before they’ve even come inside. The garden sells your home, even subconsciously, so as much as you want to get the inside of your home perfect, forgetting the garden is a big no-no. It’s all too easy to miss things like tired old fences, lawns that are slightly too long or items strewn about the garden, but these are all things that give your home a negative kerb appeal, and it’s absolutely essential that they’re addressed before the home comes to market.

 

 

  1. Keeping personal touches around the home

When potential buyer’s come to view the house, they need to be able to picture themselves living there. If you have personal touches lying around such as photos and your own personal colour scheme, it makes it more difficult for buyers to imagine it as their own. Therefore, you need to ensure you are offering a neutral ‘blank canvas’. This means painting the walls a neutral colour and taking down any personal touches that distinguish it as your home.

Lastly, don’t hide anything from your agent. Make sure you are upfront about any issues there are with your home. This will save you lots of time and money as they will come out eventually, potentially ruining your sale too.

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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.

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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.

Homes, many in key British regional cities, now selling four weeks faster than in 2012

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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…

Most buyers and sellers in England and Wales find the process stressful

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.

Home buying to be made cheaper, faster and less stressful in England

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.

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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.

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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.

Astounding £18,000 difference between highest and lowest home prices per square meter

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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.

Are Property Investments still Outperforming Bonds?

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Photo source: Property Division http://bit.ly/2hKFy8Y

Valuable advice for Buy-to-Let landlords to be ready for 2018:

1. Mortgage Interest Tax Relief Changes

2. Utilising Airbnb To Avoid Void Periods

3. New PRA Rules For Portfolio Landlords

4. New Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards (MEES)

5. London House Prices & Rental Yields

More in this article on Property Division:

5 THINGS BUY-TO-LET LANDLORDS NEED TO KNOW GOING INTO 2018

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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.

More land needs to be released for new homes in the UK to meet demand

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.

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