London

First Time Buyers now pay less or no tax if all purchasers are First Time Buyers and the purchase price of the property is £500,000 or less.

Since 1st July 2021, the current Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT) threshold has gone down to £250,000. Although the bigger savings before this date have now been reduced, there is still an opportunity to save up to £2,500 on SDLT before it returns to its regular threshold rate of £125,000 from 1st October 2021.

What has gone unnoticed by most commentators is the change that affects First Time Buyers, which also came into effect from 1st July. Since that date, First Time Buyers now pay less or no tax if all purchasers are First Time Buyers and the purchase price of the property is £500,000 or less.

First Time Buyers are exempt from SDLT for the first £300,000, but since 1st July, they now pay a reduced rate of 5% on purchase prices above £300,000 and up to, and including, £500,000. So, if you’re a First Time Buyer, but were unfortunate to miss out on the 30th June deadline, there are still longer-term savings to be made, as these will continue for First Time Buyers after the SDLT returns to its £125,000 threshold from 1st October 2021 for all other buyers.

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What do these three movies have in common?

There are actually at least 2 things:

  1. They are all Oscar winners
  2. Their action happens at one point in London

Property Division did a top 10 of locations in London that appeared in famous movies that got an Oscar:

Kensington Gardens

Canary Wharf

Buckingham Palace

Scotland Yard

Greenwich Royal Naval College

Waterloo Station

Somerset House

Westminster Cathedral

Regent’s Park

Royal Naval College

The city as seen in the movies! Here are the Oscar awarded movies that ‘starred’ England’s capital!

London at the Oscars

Obviously, most of them are historically based in London… or featured the Queen… or other types of royalties!

Which one is your favorite?

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Photo source: Geograph http://bit.ly/2BYpnxr

  • South Woodford lies in the north-east corner of London, minutes away from the border of Essex. In fact Woodford and Woodford Green are both located in Essex.
  • E18 is leafy and suburban; it’s popular with commuters who love the convenience of being less than 30 minutes away from the West End.
  • The high street contains your usual, basic convenience chain stores but is broken up by boutiques, gastro pubs and a local cinema.
  • If you like weekend walks, then this is the place for you, as Epping Forest is on the borders of this area.
  • The area is reasonably small and quiet, but with that comes a sense of living in safe surroundings.

South Woodford’s retail and business area is centred on George Lane, the location of South Woodford tube station, and Woodford Green High Road. There are several leading chain store shops, such as Sainsbury, Marks & Spencer, Waitrose and Boots and a number of smaller shops, restaurants and cafes. There is a crown post office and Royal Mail sorting office.

There is a seven screen Odeon cinema, which opened in 1934 as a Majestic and is the only cinema in the area. As of November 2017, its freehold is for sale. Next door, The George pub, an 18th-century building on the site of an earlier inn, was originally a stopping point for stagecoaches, with several bars. The George once had a fine dining area on the first floor and then later a pizzeria in the basement, with a large spiral staircase between the floors. Other amenities include a number of green areas, many of which form part of Epping Forest.

There are numerous churches and chapels representing various Christian denominations, several synagogues and a mosque.

The area is served by South Woodford tube station in Travel card Zone 4 on the Central line of the London Underground.

South Woodford has a good selection of schools including Nightingale Primary, Snaresbrook Primary, Churchfields which has a junior and infant department, as well as Oakdale. There is also Snaresbrook Preparatory, St Josephs’ Convent voluntary maintained school, and Woodbridge Secondary School.

Forest School is an independent school, within close proximity to South Woodford, in that the playing fields are arguably in South Woodford.

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Photo source: Business Insider http://read.bi/2ipsgP4

Traffic is an important criteria when choosing a place to live. Spending lots of time in the car or other means of transport will cause a lot of frustration for the inhabitants. 

Latest studies upon the traffic in some of the worlds metropolises show that people have to face a lot of hustle to travel from one place to another.

A top was made by the mapping company TomTom with the worst cities to live in because of the traffic. Two entries of the 13 cities that ranked in this top are from England. London and Manchester are the places with the worst traffic in the UK.

The entire top was detailed and explained in this article on Business Insider:

The 13 European cities with the worst traffic

However, some big cities municipalities invested in programs for eliminating traffic jams and hot-spots and it seems to be working out. One example is actually London that made some improvements from one year to another.

Ranking number one in what stressful traffic is Bucharest, Romania – one of the smallest cities on the list, actually.

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The UK property market does not seem to have a clear path for its development and will be easily influenced by a lot of factors (stamp duty, Brexit). It is hard for anyone trying to draw conclusions and anticipate the future of the sales and lettings market in England.

However, this week we found a couple of information that can form a image of how the United Kingdom’s property market looks now and a bit about how it will look in the future.

Photo source: http://www.propertyreporter.co.uk/property/what-if-the-population-of-the-uk-lived-on-one-street.html

First of all, we have the current image of the typical English street. It is formed mainly of semi-detached houses (32%), detached houses (25%), terraces (26%), and flats (14%). We can anticipate that these structures of houses will be those used for future developments.

Secondly, we know that England tops as one of the most peaceful country around the globe. This should be an important criteria for students, investors and anybody else looking to relocate.

Photo source: http://www.propertywire.com/news/uk/biggest-build-rent-development-uk-gets-65-million-government-boost

When it comes to how the country will look in a couple of years, we now have some idea of the projects that will change the entire property market. One example are the recently financed by the Government Build-to-Rent developments that are supposed to create over one million new homes in the future years.

These are some main factors to influence the future of the UK. Keep them in mind when making any decisions in the real estate field.

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England ranks ‘high’ on the peace map of the world.

Vision of Humanity released the new map of the most dangerous countries in the world. Luckily, the UK is at the other end, being ranked as one of the most peaceful in the world.

The entire map is based on three main criteria:

  • the level of safety and security in society
  • the extent of domestic and international conflict
  • the degree of militarization.

United Kingdom is on the 122 spot, from 163 countries in the analysis, far away from the top 20 most dangerous. More details in the article on Atlas and Boots.

 

Source of photo: Vision of Humanity.

Sources:

Most dangerous countries in the world 2017 – ranked

Global Peace Index

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“The mortgage market is in continuous move and it can affect you as well. ”

If you’re one of those shopping for a house soon and you are considering a mortgage, you should carefully analyse a couple of factors before making a decision. The location, the time you are going to spend in your new home (if it is temporary or, hopefully, for the rest of your life), the purpose of the investment (for your own living or if it is a buy to let), and other life circumstances should be considered when choosing a type of mortgage.

However, even with all these cleared up, there is still one more factor that might influence your decision. The mortgage market is in continuous move and it can affect you as well.

The analysis after the first quarter of 2017 proves that some types of mortgages are increasing, while other products for loans are remaining unchanged. For example, the number of contracted mortgages rose in the first three months. These are bank products offered for self-employed people, people with complex incomes or other underserved segments of the buyers’ market. Looking closely upon the offer of bank products, you may see that banks will speculate this moment and will come with new and improved offers. You will just have to pick the most advantageous for you.

The mortgage market also seems to be improving since the number of completed applications  for first time buyers is rising. 67% of first time mortgage applications were completed in the first quarter of 2017, up substantially from 48% in the same period of 2016. Intermediaries have eased up the applications because of the struggle to obtain a mortgage that was intensely publicised last year.

And one of the most important news that the mortgage market received at the beginning of this month is that the lending rates reached their lowest point. The figures from the Bank of England showed that this year’s borrowers received the lowest mortgage rates ever.

These effects are sometimes connected and influence one another, but paying enough attention to the movements of the market might pay off eventually.

Sources:

http://www.propertywire.com/news/uk/brokers-see-demand-specialist-mortgages-less-buy-let-forecast/

http://www.propertywire.com/news/uk/uk-mortgage-applications-intermediaries-successful-year-ago/

http://www.propertywire.com/news/uk/mortgage-lending-rates-uk-reaching-lowest-rates-ever/

 

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Buying a home for the first time is one of the biggest decisions you will make.

You will need to choose what mortgage company is best for you and what kind of deposit you will need to have. There are quite a few choices out there now though that can help you.

Here is a list of things you should look into:

  • How much can you borrow?

Before you jump in and start looking for your home, check your credit and speak to a mortgage adviser to find out how much you may be able to borrow and if you can afford the monthly payments. Don’t forget to put some money aside for legal fees to. Always ask your lender if they cover mortgages above a commercial property as some lender may not.

  • Decide what you’re looking for and where

Once you have either got a mortgage agreement in place or you know what you are able to borrow then you can start looking into what type of property you are looking for, how many bedrooms, is a garden important to you and how far is the transport. When looking at a area check what

  • Start house hunting

When looking for a property the first step is to look on your local estate agent’s website. You may look at quite a few places before you find the right property for you. When you see a property that you want to view, look around for any signs of dump, is the building structure sound, how old is the roof, how much storage space.

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