Welcome to the Basingstoke Property Blog

Further to our newsletter last week, please find attached a letter that was sent to a number of bodies representing the private residential sector following the tragic fire at Grenfell Tower in London. The letter offers support to owners of private residential buildings in England to carry out tests on cladding. This is only relevant to you as a landlord or property owner, if you own a property in a building over 18m high which has, or appears to have cladding on the exterior. If you do, queries should be directed to your block management company. The government has confirmed it is offering: •                   In addition to the checks on residential blocks owned by social landlords, DCLG are offering private owners of residential buildings an opportunity to test cladding on blocks over 18 metres high through arrangements put in place with the Building Research Establishment (BRE). ...

  We have had a lot of enquiries over the past week from both landlords and tenants, following the awful fire at Grenfell Tower on June 14 th , to find out if their particular apartment block has a sprinkler system.   Although there is clear evidence to show that these systems can dramatically reduce the potential for damage to the property and potential loss of life or injury, regulations in England mean that only buildings constructed since 2007 and which are taller than 30m are required to have sprinklers fitted. This requirement wasn't applied retroactively so it does not apply to buildings that were built or modified before this date.   Whether a building is required to have these systems can also be influenced by when planning permission was submitted. So, if planning permission was submitted before April 2007 when the new regulations were introduced, but the building was not completed until afterwards, the building would not be subject to the...

The latest UK Residential Market Survey from the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) has provided some interesting insight into the Sales and Lettings markets in the lead up to the election and beyond. Sales Market In the sales market, there has been a continued decline in the number of properties coming to the market, the number of sales completing, and the number of people looking for properties to purchase. The number of buyers however, continues to far exceed the number of properties available. Anecdotal evidence would suggest these are two main contributors to this: ·          The snap election has caused a level of uncertainty in the market, although this should be less marked than in the past due to the short period before the election. ·          The second contributor is the changes to stamp duty starting to take effect, both in the buy-to-let market, but also for prop...

As the father of 27 and 25 year olds, I often worry about their ability to purchase a property, and am pretty sure a contribution will be required from the bank of Mum and Dad. I was also prompted by a response to one of our recent articles about new properties available in Basingstoke, that the prices simply were unaffordable for first-time buyers in Basingstoke. There can be no doubt that buy to let landlords have played their part in driving up property values in Basingstoke (and the UK) and from that, made housing a lot less affordable for the 20 and 30 somethings of Basingstoke. The BoE has a target for the annual inflation rate of the Consumer Prices Index of 2%, whilst it is also required to support the Government’s economic policy, including its objectives for growth and employment .   So, should BoE be charged with containing buy to let housing market, by possibly changing the rules on the loan-to-value (LTV) ratio’s? If we want to look at how affordable p...

Starting with the bigger picture, over the last 12 months in the UK, 1,061,557 properties were sold with a total value of £223.74 bn. To give that some context, ten years ago 1,581,727 properties sold with a total value of £405.56bn, so it can be seen the number of people moving house has dropped by over a third over the last decade. Whether you are a landlord, homeowner or tenant, it’s always important to keep an eye on the Basingstoke property market, not just from your point of view, but also from every player’s point of view. Over the last 12 months, 1,702 properties have sold (and completed) in Basingstoke, worth £504.2m. Interestingly the number of properties changing hands in Basingstoke has also dropped when compared to a decade ago. It might surprise you to know that the number of first-time buyers in 2017 are expected to far outnumber the number of buy-to-let investors in Basingstoke. Those first-time buyers looking to purchase a home in the spring and summ...

There have been a number of stories recently about fraudsters posing as legitimate property owners and then selling or renting the property without the owners’ knowledge, until it’s too late of course.   Whilst it may seem like a rare and unlikely event to most of us, if your property is empty or if you rent a property, there is a much higher likelihood that this may happen. As many estate agents’ will tell you, it is surprisingly easy in today’s online world, to find out a lot of information about a property and its owner(s) through easily accessible public information.   How can it happen? Firstly, the fraudster identifies a property that may either be empty, or available to rent. This is simple to do using websites such as Gumtree or property websites such as Rightmove and Zoopla.   They can then either pose as the landlord, the owner of the property or even rent the property as a legitimate tenant. The lengths that people are willing to go to var...

I was recently talking to a landlord who was considering renting a very nice bungalow in Old Basing, and we were discussing the potential tenants that would be attracted to such a property. It got me thinking, and I decided to do a little research into the likelihood that an older couple might rent such a property.   Recent statistics published by the Office of National Statistics show that there are 267,704 private rented households in the Country that are occupied by people aged 65 and older, meaning 4.39% of OAP’s are living in private rented property. It got me thinking two things. How many of these OAP’s have always rented and how many have sold up and become a tenant?   In retirement, selling up could make financial sense to the mature generation in Basingstoke, potentially allowing them to liquidate the equity of their main home to enhance their retirement income.   I wanted to know why these older people rent and whether there was opportunity for the b...