Whole idyllic village in South Devon put up for sale for £11.5m

After a year of speculation, the idyllic village of Bantham, South Devon has been put on the market for offers in excess of £11.5 million, causing many residents to fear for its future. With a price tag that high, it seems unlikely that too many British buyers will be interested…

Kingsbridge, Devon
Kingsbridge, Devon.

To read the whole article, click here.

Going In Blind – Nasty Surprises For New Home Owners

Slough, BerkshireA survey produced by the insurance firm LV (formerly Liverpool Victoria) found that almost half of people (49%) of those who has bought a new home since the beginning of the year discovered unexpected damage after moving in. Almost a third of people (some 29%) of those who had bought a property already so far this year believe the seller deliberately concealed problems at the property during the sale.
To read the whole article, click here.

The Property Market Monthly Fact File – June 2014

fowey hall foweyThe property market fact file is a collection of data compiled each month by our Chartered Surveyors and the PropertySurveying.co.uk team; collating survey data, statistics, trends and information from the property market. This aims to help many persons with an interest in property gain an accurate view of what is happening in the UK property market as a whole.
To read the monthly fact file, click here.

Not the best news for property buyers..

Recent figures have shown that you will need a salary of nearly £40,000 to be able to afford a mortgage.

The average person takes out a mortgage loan of £119,000 and if you consider that the national average salary is only £26,000, repayments can cause financial difficulties.

This isn’t great news for first time buyers and people who want to get themselves onto the property ladder. Looking at how the economy is at the moment where you can’t even live on the national minimum wage, getting a mortgage is looking impossible.

However, there are certain schemes like the Help To Buy Scheme which has been highly credited recently as this is helping a lot of first time buyers step onto the property ladder. With a deposit of 5% this is perfect for everyone who is struggling to make that step.

‘The Government has created the Help to Buy scheme to help hard-working people like you take steps to buy your own home. Whether you want to get onto the housing ladder or move up it, Help to Buy makes it possible to buy a new-build or existing home priced up to £600,000 with as little as a 5% deposit’. – See more at: http://www.helptobuy.org.uk/#sthash.0QIuZcrG.dpuf/

If you are a first time buyer and are looking for a surveyor, please have a look at our website and find your local surveyor - www.propertysurveying.co.uk

Building on Floodplains – Can this continue?

With much of the South West underwater, flooding has once again become a hot-topic. We look in one of our monthly articles at the huge range of questions the Government and its agencies much ask themselves if flooding is ever to be nullified as an issue of great concern for British homeowners…

Here’s a few questions we raise:

Britain has a substantial housing shortage – so where do we build? On green belt protected land? Urban sprawl across our green and pleasant land? That wasn’t well received when Nick Boles proposed to relax green belt regulations.

Should innovation be encouraged to create houses that are watertight up to first floor level? Should it be made a planning condition for developments on flood plains with a flood in the last 10 years to construct watertight houses up to a certain standard? What about a government competition for architects and building product designers to come up with the best solution?

Read the whole article and join the debate here.

House prices surge beyond £1m in 43 areas

New report identifies 43 locations where houses now sell for an average of more than £1 million, including several outside London. Compiled by estate agents Savills and analysts Property Database, the document also charts how house prices have risen over the past decade.

Some areas have outstripped the national average of 29.7% over the last 10 years by over 10 times and 34 of the 43 areas averaging over £1m are in Greater London, including Knightsbridge and Belgravia at No. 1.

Cities excelling outside of London include Bath, Oxford and Cambridge.

If you are thinking of investing this sort of money in a property, a report by a Chartered Surveyor will substantially mitigate the risk of your investment and help you manage your new home. Find your local surveyor at www.propertysurveying.co.uk

Half the families in some estates can’t afford to heat their homes

birminghamsurveyors.com  - MORE than half the families in some estates can’t afford to heat their homes, a poll reveals.

54 per cent of households are reportedly too skint to stay warm at Humber and Trent Towers in worst-hit Nechells, Birmingham. Jobless labourer Michael Simpson, 45, lives there on £63 a week — and a quarter of that goes on fuel.

The city’s Wye Cliff Road area has 53.5 per cent of families facing a similar crisis. Nottingham was third on the list, with 52.9 per cent shivering at two high-rise blocks in the Lenton area.

Two ‘significant’ findings in Housing Association Court Case lead to eviction

Temp. Ref. Akerman-Livingstone v Aster Communities [2013]

In a ‘significant’ decision for Housing Associations across the country, the High Court, presiding over an appeal, has made two important findings:

-          That it should not interfere with a housing association’s eviction of a tenant under a contractual relationship with a local authority.
-          That it was proportionate to end a duty to house a tenant with a serious medical condition, where they had rejected alternative accommodation.

We explore the details of this case, and the morality behind it, in a recent article here…

As Energy prices rise more than 10%, can they be justified and what is the solution? Depends on who you ask…

What's behind the energy price hikes?

Consumers have in recent weeks been hit by price rises of up to 11.1 per cent – equating to between £100-200 extra per year on the typical household’s fuel bill. A number of the “Big Six” energy firms have claimed that the increases are because of rising wholesale prices, but recent data doesn’t support this.

Statistics released from Ofgem, the energy regulator, suggests that wholesale prices rose by only 1.7 per cent over the last year – a mere fraction of the levels energy companies are attempting to justify. The figures will undoubtedly prompt fury across the country as homeowners prepare for winter and questions are aksed as to what the real reason is for these rises?

We look into the issues, the real reasons and potential solutios here…

Have you heard about Smart Cities? Set to be a £400bn industry by 2020 and a big part of all urban lives

A new report published in October values the smart cities industry at more than $400 billion globally by 2020, with the UK expected to gain a 10% share ($40 billion). This comes as the Government announces the creation of a Smart Cities Forum.

A smart city uses intelligent technology to enhance our quality of life in urban environments. Cities can use the data in a variety of ways; to save money, minimise waste, measure domestic water usage and manage transport routes. An upcoming computer game – Watchdogs – will explore the possibilities of a software integrated city, with wifi provided free in every location and software programmes operating everything from traffic lights to crime prediction systems.

Read on here