UK Property - The Year Ahead
The trend towards tightening mortgage conditions will continue for the first half of the year, with lenders remaining reluctant to extend loans to any but the most reliable and safe borrowers. This will keep up the pressure on the private rented sector, meaning higher rents, less availability and some new areas becoming fashionable with landlords – within an hour’s commute of London for example.
In London itself, areas close to good transport links such as Stratford, Kings Cross, Finsbury Park and Paddington will register uplifts in house prices, with the London Olympics now just over a year away. Some companies are already springing up to take advantage of the high demand for accommodation expected in the summer of 2012. One such website,www.accommodationforthegames.com, is already getting bookings for the games, charging thousands of pounds per week for homes within an easy journey of the Olympic sites.
London rents rose by 6.8 per cent during 2010, according to Findaproperty, and are now £1,818 per month on average. Void periods are almost zero, as competing offers for rental properties push up the price and put landlords in a stronger position.
The demand for new build property will become stronger during 2011, as tenants are forced out of local authority homes, but the banks are just as reluctant to lend to developers as to mortgage customers, so the prospect of significant new stock is remote.
Since the government’s austerity measures will begin to take hold in 2011, these could have a depressing effect on the economy and on the property market. But the pressure to pull ourselves out of recession will lead to a sharp increase in self-employment, in start-up companies providing innovative products and services, which will spark an economic revival by the end of 2011.
Original content can be found at The Mortgage Advisory
This site is written and contributed to by property professionals from inside the UK House Building Industry.
That's right, we're developers - hated by all for our unwavering pursuit of profit and demonic need to concrete over the UK's greenbelt.
You may well wonder why we (as opposed to estate agents) are best equipped to advise you on the subject of selling property?
Surely our expertise lies in knowing how to buy land, put together development proposals, navigate the planning process and build identikit housing estates?
This is all true but it misses the one key point that our core goal (like yours) is to sell property for the highest possible price!
Just like you we also have to deal with flaky buyers, shoddy estate agents, slow solicitors and inept mortgage brokers.
The difference is, we do it on a daily basis and as such have become masters of managing the process.
Ashton House, Cornwall Avenue, London, N3 1LF