Month: April 2011

When you’re looking at buying a new house you usually want to know where the nearest shops are. Do you check whether there’s a supermarket that will deliver to you to? Do you prefer independent retailers to supermarkets? Some towns still have a thriving selection of retailers and that makes for a great shopping experience and great food!
For some people though it’s the lure of online shopping and having your food delivered to your door! Check the post code of the property against the delivery service offered by local supermarkets and check if it’s important to you!

Does bunting lower the tone of a property? Does a street decked out in bunting make you feel ill, or does it make you realise that the street has a great community spirit?

For some people it’s essential to decorate their house with flags for almost any event – certainly the Royal Wedding has caused shops to sell out of bunting here in Oldham.

Will anyone be viewing houses today?

Lloyds Banking Group is to create a mechanism to help restore the value of thousands of non-performing home loans with Grainger, the UK’s largest listed residential landlord.

This is an interesting development. Are they trying to avoid having to sell at a loss as house prices fall? I suspect so.

Is it a good thing?

It might not be good for the person who is having their house repossessed. What value is being placed on the property if it is being passed to a landlord? Is it a fair market value? Surely the fair market value would be achieved by placing it for sale on the open market as is the way with repossessions normally.
If they don’t sell the asset then how do they assign a value? Is the landlord paying the same amount at the mortgage outstanding? If not then Lloyds (a tax payer part owned bank – Lloyds, a huge % owned by the taxpayer!) is not doing the tax payers any favours.

Will the extra rental properties on the market further help decline rents making it an even worse idea for the banks?
What if the banks’ landlord has to shell out for many repairs and upgrades to the property?
Does it make financial sense still?

I think this whole idea of propping up the housing market is wrong – I understand why they’re doing it – because of Gordon Brown’s messing with the banks and propping them up – the tax payer will have to continue to suffer in many ways because of the continued propping up of property prices.

Presumably this landlord company will be taking hefty fees for managing the properties too – so will Lloyds make any money from this?