Month: August 2011

Mortgage comes first, owners warned

Thousands of homeowners are to be warned by taxpayer-owned banks to forget renewing their subscription to Sky TV or buying a new BlackBerry and instead focus on paying their mortgage.

More than 30,000 Bradford & Bingley and Northern Rock customers will receive phone calls over the next few months from UK Asset Resolution (UKAR) warning them about the possibility of them losing their homes.

Read more here

This might come as a shock to some people who will feel their fancy phone and satelite tv subscription is a life essential.

Whilst this may sound very fair and sensible if you go bankrupt then you can often have these “luxury” items allowed in your permitted expenditure list.

We’re not the only site that points out odd houses…
This site has found a really creepy house full of dolls.

Oxford City Council is to become the first authority in the country to enforce a controversial new planning regime which will force landlords to seek planning permission if they intend letting a small property to sharers. It has warned that planning consents will be strictly rationed as it bids to control HMOs.

This is great news if they can stop areas declining because of huge number sof HMO. Whilst some people argue that students bring in money, they also bring in huge problems. Areas where they congregate in large numbers become known for noise nuisance, parking problems and excessive levels of crime including burglary.

It is interesting to note though that the government has changed the LHA allowance for people up to under 35 now so this might lead to more sharing.

Home ownership in England will slump to just 63.8% over the next decade says a report by the Housing Federation.

Federation chief executive David Orr points to a predicted drop in home ownership, increasing rents in the private sector and social housing waiting lists as reasons for the crisis.

He suggests building more homes.

However unless they are built as genuinely affordable homes then there is no point.

If they are not affordable (and I mean really affordable by people on even low wages) then you will just be providing more buy to let properties for landlords to buy and the rents issue won’t be solved.

My thoughts:
Rents should in theory be coming down with the reduction in LHA planned. This needs to happen more effectively to allow people to afford to pay their own rents when they work. Having to subsidise rents of those who work just shows how broken the system is and a huge percentage of people on LHA are actually working.

More really affordable housing will mean builders making virtually no profits. A house can cost about 40k to build tops so build in bulk and build big. If the original money wasted on Quantitative easing had been put into building social housing then the country would be in recovery mode by now.

Falling homw ownership by owner occupiers indicates someone else is buying the properties (Else they would just be empty surely) so this needs addressing too. Some areas have strict registration of landlords to improve areas but we need to be firmer on landlords who have poorly maintained propertys.

Wallpapering is more effort than painting but on most walls it’ll look better.

Ms Millard’s article here really makes me laugh. I’m sure she should go and perform at the Fringe next year

“How cheaply can you wallpaper a room? Marks & Spencer, Cath Kidston and Laura Ashley sell wallpaper hovering around the £20 per roll mark. Homebase has a sale at the moment with a wide range of wallpapers at about £13 per roll. ”

Well she’s clearly wrong on price here! You can buy woodchip for next to nothing and do a whole room for a few quid. Of course it’s woodchip which means it can be painting year after year, it’s hard wearing and survives the odd attack by felt tip pens, kids or pets. And did I mention you can paint over it year after year? If you’re in a rented flat then you’ve probably got woodchip on the walls.

Slightly dearer is blown vinyl available in a huge range of designs. All of which can be painted over too. £3-4 a roll for that. Whilst it’s not the most beautiful stuff in the world, it’ll not go out of date as quickly as some mad flowery designs and it’s cheap!

You can find sale ends at most wallpaper shops and if you’re only after doing a feature wall then you’ll find that a more affordable way of wallpapering!

I read somewhere that people might be put off buying a house because it has renewable energy technologies installed!
It was quite a shock to me to read that! I can’t see how the idea of lower (or no) fuel bills would be unattractive to anyone! I suppose though if you don’t understand the technologies involved then you might worry about maintenance of systems.
Solar panels should be washed down once a year apparently – but that could be done by your window cleaner perhaps! Air source heat pumps need leaves removing from around them and that’s about it! Whilst systems can be checked to make sure they’re working right these checks are fairly simple and easy – and are often included as part of installation plans.

Would you say no to free heating and electricity?

Not that I’m incredibly impatient but on 23 August 2011 a property got added to my local listings. But with a placeholder for a photo saying photo coming soon.
It’s now 27th and still no photo! Have they forgotten to upload it? Or has interest been so great already they can sell a house without sticking a photo up?

Maybe they can – it’s a more expensive than average property in a nice location so maybe someone has been waiting to buy it!