House Critic

There’s a dispute on the Isle of Man with Jeremy Clarkson being accused of diverting a footpath on his land belonging to his holiday cottage. The dispute is in court at the moment, but overnight vandals have wrecked fencing and a gate on his property.

He would, or should have, been alerted to the presence of a footpath on his land during the buying process. It might be of little interest to those only buying small properties but it’s interesting none the less to see where public rights of way are and how they might affect your home. If you’re buying a large estate with many acres you might well want to be fully aware of where footpaths go and you might expect to see dozens of ramblers a week going right past your house!
There are great information resources out there called Geographical Information System (GIS) and most councils allow public access to this system. It shows footpath routes, some show details of gates and other information.
They’re very interesting to look at too if you like walking!

How to find footpaths and rights of way in your area
Search for one for the county you’re in by typing into a search engine Geographical Information System and the county name. If you can’t find one then have a look on your local council’s site or ring them up and ask.
They are invaluable for giving you information about footpaths before you arrange viewings of a property!

Always check with a solicitor during the conveyancing about footpaths and your legal obligations to keep them open!

A very interesting bit of their website that you might not have looked at.
Click here to get to the Market Trends section
Type in the first part of your postcode – eg: M40
You can filter the graph – by default its set at 2 years and all property, but you can tweak these if you want more specific data.
It shows me that – the data so far for February – that the average price is £68,333 over the three properties that have sold. By using the filters I can determine that these were all terraces.
Don’t forget you have a detailed breakdown by street available on rightmove – although I find houseprices.co.uk most useful for looking at details of which properties have sold.
It is fascinating stuff to see how many (or how few!) properties are selling and what their prices are doing!

Coloured bathroom suites were huge in the 60s and 70s. Since then people’s tastes have changed and the white bathroom suite is now king!
Some of the most popular ones were the avocado colour, a burgundy and even a very dark brown black colour, in vogue too where flowery swirly pattern tiles too.

So if you have one of these bathrooms should you change it when you want to sell your house? If the rest of your house is done nice and modern then you probably should.
How much should you spend though? If you’re on a tight budget you might be better off not touching it. Do you have a contingency budget if you uncover something not so nice underneath, or discover you need lots of new plumbing work too?
If your house is pricey then you should spend more on your bathroom than if it’s worth £60,000! This might affect your decision to change the bathroom.
A cheap suite can be fitted for a couple of hundred pounds, and with skill you can take the old one out and drop a new one in without damaging any tiles. This can cut down on costs. But if you do break tiles then will you replace them all?

If you are happy to spend money and do the job properly then do it – if you’re only going to scrimp them you may as well leave it.

Amazing pictures of an ivy covered house in Chelmsford.

The house should sell for £350,000 – even in today’s market – but the agency is asking for offers above £120,000. The highest bid has been £172,000.

The google streetmap link – click here

The daily mail says that A spokeswoman for Bairstow Eves estate agents in Chelmsford said they are not marketing the property on the internet or in their shop window because the owner does not want the sale made public.

Should I modernise a property?

If you inherit a property then you might think about doing it up to sell it
and make more money. Is this a good idea?

In a rising market, when many of the Sarah Beeny episodes were filmed, she
pointed out that people would have made as much money by not doing any work
at all.

In a falling market there’s a risk you’re wasting money on doing
up a property.

If you are a builder or have lots of good DIY skills, then it might be something
to do. But it’s probably best to get it on the market and see how it goes.
Sometimes a renovation project can really fire people up. It’ll get interest
from builders, from first time buyers looking for a more affordable way of getting
on the property ladder, and people who fancy doing a renovation for fun.

If you did start renovating, then how much should you do? You have to be aware
that starting a renovation project generally makes things worse before it gets
better. Sometimes it can get a lot worse.

If you rewire, then you need plastering work done, which probably means redecorating
every room in the house. If you get the central heating boiler replaced, then
this might need new pipe work, or ripping up flooring to get to pipes hidden.

If you need new windows and frames then this will also cause plastering work
to be done, needing some redecoration again.

There are some basic things you can do, like remove old nasty carpets, paint
rooms a neutral colour and leave the place clean but empty for viewings. A blank
canvas might inspire people to put a bid in and ideally if you price it right
you’ll generate more interest. If you get lots of viewings you might get
some competing offers too.

Housing

1.119 The affordable supply of new homes in the right places helps to create
a dynamic economy and a flexible labour force. Housing supply is constrained
by the lack of viable land for development. As set out above, the Government
is announcing reforms to the planning system which will increase the amount
of land brought forward and improve incentives for local communities to support
development.

1.120 Over the long term, increased macroeconomic and financial stability will
create a favourable environment for house-building. Stability in the labour
market and the availability of mortgage finance will support sustainable demand
for housing. The associated increase in certainty for the construction sector
will aid the supply of new homes.

1.121 The Budget provides help for homeowners and new buyers, and supports
the capacity of the house-building industry to ensure a more efficient housing
market:

* The Government will help homeowners facing difficulties by extending for
a further year temporary changes to the Support for Mortgage Interest (SMI)
scheme. The 13-week waiting period and £200,000 limit on eligible mortgage
capital will now remain in force for new working age SMI claimants until January
2013;
* the Government will provide £250 million to support first time buyers
to purchase a new-build property. The FirstBuy programme will assist over 10,000
households with equity investments jointly funded with house-builders; and
* the Government will strengthen demand for residential property by reforming
the stamp duty land tax rules applied to bulk purchases. This will reduce a
barrier to investment in residential property, promoting private rented housing
supply.

1.122 The Government will announce the outcome of its review of the stamp duty
land tax relief for first time buyers in autumn 2011.

1.123 The Government will make Real Estate Investment Trusts easier to set
up and more accessible to investors. This will encourage investment in the private
rented sector over the longer term.

The budget today 23rd March introduces a shared equity style scheme for first time buyers to get help with an interest free deposit from the government when they buy a new build.

I think this is an appalling idea for several reasons:


1. It does nothing to address the fact that people are priced out of the housing market. The average wage is about £23k in the UK, yet the average house price is £164k. That’s many times the income – and many more than the 3.5X income that is a historical figure in the pre-housing boom days.

2. It encourages more debt.

3. It means the government is helping builders not first time buyers. If builders have to put in a percentage themselves, then they will surely just price their houses more to start with.

4. It will not help those not on the scheme and make things harder. If house prices weren’t being propped up then they would fall making housing more affordable for all.

5. It’s a very limited scheme. First time buyers only.

6. It’s a very limited scheme. New build only.

7. Older properties will not be included – which means there’s no influx of FTB into the housing chain anywhere. This means existing property may struggle to sell more.

8. Once a builder can sell a house under this scheme it prices all their properties at this higher rate. This makes it worse for anyone else interested in a new build.

Builders shares rose after this announcement. It is only good for builders.

It’s a brand new feature on rightmove – zoomable floorplans. I’ve seen one or two estate agent listings that don’t feature it yet, but found one on one of my searches.



To find one you’ll need to look for the floor plan tab.

* Description

* Floorplan

* Map & schools

* Street View

And click on that. There’s a slider for zooming in and out and you can move the plan around with the mouse or the cursor above the slider. It’s a nice feature that we hope more estate agents will make the most of by having floorplans uploaded!

Here’s one for you to try out on rightmove.

When you put your house on the market you should always ensure you check over the listing before it goes live. Some estate agents allow you to adjust the listing until you’re happy with it, offering sensible practical advice to ensure the photos show off your home as best as possible.

Some seem to think it’s ok to throw any old photos up and expect to sell the house.
This photo of this kitchen is a typical one that you might see. It’s very poorly lit making the kitchen look dark and unwelcoming. It’s not a place you’d want to spend time in and isn’t going to help sell the property at all.
So what could the estate agent have done? They could have added more light to the picture using artificial lights and lamps, bounced light into the room using a flash and a screen, or taken the picture from a different angle, or at a different time of day.
Is it wrong to ask an estate agent to change photos you’re not happy with? I don’t think so – you both want to sell your house for as much money as possible – if they’re on a commission fee anyway!
It’s also important to declutter rooms before taking photos and to keep them decluttered when you have viewings. This might mean spending hours putting away junk or throwing stuff away, but it’s important to make your house feel more spacious and have room for the potential buyer’s clutter.
If your house is full of your clutter then they might think there’s no room for theirs! If you make your room look like it’s clean and organised then they’ll see that there’s lots of room for all their bits and bobs too.
In a kitchen you want to keep a few lifestyle items on display such as a bowl of fresh fruit, or a large bouquet of flowers. Leaving the toaster out and clutter on all the worktops makes it look like it’s impossible to be organised in that room.