Foxtons founder calls the bottom

There was a reports in the FT at the weekend that the UKs best known estate agents is calling to bottom of the housing market, or certainly in prime London residential property.

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Jon Hunt famously sold his Foxtons estate agency and letting business to a private equity company is now calling the bottom of the housing market. He predicts that the market is unlikely to fall more than 20-25%.

He intends to return to the residential investment market by building up a serviced apartment company in London.

However, Mr Hunt warned that the poor economic outlook meant the market would not bounce back quickly and could take 10 years before recovering to near its peak again.

“I have never known a recovery where the market just bounced,” he said. “The past two downturns, the market just trawled along the bottom and we have to go through that stage first.”

Is he right - post your views


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Landlord taxation - from the horses mouth (hmrc)

I've recently had an enquiry from a landlord trying to track down more information about land and property taxation.

In the pursuit of the information to assist this landlord I came across the HMRC Property Income Manaul which is always a useful reference to landlords when trying to calculate their property tax liabilities.

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Three's a crowd - new proposed classification of Houses in Multiple Occupation

New government proposals that are looking to establish a new definition of what constitutes a House of Multiple Occupation could impact heavily on landlords whose properties are currently not classified as a HMO.

A re-classification could bring in rental properties that are let to 3 unrelated tenants or more, up from the previous classification of a HMO of six or more unrelated tenants. Any newly classified property would require the landlord to seek planning consent for a change of use.

The proposals are out for public consultation until 7 August.

Read more in Property Week

Buy-to-let massacred - landlords bodies lay about the battlefield

After months of Buy-to-let pain one pundit is seeing a closure on the buy-to-let apocolypse that has cursed many landlords, with the 'pain of plunging house prices, falling rents, lack of mortgage finance and growing tenant defaults....', Harvey Jones believes that landlords might have been punished enough for their wanton greed, but for many landlords the damage has already been done.

He predicts that only the strongest landlords will survive and all those mini capitalists out there who stepped into the world of self-governed investment strategy will fall by the wayside, wondering how they ever thought they could go it alone.

Maybe we should be asking the same question of those folk who invested their toil into traditional pension pots that are now worth just a touch over diddly squat.

The pain.........the hurt... I can't take it any longer .............................

Read Harveys evaluation of the Buy-to-let massacre.


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Landlords looking to mitigate effects of LHA could use new rent guarantee insurance

Recent research by the NLA reveals that 52 per cent of landlords surveyed have decided they would not let, or be less likely to let, to LHA tenants. A further 43 per cent of those landlords who have already tried the new system said they would now be leaving this failing market because of increased uncertainty about rent payments.

According to John Boyle MD of HomeLet landlords can help mitigate the risks associated with renting a property to tenants who claim LHA.

“Under the current system landlords have to wait for eight weeks of rental arrears before the tenant is deemed unable to manage their own affairs and the rent is then paid to them directly,” he said.“However, in reality it can be as long as three months before the landlord receives their first payment as the benefit is paid monthly in arrears. If the landlord chooses to try and reclaim the lost money, they must pursue the tenant privately through the courts.“By letting their property through an approved HomeLet agent, landlords can safeguard their monthly income.

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HomeLet’s market-leading products and services cover rental payments for up to 12 months, should a tenant fall into arrears, and there are no restrictions on the types of tenants.*

“Our Prestige Rent Guarantee for example, not only covers non-payment of rent but any breach of tenancy and all legal costs incurred in evicting the tenant up to a maximum of £50,000. HomeLet also has a specialist in-house Legal and Claims team who will handle the entire eviction process from obtaining vacant procession to recovering costs for damage to the property.“Landlords renting their properties to tenants claiming housing benefit no longer have to worry about not receiving their rent or not being able to meet their mortgage payments.”

For more advice on landlord insurance and a landlord insurance broker directory

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Landlords are being persecuted by the media and incompetent politicians

Any landlord who has an HMO or is thinking of letting out an HMO should listen to the programme Face the Facts on radio 4 called 'licensing the landlords'.

I warn you it could and should make you mad!

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It's a perfect illustration of just how the liberal press and ineffectual and uninformed politicians in their hunt for a bogey man ie the 'evil landlord', then wrap themselves and their prey, in this case landlords, in knots by:

1. coming up with a badly thought through and drafted legislation
2. then half implementing it (apparently only 50% of HMOs are licensed 5 years after the Housing Act was passed)
3. tying up the law abiding people in this case the landlords who have already registered, with expensive and time consuming red tape
4. whilst fundamentally allowing the 'bad' landlords to escape because of 1 & 2 and then
5. arguing that what we need is more legislation not less to solve the perceived problems

Perhaps this explains why this country is in such a mess.

In the last 12 years we have seen too many people with too much time to hunt around for problems and bogey men that don't exist, creating laws, tick lists that do nothing but prevent the doers, the wealth creators, the investors in the country future from providing for all our needs.

What we need is a licence for politicians and lawmakers to ensure they stay in their box and only come out when they really have a job to do!

Say NO to the landlord licence!


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