TuckerGardner Blog

Take a look at this month’s HouseHunter magazine, available as a flip magazine on our website and as a hard copy in each of our offices.

Along with a selection of some of our finest properties currently available, to buy or rent, you’ll find the recipe of the month from Cambridge Cookery School.  Our feature article is from Cambridge Bike Tours, telling us what they feel is the best way to see our beautiful city.  They are also offering a 10% discount to our readers when you book in advance and bring along your copy of the HouseHunter.

If you would like to see your local business featured, drop me an email: kmccloskey@tuckergardner.com

Savills latest research report highlights what I think many have come to realise, that the housing wealth is in the hands of older generations, with their analysis suggesting two-thirds of all the wealth tied up in owner occupied homes is held by the over 55s.

Although there have been improvements in lending, with the number of first time buyer loans increasing by 12% in the year to the end of November, the issue of raising a deposit is, as ever, a significant barrier to those wishing to buy their first home.

With the figures showing that first time buyers have received ‘two or three times as much parental help with their deposit as they did before the financial crisis’, it is not surprising that the trend towards downsizing is likely to gain momentum, as parents release equity in their own homes to help their children onto the property ladder.

Savills latest research article, ‘Making a Return in the Rental Sector’ paints an encouraging picture for the private rental sector (PRS) and for Landlords who have invested.  They say that attitudes are changing, with ‘…increasing social acceptability of renting at all stages of life.’

We see this every day in Cambridge, with a growing number of older tenants; tenants who own elsewhere in the UK but rent in Cambridge; and also through international job mobility whereby a lot of people will only be in the City for a relatively short time.  As a result we see many tenants who make a lifestyle choice to rent, rather than to buy. They are prepared to pay good rents for good quality property, without the worry of paying for stamp duty, a sudden rise in mortgage rates or even a new roof when the time comes.  They also have flexibility to move without the uncertainty of a house sale and the associated costs.

However, it also sends a small quiver of concern through me, as I can’t help worrying about how this swing towards private rental, taking up the slack from the ever shrinking pool of social housing, could impact negatively too. It’s not just individuals making lifestyle choices that is feeding the demand for private rental accommodation, but also, as Savills report states, ‘reduced accessibility to homeownership’ and, as already mentioned, fewer social housing options. If we wish to give people a genuine lifestyle choice then these issues need to be addressed, possibly with far more equity share, as to rely so heavily on the PRS cannot be healthy in the long term.

ARLA (The Association of Residential Letting Agents) seems to recognise the above as they have been calling for regulation of the industry for some time and it seems that now the call is becoming increasingly urgent.  Without proper regulation of the industry, how are the working poor and those in receipt of benefits going to be protected against unscrupulous landlords or agents taking advantage of the housing trend?  Without proper regulation, will the result be good quality property at one end of the market and a slide in basic standards at the other?

Maybe I’m seeing too much scope for doom and gloom, but I can’t help worrying….

Our Great Shelford team have set themselves a challenge.  In an homage to our Directors, who cycled from Land’s End to John O’Groats to raise money for Teenage Cancer Trust back in September last year, they are aiming to cycle 200 miles to raise money for Comic Relief.

Two exercise bikes will be going non-stop in the lettings office from 9.00am to 5.30pm on the 15^th March, with a team of 11 staff members cycling in shifts and with help from any contractors or other visitors that they can persuade to cycle a few miles for them!

The distance is the equivalent of 5 times the length of the river Cam, 20 times the length of the Roman road, 260 times the circumference of Parkers Piece, 8 times the length of the Guided Busway, 7.5 times round the historic City boundary!  You get the idea, it’s a long way.  If you would like to support our team please visit their fundraising page or feel free to drop into the office on the day to show your support and maybe pick up a homemade cake in exchange for a donation.

As we approach Spring, traditionally the busiest time of the property year, it is often a good time to take stock.

The nation, albeit reluctantly sometimes, looks to London for its lead in so many areas of our lives. And property is certainly one of them. What happens in London influences what might happen in the rest of the country – given time. It is the ripple effect.

We naturally seem to look to the capital when gauging when it is best to sit tight or move on. In booms and busts over the past forty or fifty years London has acted as the nation’s barometer.

Yet it is more difficult to see what’s happening now. This time it is different. This is because central London property is acting as banker to so many foreign nationals. While it remains such a stable and even profitable place to invest it is hard to see this trend weakening. It is by no means copper-bottomed but central London has become a market unto itself in recent years and tends to mask the health of the UK property market in general. But even in London this super-market is limited to boroughs like Kensington and Chelsea rather than Tower Hamlets.

While there is so much international uncertainty London should retain its allure as a sanctuary for threatened capital. What average Middle Eastern oil billionaire is not going to invest heavily overseas when his entire region is in the grip of Arab Spring fever? It makes perfect sense.

So London is now, as ever, divided into those who have a lot and those with not such a lot. And it is the latter group, most of us mere mortals, who point a way to what the overall market is up to. Over the past year it has become clear that it is not central London but Greater London and the Home Counties which are leading the way. Not so many Middle Eastern or Russian oil billionaires are investing there – nor Indian or Chinese super-industrialists. It is the comfortable, leafy and commuter-friendly towns that are perhaps seeing the firmest signs of an English spring fever in property.

Will this ripple to other areas of the country in the short to medium term? There are certainly signs of fresh activity in most counties. As London dusts itself down from the banking crisis – helped by some improvement in the Euro Zone and US financial systems – then, for the foreseeable future at least, the London ripples should widen their range and increasingly lap at other areas of the country.

Regular readers of the TuckerGardner blog will know that there has been a lot of talk recently about sport (primarily cycling!) and of course everyone here always has lots to say about the property market.  So I thought I would do my bit to promote the arts by letting you know about an upcoming event I am involved with.

I am a member of the Saffron Walden Choral Society and we will be performing on Saturday 16^th March at St Mary’s Church, Saffron Walden for the Spring concert.  Accompanied by the Chameleon Arts Orchestra, with soloists Jeni Bern, Cathy Bell, Julian Forbes and Rupert Reid, and conducted by Janet Wheeler, the SWCS begins 2013 with Haydn’s St Cecilia Mass and Vivaldi’s Magnificat in G minor.

Come and enjoy the evening with us – tickets are just £15 (£12 concessions, £1 accompanied under 18s) and are available by post from the Ticket Secretary, Carol Hunt (Tel: 01279 813392), email: (tickets@swchoral.org.uk), from SWCS members, at the door, by debit/credit card purchase from www.wegottickets.com, or you can simply pop into the Saffron Walden Tourist Information Centre in the Market Square.

As the company ‘tree hugger’ it falls to me to shout about anything that we can do to help reduce our impact on the environment.

It is reported that the private rental sector has the worst track record of the three areas within the residential property market for poor energy efficiency, but I suspect this trend may be about to change.  Through government policy and the requirement to display the energy efficiency rating on all marketing details (‘A’ being the most energy efficient and ‘G’ being the least) Landlords are already being actively encouraged to improve the energy efficiency of their properties.

Across the country there is still a lot of financial uncertainty and not surprisingly there will undoubtedly be a lot of Landlords who are reluctant to speculate on costly improvements.  However, their hands may soon be forced either by legislation or market forces.

I suspect we will soon see a correlation between the time a property is left vacant on the market and the energy rating, as tenants get wise to the cost to run an inefficient household – especially as energy prices continue to escalate.  We are therefore already looking to make sure that all of our owners are aware of the new Green Deal and how this can be used to increase a property’s energy efficiency and market desirability without impacting too heavily on their pockets, either through initial outlay or unnecessarily long periods of unoccupancy.

Help is definitely out there – for the environment, the Landlord and the Tenant – it’s a win, win, win!

Take a look at this month’s HouseHunter magazine, available as a flip magazine on our website and as a hard copy in each of our offices.

Along with a selection of some of our finest properties currently available, to buy or rent, you’ll find the recipe of the month from Cambridge Cookery School.  After the indulgent Berry Cake in last month’s issue, they’ve gone healthy and Italian with a classic Venetian fish dish.  There’s also our feature article from Lynsey Sweales of SocialB, a social media guru, explaining how social media can be used to enhance your business and target your audience.

If you would like to see your local business featured, drop me an email: kmccloskey@tuckergardner.com

It appears that the men in black are stepping up their campaign against “non-natural persons” acquiring property over £2m. In addition to a higher rate of 15% Stamp Duty Land Tax, rather than 7%, HMRC has now announced that the sale of properties held by such entities will now be subject to a new Capital Gains Tax charge of 28%.  This will apply to properties already held, albeit that the taxable gain will only apply to any increase in value after the 5th April 2013.

The term “non-natural persons” applies, broadly speaking, to companies, partnerships with a corporate member and collective investment schemes.  A lot of individuals were disguising their property purchase by the use of such vehicles and were able to make substantial SDLT savings as a result, so the motivation of the HMRC is fairly clear. However, it does appear somewhat of a blunt instrument and who knows how much overseas corporate investment in the UK residential property sector will be dissuaded by such a penal tax regime.

We have long subscribed to the view that in order to maximise the exposure of our clients’ properties we need to have a substantial profile on all of the major property portals. It would appear that we are correct.

The latest research from Nielsen, the leading independent website monitoring company, has revealed that less than one in five house hunters using Rightmove and Zoopla Property Group visited both companies’ websites in December.  So, from a combined unique audience of 5,884,341 visitors only 1,172,616 visited both sites.  A staggering level of brand loyalty but it does mean that if an agent is relying on just one of the major portals – on the misguided premise that house hunters shop around – then they are potentially missing 80% of the market.

So when choosing an agent, our advice is to make sure that they have the net covered.