Jun
24
Budget impact on Private Lettings Sector
Filed Under Did you Know...?, Market News, Renting news, Scottish Property News, Uncategorized by DanCookson | Leave a Comment
The recent increase in capital gains tax to 28% is likely to have an impact on the private rental sector. Although it is not as high as the 40% to 50% rises that were being suggested last week, landlords will still have to adjust to a new investment landscape in which the housing sales market is likely to be flat and where reliance on capital appreciation and disposal will not generate the returns of former years.
The majority of the 100,000 Private Landlords in Scotland have very small portfolios and are looking for capital growth on their investment. If Private Landlords are discouraged from remaining in the market by the prospects of lower capital gains and hard to get finance there is a possibility that they will withdraw from ‘buy to let’ leading to a lack of supply of suitable rental properties to meet the growing demand in the future. If this pans out rents will have to rise which will eventually attract serious landlords back in to the market.
“I believe a ‘rental income’ based approach to property investment will be the way forward – which will encourage or require landlords to enhance and maintain their properties to the highest standards so that they can achieve the higher rentals.”
Jun
18
Citylets Listings on Google maps
Filed Under Uncategorized by thomas | Leave a Comment
Citylets listings now appear on Google Maps UK and early indications are that this is adding only a very small amount of audience to our Network reach. Will this change over time? As with all sites we distribute listings to, we’ll be monitoring their performance.
A lot of companies are claiming to have ‘partnered with’ or ’signed up’ to google which in our view overstates the relationship. Getting listings on googlemaps is via googlebase which simply takes a data feed.
As there is no direct relationship with Google there is no accountability or recourse to concerns. As such Citylets Network cannot consider them a primary partner in the way we do sites such as findaproperty or s1homes with whom there is a real and direct relationship and assurance that our customer listings will be shown. If we can’t guarantee our customers full exposure for all properties, our customers cannot pass this onto landlords so in addition to performance merit we advocate caution in the use of the google name for now and leave hype and spin to others.
Mar
16
Strongest Growth in Scottish House Prices
Filed Under Market News, Renting news, Scottish Property News, Uncategorized by DanCookson | Leave a Comment
The latest figures from DCLG (Department for Communities and Local Government) have just been released and make for interesting reading. Scotland has seen the highest annual growth of all the home nations. Annual average house prices rose in England (6.6 per cent), Scotland (7.1 per cent) and Wales (1.3 per cent), but fell in Northern Ireland (-13.7 per cent).
Prices for property bought by first time buyers grew faster than property bought by former owner occupiers. This suggests that the first rung of the property ladder is getting higher and harder to reach which will inevitably lead to more people within the private rented sector and potential upward pressure on rents. We will see if this is so in next month’s release of the Citylets Rental Report for Q1 2010.
Download the DCLG report here:
http://www.communities.gov.uk/publications/corporate/statistics/hpi012010
Mar
16
Should Letting Agents be Registered?
Filed Under Letting agents, Renting news, Uncategorized by DanCookson | Leave a Comment
The Housing Scotland Bill is now out to consultation and the Minister for Housing & Communities (Alex Neil MSP) wants to hear your views.
Within the Bill there is a proposal for Local Authorities to be given the power to demand that Agents provide a list of properties under their management.
Obtaining information from agents:
Amending the current Housing (Scotland) Bill to allow local authorities to require an agent to provide a list of all properties they manage along with the owners contact details, with failure to do so being an offence, will significantly assist local authorities in identifying landlords who have failed to register for landlord registration.
This proposal will benefit landlords who have already registered for landlord registration and will increase protection for tenants. Increasing the coverage of landlord registration and removing bad landlords will improve management standards in the sector.
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2010/03/04140613/1
Your responses to the consultation paper needs to be in by 19 April 2010. There is a questionnaire with relevant questions below:
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2010/03/04140613/housingconsultation0309/Q/forceupdate/on
Mar
12
Citylets now advertising property in Moscow
Filed Under Did you Know...?, Letting agents, Market News, Uncategorized by DanCookson | Leave a Comment
Citylets is the first choice for online advertising of property to rent in Scotland and Northern Ireland. However we are always looking to expand and are now delighted to be advertising property in Moscow. See this fine example of a five bedroom dacha: http://ow.ly/1hXGM
Its worth noting that Google Street View now covers 98% of all Streets in UK which means even our Moscow properties are viewable in 3D panorama. http://ow.ly/1hXGN
Twitter
RSS