The encouraging news for property owners in Scotland is that average values have not deteriorated as dramatically as other Home Nations and are now 115% up on what they were in Feb 2002  (i.e. they have more than doubled in price in that time). However, a note of caution in this good news is that average prices might well be held up because  the mix of properties selling has shifted, with more large and expensive family homes selling over recent years and fewer affordable properties changing hands. Recent analysis by ESPC supports this view and shows that the number of 3 & 4 bedroom homes selling is now a larger proportion of the total sales than it was pre credit crunch. The  significance of the change in the mix of properties selling on the average price in Scotland has yet to be determined.

Northern Ireland have experienced a roller-coaster of a housing market during the last 10 years with an unsustainable explosion in prices from Feb 2006 to the high in Aug 2007.  Since then prices have come back with a bump and are now at the level they were 6 years ago.  This is obviously good news for those looking to buy now but not such a fillip for those that bought at the top of the market.

As ever with indices, so much of the interpretation can depend on the period you chose to start the index.  Its fair to say that the market in England was appreciating rapidly well before 2002, but comparable figures going back to the 1990s are not readily available for all the countries of the UK.

home nations house prices small

House Prices in Scotland holding up better than rest of UK is a post from: Citylets News

Our Belfast lettings report is the fifth since it was launched at the beginning of 2010 , and the average rent paid across all property types at the end of March 2011 was £567- up from £544 a year ago.  The average monthly rent for a one-bedroom apartment was £492 against £456 at the end of March last year, while the average monthly rent for a two-bedroom apartment grew by almost 3% to £587.

This rental growth is in marked contrast to the housing sales market which has experienced a steady decline in average prices since August 2007.  The chart below illustrates the comparative stability of rental values to house prices since 2008.

The Citylets Belfast Quarterly Report Q1 2011 is a post from: Citylets News

Technorati Tags: Belfast Rents, citylets, Citylets Rental Report, Rent Report, residential lettings; citylets

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/northern-ireland/cold-helped-keep-lid-on-rents-15079049.html

http://www.build.ie/construction_news.asp?newsid=122718

The overall Time to Let (TTL) for the greater Belfast Area lengthened in Q3 to 56 days which seems to have led to a softening of overall rent values in Q4.  Encouragingly though the TTL figures dropped in Q4 2010 to 48 days which bodes well for rental values in Q1 2011.

To download your copy of the latest report visit http://www.citylets.co.uk/reports/

The Citylets Belfast quarterly report Q4 2010 is a post from: Citylets News

Technorati Tags: Belfast Rents, citylets, Rent Report

Records fall on Blue Monday (Jan 17th 2011) is a post from: Citylets News

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The latest Citylets quarterly data report saw the average rental price in Scotland rise by 2.2% over the past year to £644.The figures also show that the average time taken for properties to let in Scotland has fallen to 35 days – the lowest it has been since the height of the credit crunch in 2008 when there was a surge of demand for rental property.

And in Edinburgh, rents are now at their highest-ever levels with the mix adjusted price for all property being £772 up 5% on the previous year. The average rental price for a 2 bed property currently stands at £704 (up 5.5% on 2009 levels), while the average rent for 3-bed properties has risen by 9.8% over the past 12 months to £1054.

Trends-in-Scottish-rents

A copy of the report is available at www.citylets.co.uk/reports

The Citylets Report Q4 2010 is a post from: Citylets News

Technorati Tags: citylets, Citylets Rental Report, House Prices Scotland, residential lettings; citylets

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.”

Budget impact on Private Lettings Sector is a post from: Citylets News

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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.

Citylets Listings on Google maps is a post from: Citylets News

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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

Strongest Growth in Scottish House Prices is a post from: Citylets News

Technorati Tags: Affordability, citylets, DCLG, House Prices Scotland, rent

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

Should Letting Agents be Registered? is a post from: Citylets News

Technorati Tags: agent registration, citylets, housing bill

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

Citylets now advertising property in Moscow is a post from: Citylets News