The Chelmsford Property Blog
The Chelmsford Property Blog has moved
Tuesday 18 October 2016
Our Blog Has Moved!
Good morning, the Chelmsford Property Blog has now moved, we have updated it and improved it, making it more user friendly for our readers.
We are still posting the same useful information and updates about the Chelmsford Property Market, feel free to check it out on the link below...
http://chelmsfordpropertyblog.co.uk/
Wednesday 12 October 2016
This blog has a new home!
Welcome to The Chelmsford Property Blog - via BlogSpot.
My blog has a new home so please check out www.chelmsfordpropertyblog.co.uk for the same property stories.
See you there.
Steve, Emma and Steven
Authors of The Chelmsford Property Blog
My blog has a new home so please check out www.chelmsfordpropertyblog.co.uk for the same property stories.
www.chelmsfordpropertyblog.co.uk |
See you there.
Steve, Emma and Steven
Authors of The Chelmsford Property Blog
Tuesday 11 October 2016
Why Let Your Property To A Pet Owner?
Almost half the UK population own a pet, yet many
landlords are reluctant to accept pets! According to research by The Dogs
Trust, some 78% of pet owners reported that they had experienced difficulty
finding rented accommodation that would accept pets.
However, if you are a landlord, agreeing to accept
pets can help you maximise your return on investment for the following reasons:
·
Your pool of prospective tenants is almost doubled!
·
You are therefore likely to let your property quickly
and avoid void periods
·
Pet owners will often pay a larger deposit or sizeable
“pet premium” due to the scarcity of properties that accept pets
·
Pet owners are more likely to stay longer in a
property and accept they may need to cover additional cleaning costs when they
leave.
An blanket ban on pet ownership by tenants is actually
regarded as an “unfair term” by the OFT, and there is no reason why most pets
cannot be accommodated within the existing terms of the lease (which already
provides for “no damage”). Obviously goldfish, budgies and hamsters are
unlikely to cause a problem, but landlords can worry about cats and dogs.
Cat-owning tenants should confirm that a “scratching
post” will be provided. The inventory clerk should also pay particular
attention to scratchable areas. Not all dogs moult, and not all bark. Indeed,
having a dog that barks occasionally can increase security in the area.
A written reference from a previous landlord is
probably a good idea, and you may wish to meet the pet first – it will then be
up to you as to whether you wish to accept them.
Thursday 6 October 2016
Only 29% of Chelmsford Rented Property have Children living in them.
A
few weeks ago I was asked a fascinating question by a local Councillor who,
after reading the Chelmsford Property Blog, emailed me and asked me – “Are Chelmsford
Landlords meeting the Challenges of tenanted families bringing up their
families in Chelmsford?”
What
interesting question to be asked.
Irrespective
of whether you are tenant or a homeowner, to bring up a family, the most
important factors are security and stability in the home. A great bellwether of
that security and stability in a rented property is whether tenants are
constantly being evicted. Many
tenancies last just six months with families at risk of being thrown out after
that with just two months’ notice for no reason.
Some “left
leaning Politian’s” keep saying we need to deal with the terrible insecurity of
Britain’s private rental market by creating longer tenancies of 3 or 5 years
instead of the current six months. However, the numbers seem to be telling a
different story. The
average length of residence in private rental homes has risen in the last 5
years from 3.7 years to 4 years (a growth of 8.1%), which in turn has directly
affected the number of renters who have children. In fact, the proportion of private
rented property that have dependent children in them, has gone from 29.1% in
2003 to 37.4% today.
Looking
specifically at Chelmsford compared to the National figures, of the 6,597
private rental homes in Chelmsford, 1,916 of these have dependent children in
them (or 29%), which is interestingly (although expected) below the National
average of already stated 37.4%.
Even
more fascinating are the other tenure types in Chelmsford…
·
33.7% of Social (Council) Housing in Chelmsford have dependent children
·
45% of Chelmsford Owner Occupiers (with a Mortgage) have dependent
children
·
8.2% of Owner Occupiers (without a Mortgage) have dependent children
Although,
when we look at the length of time these other tenure types have, whilst the
average length of a tenancy for the private rented sector is 4 years, it is
11.4 years in social (council) housing, 24.1 years for home owners without a
mortgage and 10.4 years of homeowners with mortgages.
Anecdotally
I have always known this, but this just proves landlords do not spend their
time seeking opportunities to evict a tenant as the average length of tenancy
has steadily increased. This noteworthy 8.1% increase in the average length of
time tenants stay in a private rented property over the last 5 years, shows tenants
are happy to stay longer and start families.
So,
as landlords are already meeting tenants’ wants and needs when it comes to the
length of tenancy, I find it strange some politicians are calling for fixed
term 3 and 5 year tenancies. Such heavy handed regulation could stop landlords
renting their property out in the first place, cutting off the supply of much
needed rental property, meaning tenants would suffer as rents went up. Also, if
such legislation was brought in, tenants would loose their ‘Get Out of Jail
card’, as under current rules, they can leave at anytime with one months notice
not the three or six month tenant notice suggested by some commenters.
Finally,
there is an extra piece of good news for Chelmsford tenants. The English
Housing Survey notes that those living in private rented housing for a long
periods of time generally paid less rent than those who chopped and changed.
Tuesday 4 October 2016
“Why Sales Fail”
Many estate agencies simply act as a broking service
that matches people to property. However, we are acutely aware that there is
far more to successful selling than this alone. Indeed, about a third of
property sales in this country fail to reach completion, for a number of reasons.
One of the main reasons is that a buyer simply gets
cold feet and withdraws as a result of “buyer remorse”. This is a familiar
phenomenon to estate agents and occurs when a buyer feels overwhelmed by the
apparent enormity of the decision to buy and takes the more comfortable
“low-risk” option and does nothing.
Perhaps the buyer is offered another property which
they prefer, or something else comes on the market that makes the price they
have offered on your home look expensive.
Your buyer may lose their job, or get a promotion.
They might decide to get married or divorced; they might inherit or win a
fortune, or their business may be experiencing difficulties. They could even
die!
Whilst these types of issues are generally unavoidable
and naturally have a profound effect on people’s decisions, the main problem
concerns timing. Because offers in this country are not binding until exchange
of contracts, the longer the time between offer and exchange, the greater the opportunity there is for the buyer or
seller to decide to withdraw.
We go to great lengths to help you move, and work tirelessly
to reduce this window of opportunity. That’s why we allocate a dedicated sales progressor
to every transaction, whose job it is to facilitate a fast exchange of
contracts. This will include a focus on the buyer qualification process (if
this has not already been done), although most time will be spent in helping
other estate agents and solicitors involved in linked property sales as a chain
is only as strong as its weakest link. Our aim is that your link should be the
strongest.
Thursday 29 September 2016
11,100 People Live In Every Square Mile Of Chelmsford – Is Chelmsford Over Crowded?
Chelmsford is already in the clutches of a population crisis that has now started to affect the quality of life of those
living in Chelmsford. There are simply not enough homes in Chelmsford to house
the greater number of people wanting to live in the city. The burden on public services
is almost at breaking point with many parents unable to send their child
to their first choice of primary or secondary school and the chances of getting
a decent Dentist or GP Doctor Surgery next to nil.
Well that’s what the papers would say.. but let’s
look at real numbers, and in particular my specialist subject of Chelmsford
Property, with the housing issue in Chelmsford. To start with, the UK has roughly 1,065 people per square mile – the
second highest in Europe. The total area of Chelmsford itself is 9.926 square
miles and there are 110,500 Chelmsford residents, meaning …
11,100 people live in each square mile of Chelmsford,
it’s no wonder we appear to be bursting at the seams!
… but yet again, newspapers,
politicians and property market bloggers quote big numbers to sell more
newspapers, get elected or get people to read their blog (I recognise the irony!). A square mile is enormous, so the numbers
look correspondingly large (and headline grabbing). Most people reading this will know what an ‘acre’ is, but those younger readers
who don’t, it is an imperial unit of measurement for land and it is
approximately 63 meters square.
In Chelmsford,
only 15.86 people live in every acre of Chelmsford … not as headline grabbing,
but a lot closer to home and relative to everyday life, and if I am being
honest, a figure that doesn’t seem that bad.
Yet, the
issue at hand is, we need more homes building. In
2007, Tony Blair set a target that 240,000 homes a year needed to be built to
keep up with the population growth, whilst the Tory’s new target since 2010 was
a more modest 200,000 a year. However, since 2010, as a country, we have only
been building between 140,000 and 150,000 houses a year. So where are we going
to build these homes .. because we have no space! Or do we?
Well, let me tell you this
fascinating piece of information I found out recently in an official Government
report. Looking specifically at England (as it is the most densely populated
country of the Union), all the 20 million English homes cover only 1.1% of its land mass. That is not a typo, only one point one per cent (1.1%) of land in
England is covered by residential property. In more detail, of all the land in
the Country -
·
Residential
Houses and Flats 1.1%
·
Gardens
4.3%
·
Shops and
Offices 0.7%
·
Highways
(Roads and Paths) 2.3%
·
Railways
0.1%
·
Water
(Rivers /Reservoirs) 2.6%
·
Industry,
Military and other uses 1.4%
.. leaving 88.5% as Open Countryside
(and if you think about it, add to that the gardens, which are green spaces,
and the country is 92.8% greenspace)
As a country, we have plenty
of space to build more homes for the younger generation and the five million
more homes needed in the next 20 years would use only 0.25% of the country’s
land. Now I am not advocating building massive housing estates and 20 storey
concrete and glass behemoth apartment blocks next to local beauty spots such as Hyde Hall or Hylands Park, but with some clever planning and joined up
thinking, we really do need to think outside the box when it comes to how we are
going to build and house our children and our children’s children in the coming
50 years in Chelmsford. If anyone has their own ideas, I would love to hear
from you.
In the meantime, if you would
like to read other articles about Chelmsford Property Market, please visit the Chelmsford
Property Market Blog www.chelmsfordpropertyblog.co.uk
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