Selling A Property? First Impressions Count

IF first impressions count when it comes to selling your home then the front garden should receive most of your attention. A clean and tidy home can only help sway the buyer once they are inside but, particularly at this time of year a beautiful garden can convince someone that this is the place to put down their own roots.
It’s not just the arrival of the Chelsea Flower Show. The garden can be seen by many homeowners as that ‘extra room’ where they can spend a relaxing summer’s evening or indulge in their hobby of gardening. And the promise of good weather for the bank holiday weekend means many house hunters will be keeping a special eye on your lawn and borders.
While the green-fingered among us will be sitting smug at this advice, there are others hitting the panic button. Fortunately there is plenty of advice on the web about giving your garden a quick makeover.
Gardenadvice.co.uk offers a number of tips and in particular makes the often-forgotten point that you need to aim the garden at the potential buyer, not yourself. You may be very happy with pretty borders and delicate garden ornaments but if that popular school down the road is a draw for the family-buyer then you need to show that your garden is child-friendly. Or if you’re in a quiet retirement quarter of town then low-maintenance needs to be the key.
Earth Designs, writing for the Garden and Landscape Directory, suggests that – as with interior decorating – neutrality is the key. Offering a potential buyer a blank canvas on which they can imagine their own designs will work best.

“It’s worth spending money preparing your house for sale and if your garden requires an overhaul or makeover do it now” Says David Gilmore from imove Cornwall, the south west’s newest community lead not-for-profit estate agents.

“It is the first thing a buyer sees when looking at your properties photographs on the Internet and set’s the tone for the viewing when the buyer walks up your path or driveway”

www.imovecornwall.org

Original source: http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2011/05/24/online-house-hunter-border-lines/

Urgent reform of the housing market needed

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) has called for urgent and fundamental reform of the housing market after the failure of policy-makers to learn the lessons from previous boom and bust cycles, which have led to the UK having one of the most persistently volatile housing markets in the world.

Convened by JRF in 2009 and consisting of interdisciplinary experts, the JRF Housing Market Taskforce has undertaken a system-wide review of the UK's housing market. Its report recommends a series of policy options that together would help create a more stable housing market, to protect existing home owners and enable more new households to get onto the property ladder.

Recommendations to help reduce house price volatility include:

An increase in the supply of housing
Supply is central to managing house price volatility. The scale of the increase required, however, means that this alone will not reduce volatility in the market.

The reform of both Stamp Duty and Council Tax
These existing taxation tools could help to reduce house price volatility in the shorter term. Both Stamp Duty and Council Tax should be linked to the real value of a property and regularly updated.

Stamp Duty: the current 'slab' structure of stamp duty should be replaced with a 'slice' structure whereby only the value that exceeds the threshold is taxed or taxed at a higher rate (similar to income tax). Thresholds should be uprated regularly in line with consumer price inflation.

Council Tax: in the short-term, the number of bands should be extended. In the medium term, there should be a move towards a system based on a fixed percentage of a property's value. In the long-term a national property tax could be created with safeguards for low-income households.

A better safety net for homeowners based on shared responsibility between lenders, borrowers and Government
The current safety net for homeowners is inadequate and has required extensive Government intervention during downturns.

Lenders need to lend responsibly, achieving the right balance between access to mortgages and the risk of default.

Active steps need to be taken to improve borrowers' financial capability to ensure they have sufficient information and skills to make informed choices about what they can afford.

A partnership insurance model with contributions from borrowers, lenders and government should also be adopted to meet mortgage payments when borrowers lose income through redundancy or illness.

Speaking today at the launch of the report, Julia Unwin, Chief Executive of the JRF, said: "Since the 1970s, there have been four boom and bust cycles in the housing market. This persistent instability distorts housing choices, inhibits house-building, and drives arrears and possession rates, putting people at great risk, and creates wealth inequality between the generations.

"We have set out to provide a series of policy options that together would help provide long-term stability in the market. I urge policy-makers to look at these and act now, because the seeds of the next housing boom have already been sown."

imove Cornwall Senior Partner Mark Green says “The instability in the UK housing market has caused a great deal of suffering to many people, reform is something we feel passionately about.  In recent years home owners in Cornwall have seen their house value decline and for many people they are in, or close to negative equity, a familiar phrase for many who remember the early 1990’s”

imove Cornwall is a not-for-profit social enterprise.  imove offers home owners the opportunity to sell their property for a low one-off fixed cost of £399 (no VAT) which will save house owners thousands of pounds.

David Cameron aims to boost Big Society

Prime Minister David Cameron is to make another attempt to promote the Big Society, by encouraging more charitable donations and volunteering.

Initiatives will include donating at cash machines and by mobile phone, and the use of social networking sites to promote the Big Society.

Government policies will be tested for social value as well as value for money, the government says.

A White Paper will set out plans for more than £40m in additional funding for the voluntary sector.

In a keynote speech to mark the White Paper, David Cameron will highlight strong families, strong communities and strong relationships.

"The Big Society is not some fluffy add-on to more gritty and more important subjects. This is about as gritty and important as it gets - giving everyone the chance to get on in life and making our country a better place to live."

imove Cornwall was an idea inspired by the Big Society.  As the UK’s first ever not-for-profit estate agents, imove sells clients properties all over Cornwall for a low fixed price of £399, with all profits going straight to local good causes and charities.  Find out more at http://www.imovecornwall.org/

imove Cornwall Workwear T-Shirts Printed by Imprint51 Wadebridge

A big huge thanks to Imprint51 Wadebridge (http://www.imprint51.com/) for donating work T-shirts to imove Cornwall.

We provided Imprint51 with a basic layout of what we wanted and were totally blown away with the high quality of the product and the print. 

Thank you once again Imprint51 Wadebridge.  Anyone looking for printed garments for special events, running clubs, schools or events,we would highly recommend Imprint51.

Trend in house prices continues modest decline

The Halifax House Price Index for April 2011 reports a -3.7% annual fall in prices. During the last quarter prices fell by -1.2% and over the last month prices were down by -1.4%. The average house price is now £160,395.

Commenting, Martin Ellis, housing economist, said: "The latest figures show that the underlying trend in house prices continues to be one of modest decline. Prices in the three months to April were 1.2% lower than in the previous three months. There was a 1.4% fall in prices in April following no change in March.

"Weak confidence amongst households, partly due to uncertainty over the economic outlook, is constraining housing demand and resulting in some downward movement in prices. Signs of a modest tightening in housing market conditions, a relatively low burden of servicing mortgage debt and an increase in the number of people in employment are all likely to be providing support for house prices, curbing the pace of decline. There are signs that house sales are stabilising albeit at a level lower than the historical average."

David Gilmore from imove Cornwall, the UK’s first not-for-profit estate agents based in Wadebridge and Truro, says “Sellers need to be careful in these uncertain times. There are buyers who are actively seeking properties, but they are looking for a good deal.  This means that sellers need to select a competitive asking price to entice buyers.  This is of course difficult when many people have seen their equity slowly depleted over recent years”.

imove Cornwall provides a cost-effective platform for home owners to sell their property for a one-off cost of £399, with no VAT.  All profits from imove Cornwall are donated to local charities and other good causes.

“Our solution is to offer house sellers a low one-off fee of just £399” says Gilmore. “People using imove will save thousands of pounds in moving costs and we would encourage people to use those savings to lower their asking price to entice buyers”.

http://www.imovecornwall.org/

Asking Prices Rise To Their Highest For Three Years

Undeterred by reports of falling house prices, confident sellers have pushed their asking prices up this month to the highest level for nearly three years.

Rightmove reports that asking prices for ‘new-to-market’ properties now average £238,874. The last time they were higher was in June 2008.

Asking prices are now only marginally (1.5% or £3,626) below their all-time high recorded at their peak in May 2008.

Asking prices for new-to-market property rose 1.3% in April, which itself was 1.7% ahead of March this year.

However, the blunt truth is that more properties are failing to sell.

According to Rightmove, average unsold properties per estate agents office rose from 74 to 76 in the last month. It is the largest number of properties for sale per branch in May that Rightmove has yet recorded.  The website notes that there are few ‘genuinely proceedable’ buyers.

While there has also been a 30% reduction in new sellers to the market, Rightmove believes there has been an even larger fall in new buyers.

Director Miles Shipside said: “The increase in agents’ property stock levels, combined with a reduction in the number of properties coming to market, suggests that the number of buyers has fallen even faster than the number of sellers, and transaction volumes will therefore remain low as we move into the traditional summer slowdown.

Mark Green from imove Cornwall, the UK’s first not-for-profit online estate agents says “Sellers should be very wary of the asking price they select for their property, we would advise that sellers do their own research on property values rather than just relying on estate agents”

www.imovecornwall.org

imove Cornwall, Warns of Looming Interest Rate Increases

imove Cornwall, the UK’s first not-for-profit estate agents has today warned home owners in Cornwall that the days of low interest mortgage repayments may be coming to an end.

An interest rate rise to halt high inflation is on the cards, experts have warned.
The Bank of England governor, Mervyn King, yesterday signaled that families should prepare for a rise, ending two years of historic low interest rates.
“Higher mortgage repayments could be a major problem for homeowners in Cornwall, who have been led into believing that their monthly mortgage repayments would stay low for years” says Senior Partner of imove Cornwall, Mark Green.
“The Bank of England has predicted a gloomy outlook which may see interest rates rise, affecting a large number of families in Cornwall”
A rate rise to 1 per cent would increase monthly repayments on an average £150,000 variable rate mortgage by £43 a month or £516 a year
Two-thirds of homeowners in the UK have a variable rate mortgage, meaning nearly eight million households would pay more.
On top of the possible interest rate rise warnings, the Bank of England has painted a bleak picture of elevated  inflation, rising energy bills and slow economic growth.

Senior Partner Mark Green says “My concern is, those families who are already struggling to make ends meet may have to think seriously about down-sizing their property or moving to a cheaper area.  But this may prove difficult to accomplish whilst the property market is still somewhat depressed and the cost of moving house is prohibitive for many people” 

“The average cost of estate agency services in Cornwall is around £5000 + VAT” says Green.  “For many people that £5000 is all they have left in their property to enable them to move”

One solution is to use a low-cost online estate agency service.

“Online agents are able to significantly reduce the cost of selling a property, because their overheads are so much lower than a traditional high street agent.  Imove Cornwall has been specifically setup to help people in Cornwall and with a one-off upfront cost of just £399 (with no VAT) we are able to save people thousands of pounds”

Imove Cornwall is a not-for-profit online estate agents serving the Cornish community.  Setup as a social enterprise, imove’s profits are donated to local charities, such as Children’s Hospice South West and other local good causes.

For more information please visit : www.imovecornwall.org