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A quarter of UK home owners call in builders to fix their DIY
UK property owners are spending an additional £42 million a year to salvage work around the home that they’ve tried to do themselves or abandoned midway through. New research from the Federation of Master Builders (FMB) shows that more than a quarter of home owners admit they have started and then abandoned home improvement jobs, with 30% calling in a tradesperson to finish or rescue the job, costing an additional £871 on average than it would have cost if they’d hired professionals at the start. Some 27% claim they have ‘given up’ on a job ever being completed with 19 months identified as the average length of time before a job is abandoned while 40% admit unfinished projects have caused arguments at home. Beyond this, almost 60% don’t even bother starting the work in the first place, continually putting off work that they’ve planned, such as kitchen and bathroom upgrades, painting and replacing windows. One in five say their attempts at home improvement projects have been ‘disastrous’, with 62% of these admitting that DIY building blunders have reduced the value of their property and a further 18% believing their properties are now harder to sell. The biggest disasters came from painting the property themselves, self-installing a kitchen or a bathroom or trying to landscape their garden. When looking at the main reasons home owners have dragged their heels, 55% say they are worried about the cost, while 30% claim they haven’t had time to organise the work. An indecisive 20% can’t decide or agree on what they want, while 17% haven’t been able to find someone to do the work. ‘While it’s noble that people want to have a go at home improvement projects themselves, our research confirms that if you don’t know what you’re doing, you’re risking not just increased costs, but also your property value not to mention your health and safety when it comes to serious builds and renovations,’ said Brian Berry, chief executive of the FMB. ‘Unfinished work and botched DIY attempts are increasingly cited as reasons people turn to FMB members, so we urge home owners to be realistic about what they are capable of doing,’ he added. Continue reading
New research reveals what UK residential tenants want
Nearly half of tenants in the UK would be prepared to travel for between 15 and 30 minutes, or between 30 and 45 minutes door to door to reach their office or place of work each morning, according to a new survey. In Wales, some 44% of tenants would prefer to commute for less than half an hour, while in the North East, the proportion is 37%. But in London the majority of tenants, 43%, are happy to travel for between 45 minutes and an hour to the office each day. The survey by YouGov for real estate firm Knight Frank also shows that the majority of tenants outside London commute by car, while in the capital 52% use the London underground for part or all of their journey. Two fifths of respondents said that the ability to store their bike in their rental property was important to them, although this rises to 46% of those aged 35 to 44 across the country. A third of respondents said they would be willing to pay extra in rent to keep a pet in their property as sometimes landlords charge more to cover the cost of the extra refurbishment needed after a tenant who has had a cat or dog vacates the property. Indeed, 4% of those in the private rented sector already pay extra to have their pet live with them, and this rises to 7% for those aged over 55. The results of the Tenant Survey also show that, for the majority of respondents, their ideal length of tenure is up to one year, and this is particularly true of younger tenants, highlighting a preference for increased flexibility in the sector. breakdown of the figures shows that 69%) of tenants aged between 18 and 24 said they would prefer a tenancy agreement of up to a year, with 61% of 25 to 34 year olds saying the same. Respondents said that their preferred timeframe for a break clause, which would allow tenant or landlord to end the lease early, is six months. Some 38% of tenants have lived in five or more rental properties. While the majority of respondents had moved within a mile of their previous property, 19% had moved more than 60 miles, indicating a relocation for work or study, highlighting the flexibility of the private rented sector a tenure. The survey also found that 24% of Londoners are prepared to pay 50% as a maximum amount of their gross annual income on rent, up from 22% last year. A quarter of tenants do not want to, or don’t know if they want to buy a home in the future. Of those that express a desire to eventually buy a home using a mortgage, less than half are currently saving towards a deposit. The research found that a quarter of those living in the private rented sector live alone, while 34% live as a couple without children. Some 43% of 18… Continue reading
New Help to Buy scheme for London will make renting more costly
Monthly costs for purchasers of a new build property using the new London Help To Buy scheme will be significantly less than rental costs of a comparable property, it has emerged. The Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborn announced that from early the government will increase the upper limit for the equity loan it gives new buyers within Greater London from 20% to 40%. It means that Londoners with just a 5% deposit will be able to get an interest-free loan worth up to 40% of the value of a newly built home. People then need to get a mortgage of up to 55% to cover the rest. On top of this the current restrictions on who can buy a home through shared ownership will be removed from April 2016. Shared ownership allows people to buy a share of a home rather than the whole house and then buy a greater share over time as they can afford to. They pay rent on the rest of the property. Currently, these are allocated in several different ways including criteria set by local councils, for example whether potential buyers work in the local area or if they are already in council housing. Help to Buy Shared Ownership will lift the limits so that anyone who has a household income of less than £80,000 outside London, and £90,000 inside London, can buy a home through shared ownership. Only military personnel will be given be priority over other groups. The scheme will apply across England. People can buy a share between 25% and 75% of a home. The rent on the rest of the property won’t be more than 3% of the amount left. For example, on a house worth £227,000 where the buyer has bought a 40% share, the rent won’t be more than 3% of the remaining 60% – in this case £4,000 a year, or £340 a month. Help to Buy Equity Loans are already open to both first time buyers and home movers on new build homes in England with a purchase price up to £600,000. Currently, if you’re able to pay at least 5% the value of your home as a deposit, the government will lend you up to 20% of the rest of the value of the property, alongside your mortgage of up to 75%. Equity Loan will be now available until 2021 and, to reflect the current property market in London, from early 2016 the government will increase the upper limit for the equity loan it gives new buyers within Greater London from 20% to 40%. Ray Boulger, senior technical manager at John Charcol, explained that monthly costs for buyers of a new build property using the new London Help To Buy scheme will be significantly less than rental costs of a comparable property, massively incentivising Londoners to find the 5% deposit and other costs. He also pointed out that the London HTB scheme will also result in much lower monthly… Continue reading
