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Survey reveals 88% of people in London have had a bad time from estate agents
Over 4.4 million in the UK feel that an estate agent had broken promises with more people in London having a bad experience than any other part of the country, new research has found. Indeed, in London 15% felt an estate agent broke their promises and 88% said they had a bad experience with an estate agent, more than any other region in the UK. While, overall 9% of the UK felt there was a lack of transparency from estate agents. The research by estate agency, Strawberry Star, also found different age groups experienced different issues. For example, 8% of 25 to 34 year olds felt pressured into buying a house by an estate agent, twice the national average. It also found that the top frustration for just over 7.5 million people across the UK is ‘the agent’s overriding interest’ in commission rather than concentrating on finding the right property for their client, with 18% of respondents in London stating so. Strawberry Star said it is offering a new approach and clients will able to choose how much of the commission fee they pay, depending on their experience of the service from the pre-sale stage to post sales service. Dorian Beresford, the firm’s chief executive officer, said the aim is to place an overriding level of attention on the relationship value behind the sale or purchase of a property, as opposed to purely the transactional value it holds. ‘Consumers both at home and overseas continue to be dramatically underserved by their agents. The level of unsatisfied customers here in the UK is astonishing and representative of the frankly abysmal service delivered by many in the industry,’ said Beresford. ‘We feel it is our obligation to redress the balance and put the power back into the hands of the public by literally putting our money where our mouth is. No tie-in periods, no false promises and if the client is not delighted by our service they get to choose how much of our fee to pay,’ he explained. The firm has a headquarters in central London, offices in Singapore and Hong Kong and plans for a further 25 UK offices are in the pipeline with expansion into India, China and the Middle East also on the cards over the next five years. ‘We put people over property and ensure every single one of our clients, whether owners, occupiers or investors from the UK and abroad, feel that they are receiving a personalised service and are dealing with people that genuinely care about what matters to them. This commitment stands throughout every stage of the buying, moving, selling and letting process,’ added Beresford. The firm believes that the UK will continue to be popular amongst Asian real estate investors with Singapore and Hong Kong based investment now accounting for 90% of international purchases in the London new build market alone. Continue reading
Huge boost to first time buyers in UK with new deposit savings plan
Thousands of would be home buyers in the UK will be able to fulfil their dream of owning a property after the government announced a new savings plan to help them get a deposit. Chancellor George Osborne is introducing a new Help to Buy ISA which will allow them to save up to £200 a month towards their first home whereby the government will add a £50 bonus for every £200 saved up to a maximum of £3,000 per person. In his Budget Day speech he pointed out that the government has already helped tens of thousands of people to buy a home with Help to Buy, which allows people to purchase a home with just a 5% deposit. Effectively a tax cut for first time buyers, it will be introduced in the autumn and this, coupled with the news that inflation rates will remain low, is good news for those struggling to afford to get onto the housing ladder. It will provide a significant boost to the ability of a first time buyer to save speedily and effectively, according to Mark Hayward, managing director of the National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA). ‘This is exactly what is needed to engage the first time buyer market, particularly as we have seen the current criteria under the Mortgage Market Reform constraining aspirations to buy a home,’ he said. He pointed out that it especially benefits couples who are buying for the first time as both are eligible to open a Help to Buy ISA and it is also timely, considering house price inflation out paces wage inflation, so this additional boost to first time buyers savings pots will help them at least keep apace rather than fall behind the inflationary curve. The move has been widely welcomed by the property industry at a time when first time buyers overcoming the constraints of saving for a deposit has been one of the biggest barriers to home ownership. First time buyers are needed to keep the housing ladder moving. Lucian Cook, Savills UK head of residential research, also explained that limiting the ISA to a £12,000 savings plan with a £3,000 government contribution should prevent a surge in house prices. ‘It is more likely to help get buyers over the deposit hurdle in the lower value, lower growth markets of the Midlands and the North than say London and the South East, where significant constraints remain,’ he said. ‘ It is also likely to be welcomed by parents and grandparents by making first time buyers less dependent on the bank of Mum and Dad and more inclined to contribute some top up savings when children come looking for assistance to get on the housing ladder. However, those first time buyers who are keen to lock into low interest rates and who have access to parental support are unlikely to commit to what is effectively a five year savings plan,’ he added. According to Adrian… Continue reading
Have Farmland Values Seen Their Top?
Jeff Caldwell 08/16/2013 @ 2:21pmMultimedia Editor for Agriculture.com and Successful Farming magazine. Corn and soybeans aren’t worth as much as they were a year ago. That’s got some farmers staring down the barrel of a breakeven price for corn and soybeans that may not be attainable based on current prices for the crops and the inputs it will take to raise them. And much of the expense side of the equation adding up to that necessary price comprises farmland. Ask a lot of farmers about the prospect of lower land costs in the coming year or so and many see that as an almost laughable scenario. Land prices simply haven’t fallen even though current levels make it tough to yield a profit on corn and soybean acres. In other words, $4.25 casn corn and $300/acre land rent don’t mix very well. “Ha! They should go down, but will they? I don’t think so,” says William Bruere, who with his family operates Bruere Farms near Prole, Iowa. “Despite lower farm income and expectations of additional declines, farmland values surged further during the second quarter. Irrigated cropland values in the District jumped 25% from a year ago. Nonirrigated cropland values advanced 18% from the previous year, a slightly slower pace of growth than in the first quarter,” says Nathan Kauffman, economist with the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City in a report released this week. But, farmers say lower grain prices make up just one piece of the land price crunch. One other element lies outside the farm sector; as long as investors have reason to remain anxious about the general equities market, it’s enough to keep capital streaming into land. “Crop prices are not the only thing supporting land values, but is one of them. Cheap money in the form of low interest is another,” says Agriculture.com Farm Business Talk veteran advisor sw363535 . “Federal borrowing and dumping of cash into the economy has helped the stock market values as much as grains prices. “If land prices do not come back down with the grain prices, it is not a good omen for the rest of the economy. Some of the Value of farm land has been fear-driven…or at least lack-of-faith driven.” This movement in land comes despite widely documented lower farm incomes based on lower grain prices that Kauffman says have driven higher farm loan volume in recent months. “Lower farm income boosted operating loan demand and hindered loan repayment rates in the second quarter. According to survey respondents, operating loan demand rose to its highest level in more than two years,” he says of the Fed’s most recent survey of ag lenders. “Loan repayment rates improved modestly, but bankers expected repayment rates to fall in the future with weakening farm income.” History — not necessarily specific conditions right now — sides with sw363535 ‘s assertion about the need for land prices to slip. Farm Business Talk senior contributor and farmland investor rswfarms says based on almost 80 years of data in Iowa, a trend of return on land investment of 4% to 6% has remained intact. It’s fluctuated from as much as 15% to as little as 1%, he says, but it’s always circled back to that average range for a normal corn-soybean rotation. “Currently for Iowa cropland growing corn and soybeans, with average yields, a $14,000/acre land cost, and a corn and soybean cash price of $4.25 and $11.50, the ROI ratio is in the 3% to 3.5% range. This is on the low end of the 75-year average, so if all things stay the same for the 2013 crop year it would not surprise me to see maybe a 5% decline in values for the 2014 fiscal year to get back to the average ROI ratio of 4% to 6%,” rswfarms says. “Personally, I see land leveling out for the rest of 2013, with the total 2013 appreciation rate being around the 18% to 20% rate. In 2014, with again normal yields and prices at $4.25 corn and $11.50 soybeans, a 5% decline could be in the cards for the fiscal 2014 year. Could we see another mid-1980s farmland crash where Iowa farmland went from $5,000/acre down to $850/acre for the best 80+ CSR dirt? No, I don’t see that happening and I will back up my statement by betting a 12-pack of beer.” Some ag lenders agree that the time is nigh for a downturn in land prices. In his survey, Fed economist Kauffman says while many see more of a leveling-off in land values in the near term, the number of those seeing a trend lower is growing. And, his data confirm rswfarms ‘ idea that the slide won’t amount to much if it does reach fruition. “While most bankers expected farmland values to remain at current levels, an increasing number of respondents felt farmland values may have peaked. Compared with previous surveys, fewer bankers expected farmland values to keep rising. More bankers also expected farmland values to drop after harvest likely due, at least partially, to expectations of lower farm income,” Kauffman says. “Among bankers anticipating a decline, though, a majority estimated farmland values would fall less than 10 percent during the next year. Very few bankers expected that farmland prices would drop more than 10%.” But, will this all happen? Will land values proceed to turn lower in the near future? Though the numbers indicate they should and will, farmers say they have little reason to believe they will see lower values and rents in the next year. “I’m willing to bet that any good land for sale would bring prices right around what we’ve seen in the past couple of years. That is, I don’t have any reason to expect a decline in value in the near future,” says Farm Business Talk veteran advisor Jim Meade / Iowa City . “The county sure doesn’t think so; my taxes have gone up again.” Continue reading
