Archive for the ‘Property news’ Category

We are hosting FREE investor event in High Wycombe next Thursday 27th. When we last held one there it was a FREE sell out and we had loads of great tips to share. The market is even more amazing now and we have tonnes of great deals and tonnes of tips so you southerners surely can’t miss this one – our first in the area for 12 months? Our events are GREAT events!

Lets look at how great the opportunity is: 80% mortgages, easier mortgages, a rising market, great LHA cash flow rentals, and loads of quality 75% deals around – so possible 5% cash backs – for now at least!

If you are in the market to buy this is surely the perfect time.

To whip up even more enthusiasm I will give away a completely free property.
No reservation fees, no legals, no valuation fee – nothing. PLUS it will be 75% and you can get an 80% mortgage. THE LUCKY person will be able to choose from all our 20+ deals available on the night. AND to cap it off we will get it rented and managed for you.

If you want to know more, check out the post in the Events Section and register with us:

http://deals.hbfinvestmentproperties.co.uk/Event.aspx

Just to finish – all the key people hosting the event, including me, have bought over 400 properties between us and are continuing to buy. We are running and buying businesses with our profits from property – we have all given up our days jobs. We are the real deal. If you want to know how to get rich and stay rich with property we are the guys to come and meet.

We don’t do just educational seminars or write books – we actually do the business and make alot money from property and that’s what really matters to all of us property investors.

Holiday Inn
Handy Cross
High Wycombe
HP11 1TL

At this must go to “FREE” Networking Event, Raj Shastri in conjunction with HBF Investment property, will show you:

• How he started with £950 and living in a rented room – to a Multi Million Pound Portfolio in under 5 years which is still CASH FLOWING even in TODAY’S current climate!
• How anybody from a Beginner to an Experienced Investor can do the same!
• Goldmine ADS to source great property deals.
• Tricks of the trade on how to get YOUR Property rented FIRST.
• An overview on the Market NOW and how to take advantage of the year ahead

Plus much much more ….

This “FREE” Networking Event will be aimed at all levels of property investors from the complete novice to the highly experienced, providing crucial up to the minute market information, fantastic opportunities for information sharing and obviously a terrific social occasion!

We have other “leading experts” who are ACTUALLY “doing” the BEST deals and “financing” the BEST deals coming along to share their knowledge and tips with you plus the HBF Team will be on hand too!

At the request of our Investors we will also be “showcasing” our fantastic exclusive deals available on the night.  These will be sold on a first come first served basis so please come prepared with cheque books and credit cards at the ready!

Watch Raj Shatri’s showreel and confirm your place for you and your guests NOW for Thursday 27th May 2010. Please register below as places will be booked quickly.

Register for HBF Investments Networking Event

I personally look forward to meeting you at our event.

Kind regards,

David Coughlin
Managing Director
HBF Investments

With a new government finally in power, we’re wondering what new changes they’ll bring to the property world. Details are beginning to emerge about the Coalition Agreement between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats and the first bit of property-related news is that they’ll be keeping Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs), but scrapping Home Information Packs (HIPs).

The measures out outlined in the Environmental section of the coalition report, where the two parties have agreed to measures that will help promote a ‘low carbon and eco-friendly economy.’ Home Information Pack’s have long been subject to controversy, with mixed views regarding their effectiveness, so it’s not a surprise that they will be going.

Energy Performance Certificates have become a good way of rating how efficient a property is and, with eco-friendly and green issues of key concern, it’s encouraging to see that these will be kept.

Time will tell what other measures the new government have planned that could affect the property industry. In the meantime, the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveys (RICS) are predicting that house prices will continue to rise during the post-election time, despite the fact that there are already a number of properties on the market.

Their latest property survey reveals that property prices and sales both rose during April 2010. The number of new homes being put on the market went up in April and surveyors are said to be optimistic about the property market in the coming months.

The UK has a major shortage of rental properties and demand is outstripping supply, research has shown.

The findings were discovered during research by the Association of Rental Letting Agents (ARLA), who surveyed 531 offices in the first quarter of 2010 and 382 landlords during March 2010. They discovered that over two thirds of agents are reporting that demand for rental properties has outstripped supply across the UK and that the private rented sector is struggling to keep up with demand.

The increase in demand for properties has risen by 50%, compared to the last quarter of 2009; back in Q3 of 2009, the figure was just 24%, which highlights a significant rise. Letting agents from around the UK are all reporting a shortage of good quality property becoming available on the market and say that tenants are tending to stay longer in their rentals, which doesn’t help the supply situation.

In London, for example, one agent reported that rental property stock levels had fallen by 60% over the last year and that rent prices are rising.

Obviously, this is nothing short of good news for existing landlords, especially those with properties about to come up for rent. It’s also a good sign for those considering buying investment property, as there’s nothing better than a market that is ripe for tenants.

If you’re considering buying an investment property, or in starting your own portfolio of investment properties, than HBF Investments can help you do just that.

If you haven’t given the government boiler scrappage scheme a go, and traded in your old boiler for a new model, then you’re too late, as it’s already come to a sudden end.

The innovative government scheme, which was launched in the pre-budget report in December 2009, offered landlords and home owners in England the chance to trade in old and inefficient boilers and receive a £400 voucher towards the cost of a new boiler.

The scheme offered 125,000 of the £400 vouchers, to people with G-rated boilers or worse, but due to the popularity of the scheme (or the state of the boilers in England), they’ve already all been snapped up. It was hoped that the 2010 budget would extend the popular scheme, but sadly it wasn’t mentioned.

If you have applied for a voucher, but haven’t received it yet, then don’t panic, as it should be on its way. If you’ve received a voucher, but haven’t used it yet, then you have 12 weeks from the day of issue to claim your £400 for a new boiler.

For anyone who missed the opportunity to improve their boilers to a newer and more efficient model, then nPower have announced that they’ll give a  £400 discount to anyone who has a boiler over 10 years old.

Have you taken advantage of the boiler scrappage scheme? Do you think the scheme should be re-introduced?

Map of London rental prices

If you’ve got rental properties in London, or are thinking of investing in property in the area during 2010, then you can now gain an important insight into rental property prices in the capital.

London Mayor, Boris Johnson, has launched London Rents, a website providing a look the rents achieved at properties across London. Although still in its early stages, the site currently has rental prices for about 11,009 properties in the capital and provides useful information about the average cost of renting a property. The information has been gathered from a sample of private tenancies created over the last 12 months and the aim is to update the information on a monthly basis.

With regular details being uploaded onto the site, it should give a fairly accurate picture of the state of property rentals in London.

The site is a treasure trove of information for landlords as well as tenants If you’re not familiar with the city, then the colour-coded map of rental prices provides valuable information about the areas where the highest and lowest rents can be gained, which could help in your decision-making process of where to buy rental property.

For example, Dartford is currently shown as the cheapest place to rent, where the rental price of a two bedroom property averages out as about £160 per week. The most expensive area in London is South Kensington, where the landlord of a two bedroom property gets an average of £625 per week.

With London being of the largest private rental sectors in England, with over 650,000 properties available for rent, the site looks promising so far and we look forward to seeing how it progresses over the months to come.

What do you think? Will the site be useful for your property rental business?

The Chancellor, Alistair Darling, recently gave his pre-budget report, but are landlords and property investors going to be any better off? 

Sadly he dealt the news that the stamp duty holiday (http://www.investment-properties-for-sale.co.uk/2009/11/20/last-chance-to-take-advantage-of-stamp-duty-holiday/) would officially be coming to an end on 1^st January 2010. It’s helped so many people to save money with the purchase of properties, and helped prevent the property market from becoming stagnated during 2009, so it’s a great shame to see it go. It will return to the usual level, of buyers having to page 1% stamp duty fees on all properties priced at £125,000 or over. 

On a more positive note, the Chancellor announced details of a new boiler scrappage scheme – similar to the popular car scrappage scheme – that will be introduced early in 2010. Although details are sketchy at the moment, it will enable people who have old boilers with a G rating (the lowest efficiency level) to trade them in for £400 towards the cost of a new boiler or renewable heat unit.  

As boilers account for up to 60 per cent of emissions in the UK, it will not only give homes a more efficient boiler, but also help the environment too. It could also help landlords cope with the hefty cost of installing new boilers. It sounds promising, so we’re looking forward to hearing more details in due course about this scheme. 

For more details about the pre-budget report, see http://prebudget.treasury.gov.uk/

If you want to invest in property costing under £175,000 and take advantage of the reduced stamp duty fees, then time is running out.

The stamp duty holiday applies to property valued at under £175,000 and means that buyers don’t have to pay any stamp duty on their purchases. This can make a significant difference and save a good chunk of money.

The stamp duty holiday was came into effect on 3rd September 2008, originally running until April 2009, but it was subsequently extended until 31st December 2009. No further extensions have been announced, so it looks likely that it will finally come to a halt at the end of the year.

Assuming it does all end, from 1st Jan 2010, buyers will again be faced with paying 1% fees for stamp duty on all properties with a value of over £125,000.

According to organisations such as the Home Builders Federation, the Building Societies Association and the National Association of Estate Agents, the stamp duty holiday has had a significant effect on the number of property sales this year, which has helped stop the market from becoming too stagnated. They’re concerned that reinstating it could have further detrimental effects and are calling on Chancellor Alistair Darling to extend the scheme until the end of 2010.

For property investors choosing to buy distressed property, they may not be affected by the change, as many properties are available at a greatly reduced price and fall into £125,000 or under price bracket anyway.

But if you’re an investor who likes to have a range of different properties in your portfolio, perhaps by balancing out rental flats or smaller properties with larger homes, and are likely to buy in the higher price range, then you need to get cracking with your purchases now!

A concerted recovery in the UK residential property market is unlikely before 2012 but house prices will end the year 2% higher than at the start, according to analysts.

The real estate recovery will be lead by London and southern England but the mainstream UK market is likely to see modest price falls in 2010, they predict in the Knight Frank Residential Property Market Forecast 2009-2014.

Following an up and down 2010 the market is expected to see a limited rise in prices in 2011 and no sustained recovery until 2012, the report says, pouring cold water on recent optimism that the good times are on their way back.

‘The excitement caused by rising prices in recent months has hidden the fundamentals that have contributed to this performance, particularly the degree to which the affluent and equity rich have led the market,’ explained Liam Bailey, head of residential research at Knight Frank.

‘There are good reasons why we ought to expect a slow down in price growth, with prices even falling in 2010.

However we believe that this reversal will follow a more benign scenario, rather than a more cataclysmic alternative,’ he added.

The report predicts that a weak economy will feed through to lower household wealth and both the ability and willingness to bid up house prices. Continuing growth in unemployment, allied to wage freezes and tax rises, and a rise in average mortgage rates will force a number of sales which, in the absence of greater depth of demand, will see prices slipping back.

‘However we believe that price falls will be capped at around 3% in 2010. It would be wrong to expect a continuation of the current rapid recovery in the housing market, the economy is not in a position to permit this in the short-term.Similarly, it would be wrong to expect carnage,’ said Bailey.

Improvement in market conditions will continue to be led from London and southern England, particularly from the higher price brackets, the report adds, with strong demand from UK and international buyers ensuring that the central London property market, in particular, will continue to outperform in 2010.

However, the central London market will not entirely escape the future uncertainty and recent strong price growth is unlikely to be maintained.

But the positive factors underpinning the capital’s prime market should serve to ensure that price falls are avoided next year.

The report forecasts annual growth of 3% in central London prices in 2010, with a steady increase in this rate to 9% in 2011. The aggregate growth for central London in the five years to 2014 is 38%, compared to 19% for the UK mainstream market.

‘London will benefit from the global economic recovery which is likely to considerably outpace that seen in the UK. Sterling is set to remain relatively weak into the medium-term, encouraging international demand and the economic prospects in central London are brightening more rapidly than elsewhere in the UK,’ it concludes.

Source: www.propertywire.com