Tag Archives: europe
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
Negative equity still preventing the full recovery of the US housing market
Despite improvements in the negative equity rate, underwater mortgages are holding back the housing market in the United States from full recovery, especially in hard hit areas, a new report suggests. The rate of negative equity among home owners dropped a full percentage point in the third quarter of 2015, from 14.4% to 13.4%, and down 16.9% from a year ago, according to the latest research from real estate firm Zillow. It said that declining negative equity will allow almost a million newly freed home owners who have not yet refinanced or have been waiting to sell to do so before mortgage rates rise, which will likely happen in coming weeks. It also pointed out that negative equity affects not just the home owners who are underwater, but entire markets where high rates of negative equity are slowing recovery. Negative equity is one of the most persistent reminders of the housing market crash. Home owners who owe more on their mortgage than their homes are worth cannot sell, which holds back markets from recovering. So, some eight years after the housing crash, it remains a major barrier to a full recovery in certain markets. In Las Vegas, for example, 22% of home owners remain underwater, and another 19% are effectively underwater, meaning they have less than 20% equity in their home and therefore can't cover the cost of selling their home and buying another. Las Vegas has had the highest negative equity rate in the country for the past four and a half years, and Kansas City and Cleveland, with 16.6% and 16.8% negative equity respectively, are not far behind. San Francisco and San Jose are the only large markets where less than 5% of home owners are underwater. Almost a million home owners were freed from negative equity in the third quarter of 2015. The improving rate means those people may be able to sell or refinance their homes before mortgage interest rates rise, as they are expected to do in the coming weeks. ‘Negative equity has become almost an afterthought in a handful of the nation's hottest markets, but is holding back the recovery in dozens of large markets nationwide,’ said Zillow chief economist Svenja Gudell. ‘Despite steady declines in negative equity, many cities are still facing tight inventory, especially among entry level homes. Those homes that are available are often not in demand and stay on the market for a long time. This can be extremely frustrating for buyers and sellers alike, as they come face to face with the difficult side effects of negative equity,’ she explained. She also pointed out that negative equity affects individual home owners, but markets with high negative equity rates tend to have fewer homes for sale, especially lower priced homes favoured by first time home buyers. In markets with a lot of negative equity, homes generally take longer to sell than in other places. The top five large metros with the smallest share of underwater… Continue reading
Property listings fall across the UK, more than usual seasonal drop off
New property listings in the UK fell by 21.5% across the country in November following three months of small rises, the latest research shows, with London particularly affected. The data from the Property Supply Index compiled by online estate agents House Simple recorded the biggest drop in property supply in any one month since the index launched in May 2015. The worst fall was in Bath with a wall of 42.6% in November and the data also shows that five of the 15 towns that saw the biggest drop in supply were in the north west of England. Property supply in London fell by 21% and not a single London borough saw a rise in property listings in November while Salford and Chichester were the only locations to see a rise. Indeed Bath has seen a steady decline in supply each month since June, according to the index which tracks the number of new properties listed on Rightmove every month in more than 100 major towns and cities across the UK and all London boroughs. Only 135 new properties in Bath were listed in November, compared to a high of 284 in June. The West Midland cities of Worcester and Solihull saw new property listings drop 41% and 39% respectively in November. While Chichester and Salford saw rises of 14.8% and 11.6% respectively. According to Rightmove figures, Bootle and Swansea have seen the biggest swing in property supply in the past two months, with October seeing a 47.4% and 36.6% rise respectively in property supply compared to September, followed by a 35.1% and 23.9% fall respectively in supply in November compared to October. In London Richmond upon Thames saw new property listings drop almost a third at 31% in November. While, the boroughs of Bromley and Hillingdon, each experienced a 30% drop off in new property listings last month. The figures reveal that there wasn’t a single London borough that saw an increase in new listings in November. Greenwich and Barking and Dagenham experienced the smallest falls in supply, with new listings down just 5% and 9% last month compared to October. More than half the capital’s boroughs, some18 of the 32, saw new stock levels fall by more than a fifth in November compared to October. ‘Everyone knows by now that we have a property supply issue in this country, but these latest figures reveal just how severe that problem is as we head into the New Year. The total number of new property listings in November across the UK was just over 65,000, that is nearly 20,000 less than in October, and the lowest level since we launched the index in May,’ said House Simple chief executive officer Alex Gosling. ‘Historically, as we get closer to Christmas, the property market does start to slow down, so a fall in property supply levels is not unexpected. However, the drop off is too dramatic to be simply attributed to seasonality factors alone,’ he pointed out. He… Continue reading
