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UK rental market sees sharp rise in demand for one bed flats
Rent rises for one bedroom flats in the UK accelerated sharply in September, sparked by high demand from recent graduates renting to live near their first job, new research has found. Rents for one beds saw an annual rise of 3.9%, from 2.9% in August, reaching an average of £1,054 according to the monthly Landbay Rental Index. The new index, which launched last month, is the first to track rental trends to the county and London borough level in combination with the number of bedrooms. Edinburgh with a rise of 12%, Swindon up 11% and Southend on Sea also up 11%, saw the biggest rises in rents for one bed flats, albeit from lower average rents than some of the other areas to see big year on year increases. The index also shows that rents for three bed properties are seeing the biggest overall rental rises, up 4.8% year on year to £1,489 in September. Across all properties, UK rents rose by 3.7% in the last year to an average £1,288. This was the first increase in annual growth since February, when the average monthly rented price was £1,277. ‘The upward trend in UK rents can simply be explained with one word, jobs. The UK’s job market is going from strength to strength and the rental market is staying hot on its heels,’ said John Goodall, chief executive officer of Landbay. ‘The sharp seasonal jump in rental growth for one beds reflects a buoyant graduate job market as people move to their first job. Flexibility and freedom is the order of the day for first jobbers, and one bedroom flats offer the perfect springboard to take the plunge into full-time working life. One bed flats are also popular for couples and young professionals who don’t want to flat share,’ he explained. ‘Higher housing costs can be a nightmare for tenants when other costs are rising and their wages are stagnating. Fortunately these rent increases come at a time of growing wages and falling costs, according to the latest inflation figures, so while they may not be welcome they don’t leave the same dent in consumers’ pockets,’ he pointed out. ‘For potential investors, these rental figures show how resilient residential property is as an asset class, even when you have unusual economic forces combining like the current mix of low inflation, low interest rate, and high wages,’ he added. Across all property sizes, the top rental risers outside of London were in the southeast, with all but two of the top 10 rental risers of Swindon and Edinburgh, clustered around London. By contrast only one of the top 10 rental fallers, Buckinghamshire, was located in the southeast. According to Joe Macklin, director of index compilers MIAC, there is likely to be a small decline in data volume in the run up to… Continue reading
UK property sales up over 5% year on year
The number of UK residential property sales increased by 0.8% between August and September 2015, according to the latest figures published by HMRC. The September seasonally adjusted figure is 5.4% higher compared with the same month last year while the number of non-adjusted transactions was around the same level as in August. Overall the provisional seasonally adjusted UK property transaction count for September 2015 was 106,030 residential and 10,300 non-residential transactions. Meanwhile, the latest Land Registry data shows there were 1,513,920 applications in the month of September, topped by the South East with 349,215. Some 373,424 were applications were in respect of registered land (dealings) 680,982 were applications to obtain an official copy of a register or title plan, 210,635 were searches and 88,229 were transactions for value. Peter Rollings, chief executive officer of Marsh & Parsons, believes that there was a real step change in the gears of housing market activity over the summer. ‘Since June property sales have been ticking along nicely, with this month on month rise the latest cause for optimism. There’s now clear blue water between sales levels now and a year ago and we’re seeing real eagerness from buyers,’ he explained. ‘Already, many buyers and sellers will be using the countdown to Christmas as their deadline to move home and complete transactions, meaning activity often picks up the pace in autumn,’ he added. But he pointed out that London is a city of two halves at the moment. ‘At the top end, buyers are more cautious, and are taking their time to get used to steeper Stamp Duty on million pound plus property sales,’ he explained. ‘But at the mid and lower range of the market where domestic buyers tend to dominate there remain high levels of demand facing up to restricted housing stock. Here we’re seeing good activity when property is priced correctly, and longer chains than ever as sales activity stacks up,’ he added. Continue reading
Buyers and estate agents in US embracing new technology new study shows
Even though more consumers in the United States are using the internet as a tool during their home search and are therefore more connected than ever before, says new research. It means that home buyers are increasingly utilising the knowledge and expertise of a real estate agent, according to the study published by the National Association of Realtors. ‘Consumers have the ability to do more home buying research online and be more connected during the home search process than ever before, but research proves they are still seeing the value a Realtor® brings to the transaction, from the initial search to well after the closing,’ said NAR president Chris Polychron. ‘Agents bring great value to buyers from every generation, demographic and location as well as in every financial and familial situation. So while consumers have more technological tools available at their fingertips, realtors are now more than ever a part of the home buying and selling equation,’ he added. The study found that finding the right property was ranked as the most difficult step in the home buying process. Since the internet is now the first place many people go for information, it's not surprising that four in 10 buyers looked for properties online as a first step in the home buying process, up from 36% in 2010. However, the data also shows that 88% of buyers in 2014 purchased their home with assistance from a real estate agent, up from 83% in 2010. While 94% of millennials and 84% of baby boomers used online websites in their home search, only 65% of those aged 69 to 89 years did the same. Older boomers, those aged 60 to 68 years, used a mobile device to search for properties at less than half the rate of millennials at 30% versus 66%. When it comes to website listing features, photos and online property information were more important to millennials, while virtual tours and direct contact with a real estate agent were more important to baby boomers. Despite visual content growing in popularity and importance, older homebuyers found virtual tours more useful than younger buyers at 45% compared to 36% among millennials. As for the length of time it takes for consumers to find a home, millennials typically looked for about 11 weeks, while baby boomers and members of the older generation searched for eight weeks. Internet use also impacted the length of a home search. Those who used the internet to search homes visited more homes and searched for longer, looking at 10 homes over a 10 week period versus four homes in four weeks for those not looking on the web. While not all consumers use the internet in their home search, a growing number are first finding their future home online. Some 43% buyers first found the home they ended up purchasing on the web compared to just 8% in 2001. In 2001 some 48% of buyers found the home they… Continue reading
