RentPro Blog

Hometrack’s latest paper “Market forces shape new housing supply“ examines the latest trends in new private housing supply, emerging risks and opportunities, the profile of private starts by geography and the impact ongoing Government support for the sector.

The findings of this paper are that over the last three years new starts have been increasingly from new houses rather than flats, with “three or four bed houses now account(ing) for two thirds of all starts and the number of new two bed houses has surpassed the number of two bed flats being built”. Continue reading »

Money will be allocated to nine councils where there is a particular problem with people trapped in unsanitary or cramped living conditions.

Housing minister Grant Shapps announced the initiative on Friday and said the nine ‘worst affected’ councils will receive funding. These include seven councils in London; Brent, Ealing, Hillingdon, Hounslow, Newham, Redbridge and Southwark, as well as Peterborough and Slough outside the capital.

Unscrupulous landlords tend to rent out ‘beds in sheds’ to migrants, often in the country illegally, at extortionate rates. The tenants often find it difficult to return home having destroyed their passports to prevent removal and will put up with poor conditions, such as hazardous wiring or poor sanitation, a Communities and Local Government spokesperson said.

Read the full story at Inside Housing some very interesting comments too worth reading.

Hometrack’s latest insight paper reveals that there are two very distinct markets – one in London and another for the rest of the UK, with rents in London broadly double those for a comparable property elsewhere.

With the exception of London, rental growth in 2011 was lower than in 2010 across all regions. Rents in London were up 9.6% in 2011 and although growth has slowed since Q3 it remains stronger than the rest of the UK. The continued growth in the capital’s rents reflect the sheer size of the city, the high cost of buying and the corporate rental sector which drives some of the highest rents in the country. In contrast, demand across other cities is largely domestic, driven by those unable to access owner occupation.

Read the full story at JungleDrum

RentPro property management software allows you to easily manage rents, tracking any arrears and also allows you to easily manage houses of multiple occupation.

CML figures show buy-to-let loans in quarter one of 2012 were up by 32% annually, while repossessions have steadied.

The value of mortgages taken out to fund buy-to-let purchases rose by a third year-on-year to the first three months of 2012, as falling house prices and rising rents made the sector attractive to investors.

Some 32,300 loans worth a combined total of £3.7bn were advanced to buy-to-let borrowers, according to figures from the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML). The value was 5% down on the final three months of 2011, but 32% higher than in the opening three months of the year. However, it remains at about a third of 2007′s levels.

Read the full story at The Guardian

RentPro property management software is built to grow with your business.

RentPro property management software allows you to market properties not only on your own website but all major portals as well as producing brochures that can be either printed off or emailed to potential tenants.

Critics claimed it was ‘social cleansing’. But the Coalition’s plan to cap housing benefit has caused nothing like the chaos predicted.

According to the Guardian’s Polly Toynbee, it was nothing less than a “final solution” for the poor. The Labour shadow minister, Chris Bryant, called it the “sociological cleansing” of the capital. London Councils, the umbrella organisation of the capital’s boroughs, warned that almost a quarter of a million people faced eviction from their homes in the first year alone.

Read the full story The Telegraph

RentPro property management software assists you with tracking payments from both tenants and housing benefit authorities.