Rent Arrears: Dos & Don’ts

Here’s a new video about rent arrears from the Ministry of Justice.
It’s presented by District Judge Stephen Gold, who, presumably, knows a thing or two about landlord/tenant disputes.
His … err … Worship? Lordship? … is a rather dapper looking chap, not, we think, the type to gaze down from the bench and loftily enquire of [...]

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Home Fit For A Giant Up For Sale

I was browsing through the site the other day when I came across this: the former home of Giant William Bradley in the Yorkshire town of Market Weighton.
Who he? A quick Google of the name reveals that Bradley (b. 1787)  is the tallest British man that ever lived – he was a shade under eight [...]

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Graph Of The Week: Lending For House Purchase

The Bank of England published their monthly stats on lending yesterday so I thought it would be interesting to feature a graph displaying lending levels over the past few years.
Lending for house purchase was up again in July – indeed, with 50,000 approvals, July was the strongest month for lending this year and 53 per [...]

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£150,000 For Timber Shed?

Interesting piece over on the Guardian’s Money Blog today about a timber shed up for auction for £150,000 – just £10,000 less than the Nationwide’s average UK house price, as Hilary Osborne notes.
Osborne wonders if this is “a return to pre-crash price insanity, or is it money well spent on a prime spot?”

Looking at the [...]

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Wreck Of The Week

The Property: Listed Victorian church
The Place: Aberfeldy, Perth & Kinross, Scotland
The Price: £190,000 OIEO

The Pain: It’s a big and potentially expensive project – all the more so since planning permission is for conversion into four large apartments.
And at the end, you’ll have to find four buyers to make your money – which in the current [...]

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New Site Feature!

Barry over in the Build Cool New Stuff team has done it again: his latest wheeze is a very handy Add Notes tool on every property detail.
Keep an eye open for this icon – it’s on the right hand side of every property detail.

As a registered user you can click on this, write some comments [...]

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Graph Of The Week: House-Building Up

This week’s graph comes from the Office of National Statistics and charts the level of house-building activity in England.
According to the latest figures, there were 29,980 housing starts in the quarter to June, a 63 per cent increase on the previous quarter.
This is the second successive quarterly rise but the year-on-year figures show that the [...]

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Wreck Of The Week

The Property: A Grade A listed folly built around 1840
The Place: Keltneybridge, Kenmore, Perthshire PH15
The Price: OIEO £150,000
(Click on pics for full property details)

The Pain: Well, it’s in a pretty poor state and needs complete renovation – and that includes renewing the services (water, septic tank, mains electricity).
It’s Grade A listed – Grade I in [...]

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Graph of The Week: What Price A Sea View?

It’s no surprise to be told that a sea view will cost you. But how much more are vendors willing to pay?
The clever number-crunchers over at Savills have taken a look at the 12,000 sales that took place in Cornwall in 2008 and have come up with some very precise figures.
While there are significant variations [...]

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Meteors: God’s Way Of Reminding You That Buildings Insurance Ain’t Everything

If you’ve used Google today, you’ll have seen that it features a picture (a so-called Google Doodle) of a shower of meteors streaking across the night sky and … gulp! – heading straight for a defenceless house.
This is a reference to the Perseid meteor shower, coming to a night-time sky near you this evening – [...]

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