This week’s linear lovely comes from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors’ latest lettings market survey.

What’s it telling us? Basically that the decline in rents is slowing.  Or in their own words:

“A slowdown in the number of properties coming on to the rental market saw the rate at which rents decreased ease slightly in the three months to July.”

Now I know what you’re going to say: the three months to July… that was ages ago! Where can I find out what’s happening now?

Fair point. Happily you can find out here, on this very site - our monthly Rental Index gives a more up-to-date snapshot of current prices and market trends.

August’s edition shows that the trend RICS identify has consolidated. Specifically:

• After two months of rises, rents are up a further £4 to £829 pcm (+0.5 per cent), the highest for six months, providing further evidence of the recovery in the rental market.

• Rental stock is two per cent lower than in July, and has fallen 3.7 per cent over the past quarter since its peak in May. However, it remains much higher than at any time last year (+48.5 per cent on August 2008).

Here’s the full Rental Index (and yes, that chap with the shiny head - on page 4 - is me…)

The Property: Grade II listed detached oast

The Place: Tenterden Road, Rolvenden, Kent.

The Price: £395,000 OIEO

Click pics for full details

The Pain: Oasts are not the easiest things in the world to convert, and a listed oast will inevitably come with its own challenges.

This one will need to have all the utilities connected. It is, says the agent, more suited to an individual buyer than to a developer.

The Gain: Oasts for conversion are rare enough these days, and this is a rather fine one - brick with a charming Kent peg tile roof.

It was originally built in the early 1800s, has been in the same farming family for five generations and was last used to dry hops with a coal fire (one of the last ever) in 2004.

So you’ll be buying, and saving, a real piece of history.

The good news is that planning permission has been granted for a three-bed home - and what a unique one it will be!

The property comes with half an acre and is set down a quiet ‘no through’ lane on the outskirts of Rolvenden. Rolvenden has a village shop with post office, village hall, several pubs with restaurants, parish church and a garage. There is an excellent weekly farmers’ market.

The schools in the area, in both the state and private sectors at primary and secondary levels, are very well regarded.

The Agent: Savills, Cranbrook (Tel: 01580 720161)

Back to your kennels, Andrex puppies, there’s a new dog on the block.

TV’s latest canine superstar, Churchill, is now available in cuddly toy form.  And – cute, cute, CUTE! - when you squeeze his tummy, he mutters his famous catchphrase.  Ohhhh Yesss.

So how much is that doggy from the advert?  A mere £14.99 – of which, Churchill Home Insurance will donate £1.99 to Dog’s Trust UK when purchased via their website.

Dog’s Trust, the UK’s largest welfare charity for dogs, is behind the admirable Lets with Pets campaign which aims to encourage more landlords and letting agents to rent to tenants with pets.

The UK is famed for being a nation of pet-lovers, so in these days of growing rental demand, we reckon this campaign is the dog’s whatsits.

So go on, give the cuddly dog a home, and help a real one at the same time.

Our research team has just sent round some pretty amazing figures: in August the number of visitors to FindaProperty.com passed the three million mark.

The actual total was 3.1 million, a whopping 34.2 per cent year-on-year increase, and the highest monthly total since records began way back in 1997.

That means that in August one of you lovely people logged onto the site every 0.85 seconds – and we’re grateful to each and every one of you for your support.

Our sister site, FindaNewHome.com, also set a new record of 369,000 visitors, which was an impressive 57.8 per cent higher than last year.

We are, however, always working to improve the site and make your property hunt easier – our latest addition is User Notes on every property detail.

If you have any suggestions for other features we could add, please send them to:

CoolNewFeatures@findaproperty.com.

So that’s it: summer appears to have gone for another year, before it even really arrived.

I say this after having been absolutely drenched twice yesterday – once on the way into work and again on the way home – followed by an evening of listening to relentless rain lashing against the windows.

Not surprisingly, the expression ‘batten down the hatches’ has subsequently been at the forefront of my mind.

So it got me to thinking, to coin a Carrie Bradshaw phrase, what would it be like to actually live in a houseboat during wintery weather like this?

I imagine it to be rather romantic, all cosied up and battened down against the elements – although I’m willing to concede that the reality may be somewhat different, particularly in gale-force winds.

But a fantasy’s a fantasy, so for this week’s Five to View, welcome to the wonderful world of floating homes that is houseboats.

(Click on pics for full property details)

1. Cadogan Pier, London SW3
£1,000,000

2. Taggs Island, Hampton. Middlesex
£485,000

3. Victoria Steps Quay, Brentford, Middlesex
£465,000

4. Chertsey, Surrey
£349,950

5. Southall, Middlesex
£89,995

But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?
Why, ’tis Juliet on her new Bloomframe balcony.

Had Shakespeare been alive today, and living in Amsterdam, then it’s a dead cert that ‘Romeo and Juliet’ would have included a Bloomframe balcony scene (and more sex and drugs probably, but this is a family show, folks).

A whattyframe? A bloomingpardon?

Hush dear reader, read on and understand.

Winner of the 2009 Wallpaper* Design Award, and designed by Hofman Dujardin Architects, the Bloomframe is a simple and elegant fold out balcony designed for use in dense urban areas where outside space is of the premium.

Still confused? Here’s the video:

It’s a window *click* it’s a balcony *click* it’s a window. Genius!

It’s been written about before, but now it’s actually gone into production. So all you hi-rise dwellers, start saving your pennies and schmoozing your planning officers.

(via NotCot)

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 the court: “Who is Gazza?”

Which is just as well, because the last thing you want when you’re in a sticky financial situation is baffling advice from some unintelligible legal relic.

Gold, it has to be said, is a tad plummy, but he’s also sensible, engaging and easy to follow.

And he obviously knows exactly what he’s talking about.

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 feet tall, tipped the scales at 27 stone, and wore shoes that were 15 inches long and 5.5 inches wide.

It wouldn’t be easy being that tall now, but back in the eighteenth century it was even tougher, and the story of his life is a sad one.

Former home of Giant William Bradley

Bradley was teased, and feared, as a child, became a farm labourer as an adult and later toured successfully with a travelling show, his appearances alongside Edward Calvet, a dwarf from Shiptonthorpe, attracting huge interest and large crowds.

Ripped off by the show’s manager, he then toured on his own, checking into local hotels and charging people a shilling to call and see him. King George III paid him a call in Windsor and presented him with a gold chain.

He eventually retired to his home town where he had a house specially built to accommodate his massive frame. It’s currently up for sale and retains many of the original features.

The doors are wider, the ceilings are taller, there’s a large marble fireplace, and a special bedroom, named the long room, that was designed to house his huge bed.

Bradley suffered ill health in later life, and his years on the road as a sideshow freak clearly took a psychological toll: he became a recluse, hid from people who came to gawk at him and requested a dawn funeral in a bid to avoid crowds.

They came anyway, and he had to be interred inside the church for fear that grave robbers would steal his body.

Bradley has enjoyed posthumous fame in Market Weighton. They hold an annual William Bradley festival and have recently erected a statue in his honour. The house features a plaque bearing the imprint of his enormous boot.

Giant Bradley’s house is being sold by Hornseys, Market Weighton (Tel: 0843 2820 79)

Click pics for full details

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 cent higher than July 2008.

As we’ve noted before, traffic to FindaProperty.com reached record levels in July, and it’s clear from these lending figures that more people managed to access finance.

However, lenders remain extremely cautious and lending is still way below the highpoint it reached in July 2007 before the credit crunch hit.

On the positive side, the graph reveals that last summer was the bottom of the lending cycle; on the negative side, lending is still being rationed.

With prices now recovering, we would hope that lenders, buoyed by huge amounts of public money, respond by easing their lending criteria.

If they don’t, there’s the very real danger that recovery will be choked off before it’s had a chance to take hold.

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 details, and with the blog post below about sea views in mind, I think I’m in the money well spent camp.

Why? Because you’re not paying for the “semi-derelict one-bed bungalow” (aka: shed), you’re paying for the site: two acres in the heart of the North Yorkshire Moors National Park with quite breath-taking views over the Heritage Coastline.

True, you’ll only be able to develop it subject to acquiring the necessary consents; and yes, you’d be bonkers to bid on it without first talking to the local planners about what they would allow.

But even so, I think the potential here surely justifies the guide price. What do you think?

We’ll keep you posted on how it fares when it comes under the hammer. Auction to be held at: the Falcon Inn, Staintondale on: Wednesday 16th September 2009 at 7.00pm prompt.