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Tag: Landlord

You spin me right round…

Posted on by prateek

We’re always looking for new ways to show our landlords’ properties, and better ways to help our tenants decide which properties suit them. So when we came across BubblePix, producers of a brand new technology that creates 360° photographic images, we saw an exciting opportunity.

The BubblePod creates 360° images that will give our prospective tenants an honest view of property interiors – before they decide to visit.

We’re proud to announce we’ve made a small investment in BubblePix and that inventor Tom Lawton has agreed that Reside will be pioneering this exciting technology.

There are two elements to the technology: the BubblePod and the BubblePix App.

The BubblePod is a clockwork turntable that grips your smartphone and smoothly, silently rotates it by 360º.

Meanwhile the BubblePix App on your phone captures the 360º image. Users can shoot and share images in less than a minute.

Reside has agreed to act as a test bed for the early production versions. This means we’ll be one of the first letting agencies to use these images to present our properties.

Once they go into production, this will create a fantastic tool for letting agents everywhere.

To find out more about the BubblePod, click here.

Private rents set to outstrip house prices over next 8 years

Posted on by prateek

Private rents in the South West are set to increase significantly faster than house prices over the next eight years, with average rents set to swell by 48%. According to the National Housing Federation’s ‘Home Truths 2012’ report, Bath and North East Somerset could see a £409 rise in average monthly rents between 2013 and 2020, by far the most significant increase in the South West region. Whilst the average rent for the region as a whole is forecast to stand at £981 per month in 2020, Bath and North East Somerset would see average rents grow to £1,253 per month.

These projected rent rises follow on the heels of 37% increases in national rents over the past five years and are caused by years of not building enough affordable homes. In 2011, 390,000 new families were formed, but only 111,250 new homes were built; as this trend seems set to continue, rents look set to be forced upwards at a higher rate than house prices as more and more families turn to private rented accommodation.

Jenny Allen, South West lead manager for the National Housing Federation, commented: “The housing market is at the point of no return; with house prices and rents set to rise and thousands of families in the South West already really struggling to afford their home… Thousands of South West families are priced out of the market and are struggling to keep on top of their rents. As Home Truths shows, even working families are increasingly reliant on housing benefit to help pay their private rent.”

However, whilst the Home Truths report is forecasting dramatic rent increases, the government is painting a very different picture of the housing market by claiming that private rents are in fact going down. New housing minister Mark Prisk told the Commons that rents have fallen in real terms, because they have risen less than the rate of inflation: “The most recent official statistics published by the Valuation Office Agency in August 2012 show that median private sector rents across England rose by 0.9% in the year to June 2012, compared to a rise in RPI inflation of 2.8% over the same period. Rents have thus fallen in real terms, although there are local variations.”

Regardless of the discrepancies between the Home Truth’s predictions and Mr. Prisk’s comments, there is one thing that everyone seems to agree on: rents will continue to rise for the foreseeable future.

Reside and Tenants featured in the London Evening Standard

Posted on by prateek

Yesterday’s London Evening Standard had a great article about more and more city professionals making Bath their family home. Reside’s Tenants Alastair & Marianne Hogg were featured in the article along with Charlie Taylor of Knight Frank’s Bath office.

Whilst the article itself primarily focuses on more Londoners purchasing in Bath, the small interview with our Tenants shows that many people choose to rent first in order to familiarise themselves with the area, with local schools and where they may wish to eventually buy. This is something that is happening more and more often, creating a greater demand in Bath for larger and higher end rental properties.

With London Paddington just an hour and 20 minutes from Bath Spa Station, more and more families are moving away from the city and into Bath. If you have a larger family home that you perhaps thought wouldn’t generate any interest on the rental market, now is a great time to take advantage of this current trend.

Tenant demand outstripping supply – Rents increase

Posted on by prateek

Demand for residential rental properties is increasing rapidly through much of the UK, particularly in prominent cities in The South such as London, Oxford and Bath.

The Association of Residential Letting Agents (ARLA) recently published their Review and Index for Residential Investment for the first quarter of 2010 (ARLA Review and Index Q1 2010). ARLA carried out research among 531 of its members’ offices plus 382 individual landlords. The results show that during Q1 2010, two thirds (59%) of ARLA member agents reported more tenants than properties available. This is a 50% rise on the last quarter (41%) and in Q3 2009 the figure was just 24%. In the last year, supply has dropped by approximately 60%.

Tenant demand has never been higher in Bath which is clearly shown by the rents we have recently achieved and the short length of time that properties are on the market. In April alone Reside let a number of properties before we began to market them; The Old Vicarage, Winifreds Dale and Walcot Parade were all let before they came to the market, all at very good rents. A house on Great Pulteney Street was let after only 4 hours on the rental market at £3000 pcm and just today a one bedroom apartment on Great Pulteney Street achieved a rent of £925 pcm after only 3 days on the market.

Countrywide’s lettings division recently surveyed its network of 204 UK branches and found that there is now an average of 4.9 tenants for every available property, and rents have increase by 2.5%.

From five bedroom houses to one bedroom apartments, rental properties are in very high demand. If you are a landlord or are considering renting out your property, there couldn’t be a better time to take advantage of Resides superior service!

New HMO Legislation

Posted on by prateek

HMO Legislation

Tuesday the 6th of April 2010 saw the controversial Statutory Instrument 653 come into effect. The new law will see landlords required to gain planning permission if they want to let out their House in Multiple Occupancy (HMO) to three or more unrelated individuals.  The Town and Country Planning Act has created a new planning class for HMOs, designated C4, that now requires landlords to apply for permission to change the use to open a new letting property that is altered from a family home to a shared house.

The legislation is not retrospective and will not affect properties with an existing use. HMOs that already house three or more tenants, will not have to apply for retrospective permission because they already have ‘established’ use from the date new legislation is enforced.

The aim of the legislation is to prevent so-called ‘studentification’ whereby rows of terrace houses in university towns and cities are rented out to students. The Government believes this is a problem, although its own advisers in the Rugg Report said it was not.

Landlord groups have been fighting to prevent the change happening, and David Cameron has tabled an Early Day Motion to get it rescinded. Robert Jordan, former ARLA president, said many agents remain unaware of the changes. He, like the landlord groups, believes that the supply of shared rental accommodation will become restricted, with landlords unwilling to pay the cost of obtaining planning permission with the possibility that they might also have to pay to have their HMOs licensed.

AST Threshold increase from £25,000 to £100,000.

Posted on by prateek

The Statutory Instruments to increase the maximum rent threshold of an Assured Shorthold Tenancy (AST) from £25,000 to £100,000 have now been published by Parliament and much of it’s information provided to the National Landlord’s Association (NLA).

At this point in time, legislation associated with the Housing Act 1988 (as amended) states that tenancies formed with annual aggregate rent greater than £25,000 cannot be ASTs. These tenancies are formed on a contractual basis and are sometimes referred to as ‘non-Housing Act’ tenancies. Tenancy terms are negotiated and agreed by the landlord and tenant and are not enshrined by statute.

The Assured Tenancies (Amendment) (England) Order 2010 will come into force on the 1st of October 2010 and will be retrospective. As a result, any tenancy with an annual rent between £25,000 and £100,000 in existence on 1 October 2010 will become an AST overnight. Landlords and tenants will nolonger be able to negotiate individual terms for their tenancy. This means that all of the rights and responsibilities associated with the Housing Act 1988 will be extended to higher rent properties for the first time.

The original threshold was introduced in order to exclude ‘luxury lets’, however the limit was established in 1990 and has not been revisited to take account of inflation since. The Government consulted as a result of a Rugg Review recommendation and decided to increase the threshold to £100,000 as a result. This figure will subsequently be reviewed at five yearly intervals.

The most obvious and immediate affect of the increase is that all Tenancy Deposits will be protected under the Deposit Protection Scheme (DPS). The Dipsute Service and other DPS members will see a huge increase in registered deposits overnight.

Announcing the launch of Reside Remote

Posted on by prateek

Reside Remote

Reside Remote is a bespoke online service allowing our Landlords access to their own property portal from anywhere in the world, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Developed by Reside and completely integrated into our own website and database, Reside Remote allows a Landlord to login and view Tenancy Details including Tenant’s names, rental amounts, deposit amounts, due dates and more. A Rent Statement page displays all statements with a date and in chronological order. The rent statements can be viewed within Reside Remote or downloaded in .pdf format.

A Property Maintenance page displays all invoices for the property, all dated, named and described in detail. Just like the rent statements, all invoices can either be viewed online or downloaded in .pdf format. In addition to the property invoices, Landlords can view a Property Log fed direct from our own property notes in an effort to provide more detailed information about individual maintenance issues. With all invoices visible to Landlords at any time, we aim to be as transparent as possible.

The final page within Reside Remote is the Your Details page, displaying the details we currently hold for the particular Landlord logged in. Details include an address, telephone numbers and an email address. These can be checked and changed if required.

If you are one of Reside’s existing Landlords and would like to take advantage of our Reside Remote service please do not hesitate in contacting Ben at ben@localhost for a username and password. There is no extra charge for this service.

If you already have your username and password, please login at https://residebath.co.uk//remote/login.php and enjoy!

We hope that anyone who uses the service finds it a very helpful and useful tool in the management of your property. We always welcome feedback and any suggestions to improve the Reside Remote service. This only version 1.1. after all!

RESIDE Bath on Phil Spencer Podcast.

Posted on by prateek

A couple of weeks ago, our resident Property Mark Trustee and Regional Executive (and all-round lettings expert) Mr Toby Martin (MARLA), was invited on to MOVE IQ’s local housing market review podcast with host and MOVE IQ founder, PHIL SPENCER!

MOVE IQ is all about providing all the information and a one site fits all space for all property questions. With a range of property experts and journalists across all backgrounds providing crucial information to the consumer.

MOVE IQ’s site aims untie the common goal of making sure that everyone has no-nonsense access to all market information when looking to sell, buy or rent, away from any bias and to make sure they meet all their readers and listeners needs within a market that is constantly changing.

RESIDE shares this goal of making sure that we too provide all the market information that we can, but on a more local basis here in the City of Bath. With that said, Toby was ever so kindly invited to be involved with the podcast and talk all things Bath rental market. He gives meaningful insight into the growth the bath rental market has seen over the last decade and what this has meant for the market, the growth in the average rent, difficulties landlords are facing and why we need more investment in the sector.

In this podcast Toby talks all things Bath Rental market. All the trends and statistics you could ask for are all here alongside more market insights further afield. If you wish to watch then please click the big red play button in the video attached below!