The summer is upon us and our July auctions are in full swing. We are now undertaking property valuations for entries into our next round of auctions taking place in September.
An auction can be an exciting and efficient way to sell or buy a property. If you need to sell quickly or want a guaranteed sale, then a sale by auction may be the best route. It used to be associated with repossessions, but is now growing in popularity as the best way of attracting maximum interest in a diverse range of properties.
If you're thinking about selling your property (residential, commercial, development
A cliff-top house in Torquay, which has been deemed officially uninhabitable, has sold at an auction for £33,500.
Torr Cottage had a starting price of £25,000 - even though it would normally sell for around £400,000. The property which was described as being in immaculate condition, sits on land which is prone to landslips.
Nearby Ridgemont House featured in national newspapers and on television because part of it has collapsed because of a landslip.
'Degree of risk'
Torr Cottage is yards from the edge of Oddicombe Cliffs in Torquay.
Torquay Council's prohibition order means it will not
Must be Sold, Spicerhaart’s auction wing, has been abruptly closed down in England after a fall in business. A notice on the Must be Sold website says only: “A new haart Auctions website is launching soon!”
The business, a joint venture with midlands auctioneer Graham Penny, will still be run in Wales by Spicerhaart, where it will be rebranded.
Must be Sold was started in 2008 and as its name suggests, specialises in properties ‘that must be sold’. It was running up to ten distressed property auctions a year in London, with others in Cardiff.
In a statement, Spicerhaart said it had “refocused
House prices are rising at their fastest annual rate for nearly three years, according to one of the UK's biggest mortgage lenders.
The Halifax said prices in the three months to the end of June were 3.7% higher than in the same quarter last year. That is the fastest rate of increase since August 2010.
The survey compares with a 1.9% annual increase reported by the Nationwide building society last week.
"Improved confidence in both the housing market and the economy, combined with a shortage of properties available for sale, appear to be pushing up house prices," said Martin Ellis, Halifax's
Deciding to buy a home is an exciting but nerve-racking step to take and one of the most apprehensive parts of the process is getting accepted for a mortgage.
Banks and building societies have tightened up their lending criteria considerably since the credit crunch hit, making them far less flexible when it comes to handing out loans.
But the good news is mortgage lending is on the way up again, with figures from the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) showing that total gross mortgage lending in May was 17% higher than a year earlier at £14.7billion.
A three bedroom mid terrace house in Wales, situated in the village of Nantymoel, roughly 10 miles from Bridgend town centre, was put up for auction last week with a guide price of zero.
As you may have guessed, the property is in a pretty sorry state - the auctioneers admitted they’d not even looked inside but believe it to be “little more than a shell requiring complete renovation”.
Nonetheless, it’s remarkable that a house could potentially be ‘sold’ for absolutely nothing, or even a few quid.
The ‘free house’, as it's been named by the press, is just the latest example of property madness
UK house prices rose again in June, increasing by 0.3%, according to the Nationwide building society.
The Nationwide said the rise was helped by the government's Funding for Lending Scheme, designed to bring down the cost of credit, and improving job prospects.
The annual rate of price growth rose to 1.9%, the fastest pace since September 2010. The increases means that the average house now costs £168,941. But Nationwide said there were few signs the housing supply was improving.
Robert Gardner, Nationwide's chief economist, said: "Demand for homes has been supported by further modest gains in
Home Owners and private sector landlords and tenants in Scotland could benefit from up £1,200 in funding towards the cost of installing energy efficiency measures from the Scottish Government, if a property’s Green Deal assessment recommends them.
Managed by the Energy Saving Trust, the scheme has funding for a wide variety of measures, including up to £500 for insulation measures, up to £400 for a boiler and up to £300 for other measures (such as glazing, LED lighting and heating controls).
You can apply online at www.greenhomescashback.org.uk or if you do not have an e-mail address or if you
The cost of renting a home in England and Wales rose again in May as tenants faced charges that were 3.5% higher than a year earlier, a survey has suggested.
Rents rose by 0.1% between April and May, although this was a smaller increase than during recent months.
LSL Property Services said that this meant the average rent was £737 a month - the third highest level on record.
The pace of rent changes varied in different regions, the data showed.
Tenants faced rent rises of 7.2% on average in London over the past year, with costs up by 5.2% in Wales, and up 4% in the north east of England. The
According to the latest figures, property prices are rising at their fastest pace last month since June 2010.
The report from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) showed that seasonally adjusted house price balance came in at +5, beating a forecast of +4 in a Reuters poll, and coming in at significantly above the balance of +1 recorded in April.
RICS argued that while the housing market had remained muted over the last three years, because of slow wage growth and austerity measures, factors such as the Bank of England’s Funding for Lending Scheme have improved the flow of credit
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