Blogs

Take-aways from National Residential Investment Conference

Today I have been talking about the rental market at this year’s sold out National Residential Investment Conference, held each year in London. Among other topics, in the spotlight during the course of the day was JLL’s recent research on the institutional (non-Ho...

Landlords beware - Don't believe everything you read!

A property management company that promised a guaranteed rental income to landlords, even if tenants failed to pay, has come under scrutiny from the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA). An advertisement running on the company website has been judged to be misl...

Ensuring your home is fit to live in

Here’s an interesting situation. In a recent case that ended up in the High Court, a tenant had signed a two year tenancy on a house and paid £34,000 in rent for the full term of the contract. After the tenant moved in, part of the front garden wall collapsed, blocki...

Wages and rents go up - but is that the whole picture?

Figures released today by the Office for National Statistics reveal that after almost a decade in the doldrums, wages are finally on an upward trend. Compared with a year earlier, says the BBC, wages excluding bonuses rose by 3.2%. This is the biggest rise since the ...

Government pledges to keep renters safe

On Friday, we were delighted to see the announcement from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government that it is going to carry out what it describes as a “wide-ranging review” of health & safety in the private rented sector. Local councils can alre...

How long will you wait to get your deposit back?

Nearly a fifth (18%) of tenants renting from private landlords say they have waited more than three months to get a deposit back, according to a survey carried out by the Nationwide. The average waiting time was found to be almost two months and the mortgage lender a...

What's the cost of renting versus buying?

You can now find out how much it would cost to rent a house in different parts of the country over a ‘lifetime of renting’ – assumed to be 50 years – thanks to a new Proptech tool designed by furnishing company Thomas Sanderson. This clever piece of software also co...

Longer tenancies - what do you think?

Longer tenancies have been in the news lately, with some build-to-rent providers offering tenants the option of a three-year contract instead of the standard six month or one year AST. The government picked up on the trend and recently consulted on the idea that al...

Landlords - could this be you?

Private landlords in the London Borough of Barnet are being offered a grant to help them bring empty homes back into use. Anyone who rents in London knows housing really is in short supply so its great to see a council bringing empty homes back into use as soon as ...

Could your phone keep you out of rent arrears?

Everyone tries to avoid falling into rent arrears. Sometimes it happens due to financial problems and sometimes it’s just a simple mistake. Rising rents in property hotspots are adding to the problem. But using a payment automation platform could make all the differe...