News from the Residential Property Investor, the bi-monthly magazine for RLA members other artilces from the October / November 03 issue RPI news archive

In brief - October / November 2003

A Great Yarmouth landlord has appeared in court to answer manslaughter charges following the death of two teenage tenants who had moved into his flat only two months before being killed by carbon monoxide poisoning. It was alleged this was caused by a faulty gas fire. Stanley Rogers, who was charged with Barry Stone who had fitted the fire, was released on conditional bail until the next hearing later this month.

How to fit condensing boilers, program room thermostats and use energy efficient lighting are among the topics covered in Energy efficiency in new housing, a new guide from the Energy Saving Trust (www.est.org.uk). Upgrading a residential flat from minimum standards of energy efficiency to the 'advanced' (AS1) level is estimated to save an average £58 a year in fuel bills, said EST.

Granada Meridian is looking for landlords willing to share stories of problem tenants for a programme it is putting together about tenants from hell for ITV1. A previous programme featured the experiences of landlords who had had their lives turned upside down by bad tenants. Landlords willing to share their less than happy letting experiences are invited to contact assistant producer Katrina Boyd ­ email: Katrina.boyd@granadamedia.com, telephone: 020 7633 2617.

London local authorities should acquire as well as build more homes for rent in both outer London and the home counties, a report from the 'centre left' think tank, the Institute for Public Policy Research, has suggested. Successive governments have ignored the consequences of growing housing poverty, it charged. This has included an increasing divide 'between people living in the North and in the South East and between the home owning majority and people who rent'.

Proximity to a good state school boosts property prices by an average 12 per cent, according to the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. The premium is not constant, however, the highest average being 16 per cent in the West Midlands. 'Good state schools are a deciding factor for many house buyers', said RICS housing spokesman Jeremy Leaf.

An estimated 29,000 hectares of brownfield land (almost 72,000 acres) is available for redevelopment as housing, according to latest figures from the National Land Use Database of Previously Developed Land. Although most of this land was vacant or contained derelict buildings, it also included land in productive use but known to be potentially available for redevelopment.

Homestagers, the not wholly disinterested 'home styling and property staging company' has come up with survey results suggesting that 42 per cent of house sellers would consider spending up to £940 to make their properties more saleable. Some 89 per cent of house buyers said the outside appearance of houses was a 'very important' factor in their property searches.

Spiralling house prices have triggered the biggest ever boom in the rentals market, according to Belvoir, a company, which manages a national portfolio of properties valued at more than £1bn. A 40 per cent increase in lettings during the past 12 months 'reflects the difficulties that many people are experiencing in trying to buy their first home', said the Lincolnshire based company's chief executive Mike Goddard. He also pointed to 'an entirely new generation of landlords' in their 30s and 40s and with portfolios of just one or two properties. 'As more orthodox pension funds continue to perform poorly, we believe there will be an even greater increase in this sector of the buy to let market', he said.
 

other artilces from the October / November 03 issue

• The news is...tenants can be ruthless too
• Leaseholders gain right of challenge
• In brief
• Rental demand moves ahead
• Deposit action urged
• Summer leaves insurers with that sinking feeling
• HMO properties go missing
• Mould warning
• Remortgaging to boost returns