The number of people buying their first home with a mortgage dropped to its lowest level in 10 years in 2023, as rising interest rates and inflation made it harder to afford a property. According to Yorkshire Building Society, only 290,000 first-time buyers secured a mortgage last year, a 21% decrease from the previous year. […]

The housing crisis has sparked a wave of ‘creative resistance’ from renters who are using music, video games and novels to vent their anger and frustration, the Guardian reports. In Manchester, a record label has challenged musicians to create an alternative soundtrack for a promotional video of a luxury apartment block. The original video showed […]

I am considering gifting my annexe accommodation to terminally ill people as a holiday, referred to me by a charity that only does this. This is only a potential issue, as it has not happened yet! What if the charity introduced a person to stay in my annexe and at the end of the week’s […]

Does anyone have experience with mechanical heat recovery ventilation units? I have a top floor flat with 2 bedrooms facing north, and a kitchen and sitting room facing south. The outside walls of the bedrooms mainly the north-facing walls suffer from condensation and the humidity level at the moment is reading about 67 which is […]

A landlord who provides homes to hundreds of homeless benefit tenants says council licensing schemes are making rents rocket and forcing people onto the streets. Mick Roberts, Nottingham’s biggest private provider for this group, told the Nottingham Post that he has decades of experience in the sector but blames Nottingham City Council’s licensing schemes for […]

The government’s flagship legislation for the private rented sector (PRS), the Renters (Reform) Bill, is still in limbo, with many amendments and challenges ahead, says one industry expert. Neil Cobbold, the managing director of PayProp UK, says the Bill, has faced delays and opposition from various parties and is unlikely to become law before the […]

Huddersfield has emerged as the UK’s house price hotspot in 2023, with an average increase of 8.7%, according to Halifax. The West Yorkshire town saw its average property value rise by £22,137 to £253,301 over the year, defying the national trend of slowing growth. Halifax, which based its findings on its mortgage approval data, said […]

Will landlords bail out in 2024 as the Renters (Reform) Bill gets closer or will we stick it out for our tenants? I only ask because this is the time of year to come up with resolutions. I’ve explained at length that the Bill effectively transfers the control of a rented property to the tenant. […]

The last Nationwide House Price index for 2023 shows a fall in the market of 1.8% over the last year with the average Uk house price for December at £257,443 However, outperforming the rest of the UK, Northern Ireland was up 4.5% and Scotland up 0.5% last year. Nationwide’s Chief Economist, Robert Gardner, commented: “UK […]

Nearly all prime housing markets in the UK have experienced an easing in price falls over the final quarter of 2023, Savills reveals. This comes after a turbulent year when prime regional house prices fell by just -0.8% in the quarter, an improvement on the -1.5% seen in both Q2 and Q3 2023. This leaves […]

A homeless charity is urging the Government to unfreeze the Local Housing Allowance (LHA) rates immediately in a bid to reduce the rising number of homeless people on London’s streets. The Single Homeless Project, the largest charity dedicated to helping Londoners in crisis, wants action to prevent homelessness for up to 17,500 Londoners it says […]

With many renters in the UK struggling to become homeowners, the TSB has unveiled first-time buyer mortgages to help. The lender has carried out research and found that 35% of non-homeowners had no plans to purchase a property ever, and only 29% hoped to do so within five years. The main barriers for renters buying […]

Landlords in Brighton and Hove face a £500 fine if they fail to carry out work to improve their properties. Brighton and Hove council will issue ‘improvement notices’ to any landlord in the area whose property does not meet the required standards. The council say the measure is being taken as part of their work […]

2023 was a difficult year for many people, with rising interest rates and falling property prices. Many people expected a property crash which did not happen in fact, prices went up in the last few months of 2023, but what will happen in 2024? In this brand new video, I look at what happened this […]

Three-quarters (74%) of residential buy to let landlords say they are confident about the performance of the private rented sector (PRS) over the next 12 months, a survey reveals. The findings from The Mortgage Lender (TML) also found that 27% of landlords felt very confident about the sector’s future. The survey reveals that landlords who […]

As we are about to start 2024, we would like to invite you to a high-value, but no-cost, online Master Class, all about the fastest way to make money from property in 2024. If you already own investment property you really need to watch this training today, to learn how you can significantly increase your […]

UK mortgage approvals are expected to decline by 24% in 2023 compared to the previous year, research reveals. According to a study by GetAgent.co.uk, the research analysed monthly mortgage approvals over the past five years and found that between January and October 2023, an average of 47,602 mortgages were approved per month. The annual total […]

Hello, I have a situation where I was preparing a property for rent and the builder passed a copy of the keys to the neighbour who was their friend, to allow carpet fitters to attend the property. The neighbour then indicated that their daughter would like to rent the property. I agreed in principal, subject […]

More than 1,000 enforcement notices were handed to landlords under one city’s selective licensing schemes. In three areas where 1,515 private rented properties are licensed, 500 compliance inspections were carried out. In a report to help support an application to expand the number of selective licensing schemes, officers from Manchester City Council carried out compliance […]

A new survey reveals that landlords in England and Wales are worried about the upcoming changes in the rental market – and the abolition of Section 21 evictions is their biggest fear for 2024. That’s according to Zero Deposit after 1,042 landlords were questioned and most of them (89%) have between one and three properties […]

A housing charity claims that the number of illegal evictions in England has hit a record high but less than 1% of landlords are convicted, the Observer reports. The article says that landlords are increasingly evicting tenants illegally and with little fear of punishment. In 2022, the housing charity Safer Renting says there was a […]