Senior economist predicts house price crash of between 20 to 50%

There are lots of rural areas which in the 60s no-one wanted to move to because there are no jobs, that have increased in price ten-fold when the second-homers came along.

These parts of the country are not a valid model for the rest of the housing market.

tim

In message , "tim (in sweden)" writes

Sorry for being repetitive - I thought you were looking to buy property to rent, (but you would have said let wouldnt you ).

Both the agents I use tend to suggest asking rents between £25 and £50 above that which I might accept, (this is at the £400 and £700 per month levels).

As to the agents terms and charges, I am not sure what these are....

Credit checks/Vetting Setting up the tenancy, (I wonder what the landlord is paying for)

As I said - my flats in Manchester let very quickly - at rents higher than I ever expected, so demand may be good, (here).

I suppose you could try and find an agent whose charges and terms arent so onerous, and see what they've got. You could also negotiate and walk away from a few deals. If the former doesnt have good properties, and you walk away from more than two or three in the latter case, you've got the answer.

In message , Jim Ley writes

I cant believe they let you go. It's very short sighted as a landlord, unless they have always got a new tenant to takeover at a higher rent, (r the agent gets paid for setting up the new agreement, or finding a new tenant! The latter relies on the landlord being ignorant, and the agent being a shark - possibly the situation in many cases.

Sorry - No.

Regds

Well I do tend to walk due to the hassle from the agent, after telling the landlord, so I'm sure the landlord would've been willing to negotiate me staying - but it's all the hassle from renting that is the problem.

I'd suggest this tends to be the case, all my landlords have tended to just have the 1 or 2 properties for some reason - but again you can't know what the landlord is until you've invested loads of time finding somewhere.

Jim.

I don't really see much chance to negotiate on the charges.

But on the Terms of the lease I do. However to do this requires the 'help' of the landlord and I don't see many getting that involved.

You almost get the impression from the agent that they would rather lose the deal than change the terms, after all it isn't their money they are negotiating with

In a small town with only three agents there isn't much 'walking' one can do!

tim

You've seen the same posts on ul as me Richard. It does happen.

tim

The thing you seem to be missing is that, "The Country", you speak of is not the same country I speak of. I get the impression you are calling The UK a country but it is a political union of four countries. So talking about the UK as a country makes things a bit awkward.

Scottish Law is also rather different to that of England. English and Welsh law is the same though. Prices in Scotland do tend to follow a different pattern with the Capital, Edinburgh, being the next most expensive part of the UK outside of London. Then the Highland and Borders country sporting estates fetch high prices but you get a lot for your money. However there are many towns and villages across the Central Belt, The Borders and right up the East Coast where really nice properties are a great deal cheaper than in most areas of England. This is probably why the largest country for immigrants into Scotland is England.

you seem to have forgotten to turn pedant mode on and off.

HTH

tim

Much like humans

No. In case it escaped your notice there was a very good reason for pointing the difference out to you. Scots law in regard to property dealings is different from England/Wales. This actually covers a lot more than you may think. Let me give a small but important difference for you. If the buyer and seller verbally agree a price then, in Scots law, that is a legally binding contract and can be upheld in the court. We thus don't get, " Gazumped", in Scotland. There are different rules for Estate Agents too. There was a very recent change in Scots law but as you seem to think I'm being pedantic I won't bother telling you about it.

The landlord is also liable for council tax if the rental term is less than 6 months. I did an IT contractor a favour once by letting for a 3 month minimum - he was sure his contract was going to be extended for longer but for some reason he moved on and it was hardly worth me renting at all as I ended up paying the council tax, gas and electicity on the property during that period plus a load of admin work.

Beyond that the only time my tenants here from me is when they need something fixing, replacing or upgrading.

Unfortunately this is called market forces in a capitalist economy and adjustments can either be up or down depending on the local market. That said I would not put up the rent within the first 12 months and for good tenants would probably wait quite a bit longer. I also return deposits if my property is returned in reasonable order but I'm pretty fair minded and possibly don't need the money or bad karma as much as some landlords.

It is true that in some European Countries rent increases are tightly controlled. An example being France where a government body says how much you can increase your rents each year for a property that is lived in. The result (along with a lot of other legislation to protect tenants) is that there are thousands of empty properties in towns like Paris (over 100,000 to be exact) and thousands of homeless people as property owners would prefer to leave properties vacant than rent. The government has made noises about seizing vacant properties but this appears to be bluster.

The easiest thing from a landlord's viewpoint is to have a gardener come around once a month and factor this into the rent if the local market will stand it.

Exactly! Let me show one very good reason for a pet dog becoming a bit obsessed by food. Dogs are pack animals and when we adopt one it sees itself as part of our family pack. The dog pack rules are that the pack leader gets first choice from the kill. It walks in the front of the pack and it has first choice of where it sleeps.

So what does the human who has adopted it do? The human feeds the dog first - it thinks it is the pack leader. Even worse the human may take a morsel from its plate and give it to the dog. The human may even take a morsel from its mouth and give it to the dog. The dog thus sees itself as the pack leader and will attempt to reinforce this by eating when it really would not bother otherwise. Big dogs only need one meal per day.

Then the human may even put the dog in the human's bed thus reinforcing the dog's leadership belief. Then the human wonders why they cannot train the dog to walk on a lead without the dog pulling all the way. If you make it leader of the pack it wants to walk in front as the leader should.

Then the human wonders why the family pet turns on someone who it thinks is attempting to become the new leader of the pack., (like, for example, a child picking up a bit of food, or a child sitting in the dog's bed).

It would be wouldn't it.

I've never seen it happen (It used to be that case that people wrote in the contract that the tentant was obliged to keep the garden to a reasonable horticultural standard. Fortunately, UTICC has stopped that.)

tim

It has? How?

In what way would you, as a tenant, deem it "unfair" to be required to look after a garden you are renting as part of the house?

Confine your answer to the simple case of a detached house in its own grounds, so that neighbour issues with semis and blocks of flats don't cloud the issue.

Eh? Are you sure? Source?

In any case, you should arrange matters so that if CT and utilities are going on your own account, then the rent should be beefed up to compensate.

You should have gone for a standard 6 month contract together with a gentleman's agreement that if he wanted to leave 3 months early you would not hold him to what would otherwise be his obligation to pay for the remaining 3 months.

Fundamental issue; Its hard to see the point of the HPC messages, if you arent meant to do anything as a result of them,and if you do, you are accused of being 'money obsessed' !!! Its the HPC people who are 'money obsessed' continually harping on about forthcoming crashes in prices,and economies, continually recycling the same messages by people with no confidence in their own so-called predictions.

Arent they usually '6 months' to start and then variable? Can you not do the first 6 months and then do a -per-month contract after that? I have a friend on exactly that, he is now on the per month. It also occurs to me that once you have done the 6 month period, if they want another 6 month, you would be a good position to negotiate for a one monthly (or shorter term than 6 months) since you'd have a good payment record and theatening to move out would cause them an issue anyway, due to the payment gap that will ineviatbly occur between your departure and the new tenant.

They are entitled to expect that you look after it, i.e keep it tidy.

They aren't entitled to expect that their prized plants are still in 'competition' standard, or even still alive.

Is this am exam question?

tim