The Great Estate Agent Cull??

Bit of Friday fun. Well, it made me laugh anyway.

 "Estate Agent culling in the United Kingdom is being trialled as a way to reduce Estate Agent numbers in a set area, in the hope of controlling the spread of smarmy overused adjectives. Humans can catch the flagrant overuse of superfluous adjectives, but public health control measures, including the English Language education vaccine mean it is not a significant risk to human health. 

The disease affects car salesmen and other high street conmen (including bankers, a small subsection of letting agents, double glazing salesmen, insurance salesmen, and llamas), and some species of town based wildlife including Estate Agents, mortgage brokers and a few members of the general public. Geographically, the use of pointless adjectives has spread from isolated pockets in the late 1980s to cover large areas of the west and south-west of England and Wales in the 2010s. Some people believe this correlates with the lack of Estate Agent control.

In October 2013, culling in England was controversially trialled in two pilot areas in Birmingham and in Hertfordshire. The main aim of these trials was to assess the humaneness of culling using "free shooting" (previous methods trapped the Estate Agents in cages before shooting them). The trials were repeated in 2014. In August 2015 it was announced culling would be rolled out across the Greater London Area with a target of 615 to 835 Estate Agents being culled there, while also being continued in Birmingham and Hertfordshire. 

Licences were granted to allow six weeks of continuous culling in the three counties until 31 January. In December 2015, HMRC released documents confirming the Estate Agent cull had "met government targets" with 756 muppets culled in Greater London, 432 in Birmingham and 279 in Hertfordshire. As of December 2015, there is no UK-wide policy of Estate Agent culling, however due to public pressure the government is currently reviewing its standpoint on the issue." 

Adapted from the Wikipedia page on the controversial (and serious) issue of Badger culling. St Albans could certainly nominate a few candidates I'm sure.

Fire Safety in Properties

When it comes to property, there are definitely risks - most of us look at the financial aspects when it comes to looking at our homes and investments, but the physical risks are quite obviously a factor as well. We've all seen the adverts and the promotion about house fires and the importance of alarms in recent years, and anyone who has seen a burned out house may think it's something that can never happen to them.

The fire statistics published by the Home Office on the 29th June 2016 covering the reported cases in 2014/2015 amass to roughly 496,000 incidents, of which six percent were related to dwellings - which equates to 31,300 homes affected by fire.

The most dangerous room in your house for a fire?  The living or dining room, believe it or not! And you're most at risk if you smoke in the property or if you're over 60, according to the statistics on fatalities in house fires during this period. Perhaps unsurprisingly, misuse of cooking appliances accounts for a huge number of casualties and fire related incidents every year. The most common time of day for a fire to break out?  The evening, between 4pm and 10pm. There were 7,600 casualties attributed to fire related incidents in England in 2014/2015.

We need to take note of this information, and assist our fire departments in reducing the number of fires that break out - their work has seen a massive reduction in the number of fires and fire related deaths since 2003, but there's still more we can do to ensure our homes and investments are fire safe. I spoke to Ben Cornish from Red & White Fire Protection to get the inside track on what we need to look out for to not only stay compliant, but more importantly stay safe;

"There are several important pieces of legislation which impact on fire safety within dwellings" says Ben.

"Some affect all dwellings irrespective of the layout or how it is occupied. Some legislation only applies to dwellings which are occupied by tenants who are unrelated or only applies to certain parts of the building."

Ben offered a list of legislation, which we'd like to share with you below. 

"Depending on the type of property and how it is occupied some or all of the following will apply."

A. Building Regulations 2010 Part B.

Application - all dwellings where any significant building work is carried out.

B. Housing Health & Safety Rating System ("HHSRS")

Fire is included in the 29 hazards covered by the system introduced by Housing Act 2004.

Application - this applies all dwellings, rented or private.

C. The Smoke and Carbon Monoxide Alarm (England) Regulations 2015

This applies to all rented dwellings.

D. Fire Safety Order - [The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order2005]

See the guidance on Fire Safety in purpose-built flats.

See the guidance for common parts of bedsits and converted flats in LACORS guide.

Application - common parts (i.e. the shared areas including shared stairways, landings, kitchens, bathrooms etc.) of dwelling buildings containing in bedsits and flats both converted and purpose built.

Ben goes on to add a little further information regarding smaller dwellings;

"If a flat is occupied as bedsits there are two sets of common parts within the building. The first is the shared access route to the flat front door and other is the shared areas within the flat e.g. hallway, shared kitchen, bathroom etc - in that instance, both areas would require risk rating."

"But, remember it does not apply to shared houses let on a joint tenancy, unless it's an HMO (House in Multiple Occupation) in which case it does apply"

We've linked above to the relevant documents so you can read for yourself - as you can see, it's a minefield of legislation and while the danger may be slim, as a landlord or a property owner it is your responsibility to ensure the property, it's fixtures and fittings and contents are fire safe - in the event of a fire, you'd need to be able to prove that you took all the necessary steps to prevent it.

If you're confused or unsure of your obligations when it comes to fire safety, our recommendation is that you do not take chances and do everything you can to make sure you're compliant, and part of that should be contacting either myself directly so that I can put you in touch, or go straight to Ben to conduct a comprehensive fire safety review.

Stay stafe, and make sure you're compliant.

How times have changed...

Inspired by a post I saw on Facebook where a Lettings Agency colleague shared an article about the cost of living in 1974 published by The Guardian, I was spurred on to have a look at the differences between then and now, particularly in terms of housing.

In a recent radio interview with BBC Three Counties on the Roberto Perrone show, I was part of a panel of property experts discussing the state of the British housing market, and in particular how it affects the local area.  We were on air on the day of the Brexit vote, and so we couldn't discuss that particular elephant in the room, but one thing came up with didn't sit right with me - "When I bought my first house, it was just as hard as it is now." It seemed tinged with pomposity and self righteousness, and seemed to belittle the struggle of anyone who might be pushing forth toward their dream of owning their own home, no matter how modest that may be.

At the time, I didn't have the figures to hand, and statistical analysis is a tough game to be in - as they say, you can say anything with facts - and indeed many factors go into comparing one period in time with another, however I've wanted to look at this for a while and this article gave me the impetus to do a little research.

Recently an online battle between Baby Boomers and Millenials (personally I sit between the two in terms of generational age so I get to see the whole debate from a unique viewpoint) as to whether it really is just as hard now as it was then has erupted with each side slinging accusations at the other. The younger generation feel that their elders managed to get rich on a booming housing market, and had an easy route in to generating great wealth, which they're now enjoying in their golden years, some in great luxury. And the older generation feel they had to work hard, and live on very little in order to get where they are, and they sometimes view the younger generation with scorn and disdain for being idle thrillseekers with little concept of what hard graft really means. Who is right here? It's true to say that not everyone agrees with either camp, but the bitter aftertaste is there - the younger wondering why they cant have what their parents and grandparents enjoy, and sitting in baffled bemusement about how they're supposed to get there, and the older generations scoffing at the impetuous comments of coasting millenials.

Here are the facts I managed to dig up - bear in mind i'm not a member of MENSA or some kind of mathematician, but I think you'll agree the results are certainly interesting. The Guardian Article cites the average house price in 1976 as £12,704 and the average wage of £72 per week - that works out to £3,744 per annum. Based on that, the average wage made up 29.47% of the average house price. The annual average interest rate was 6.8%. Fast forward to 2016, the average wage is £27,600 and the average house price is £211,230 (Land Registry, May 2016) which means the average uk wage is now just 13.06% of the average house price. Interest rates are 0.5%.

That's a decrease of 55.68% in the purchasing power of modern wages against those of the populace in 1976. Yes, borrowing is far cheaper when you isolate interest rates, however access to borrowing is much tighter than it has been for years thanks to the banks ruining the economy in 2007/2008. Not only this but look at the population figures - 56.21 million people lived in the UK in 1976, versus 65.11 million in 2016 - an increase in population of 15%. When you add in to the mix a scarcity of property, you end up with inflated house prices.

That all seems to point to the fact that todays first time buyers have got it far harder than those who went house hunting back in 1976 - more competition, harder to get a bank to lend to you, larger mortgage payments and greater in terms of length to keep those payments down. It's a frightening set of statistics, but it's important when looking at statistics like these to understand that 'averages' don't paint the whole picture, and the ease/difficulty will have differed depending on where you lived, what work was available, infrastructure, transport, daily living costs - all of these things play a part. It has to be noted that the country had over 1 million people unemployed, the economy was in the toilet and there were massive public sector strikes, as well as one of the hottest summers on record. Incidentally, it was also the year that Ford Fiesta was first produced - hence the picture.

Anyway, perhaps the sad reality is that owning a home now is something that will simply never happen for a lot of people without making some heavy sacrifices elsewhere in their lifestyle, and they may find themselves renting for life. It's up to us all to work to change the tide away from 'generation rent' if we think it's important to us as a nation. It does have severe implications - young families renting won't be in a position to remortgage to cover nursing home costs, or take in elderly relatives. If you're wise and invest in property now and push to become a Landlord, you can probably rest assured that you won't be short of tenants - or nursing home funds - for a long time yet.

You can read The Guardian article by Viv Gorskop here

Photographical science, dear Watson

 Since I started Hawk & Chadwick I’ve always had a bee in my bonnet about Estate Agents and their god awful pictures. Just go look on any major portal right now and I’m willing to bet my left kidney that within the top 10-15 listings you’ll find photographs that appear to have be taken by somebody who forgot their orthopaedic shoes when they left for work that morning. 

 It’s infuriating because when you think of the service you expect when marketing your property with a local professional, you’d be well within your rights to be outraged if they can’t even operate a camera and show up without a tripod. Equally you should be outraged by third party image manipulation with clearly false blue skies being pasted into the background of dreary images. 

 I know I might sound like a grumpy old man, but the fact of the matter is we are now working in an environment where the first thing a potential buyer or tenant is going to see is a photograph of the front of your house, or possibly one of the internal rooms. They will make a split second decision on whether to view your property based on that image, and so it has to be bloody good to catch their attention.

 Let me explain why that is the case. When our eyes our open, our vision accounts for two-thirds of the electrical activity of the brain. Approximately 40% all nerve fibres connected to the brain are linked to the retina, and more of our neurons are dedicated to vision than the other four senses combined. And as if that’s not nearly enough, your brain processes visuals and images 60,000 times faster than it does text. Now you know why an image is worth 1000 words. 

 When you extend this biological predisposition for visual stimuli into the screen-ruled social media world we live in with far more people walking into lamp posts than ever before, it starts to really add up. Recent studies found that nearly half of all Internet users have re-posted a photo or video they have found online, and Tweets with embedded images receive 150 percent more retweets – same for Facebook posts that are image rich. Agents who post social media content with relevant images get 94 percent more views than content without images. 

 The bottom line is that strong imagery elicits an emotional response in the viewer. So to be all dandy about it, what I do as a photographer of your home is to convey that homeliness and that sense of warmth, comfort, attraction, safety and the welcoming nature of home to the observer (who hopefully will later become an enquirer, a viewer and then a tenant or buyer) – of course, there is a large amount of that which depends on who that person is and their purposes and mindset when viewing the photograph, but looking at the scientific data mentioned earlier it absolutely stands to reason that putting in the effort required to present your home smartly and professionally and with the absolute best quality images available is what I like to call a No Brainer.  
 And listen, I’m not about to fly into some uber-technical tirade about the Rule of thirds, The Golden ratio, the Fibonacci sequence or something else that sounds like a Dan Brown novel. Yes, those techniques exist and yes they’re relevant but the main thing to take away from this is that just having images is good, but it’s not enough. High quality and attention to detail within your images, and how they are presented to the general public (i.e. the people who ultimately will be the key to your financial advancement) is VITAL to succeeding in a marketplace where you’re trying to attract the buyer that’s thinking of buying your neighbour’s house across the street. You need Every. Single. Competitive. Advantage. 

 Start with excellent pictures. Then pick an agent who has a verified track record of success in using them.

I'll just do my own inventory

Let me start by just telling you what an incredibly bad idea that is.  No, really - it's the worst idea you've had, ever. Doing your own inventory for your property can only be compared to attempting skydiving without instruction, or attempting to fly a helicopter after a heavy absinthe binge - possibly even lion taming while blindfolded and wearing a meat coat.

The problem is, you might be lucky and have a situation where nothing happens - you might even have ran tenancies for years without any problems, but to coin a term - one swallow does not a summer make.

For those who haven't a clue what I'm on about, let me explain something. When a tenant agrees to rent a property, the landlord will often make a reasonable effort to give the property to their new tenant in a good condition - clean, freshly decorated and in a generally operable and liveable condition. Many tenants do their best to look after this and return things in a pretty good state, but there's always been this grey area - is it like a hotel room, or do i treat it like my own house?  Hmmmm....

Now without getting into the legal semantics and boring the pants off everyone lets just say that the way it works in 2016 is that a tenant pays a deposit (usually between 1-2 months worth of rent) to the landlord who holds the money against any damage and returns it at the end of the tenancy - the deposit has to go into an approved scheme and be properly protected.

"So who decides what's damaged and what isn't? Surely things wear out over time?"

Exactly, young gwasshopper. That's what the inventory is for - you have to hold some kind of record of what it was like at the start, in order to be able to prove that there is a difference at the end - savvy?

So what happens if you write your own inventory on the back of a fag packet - well, besides obviously missing things out and ending up with a huge tangled mess when you get to the end and your tenant turns out to be a qualified solicitor or a housing officer....or worse a letting agent....the other problem you have is impartiality (which, incidentally, is why getting your letting agent to do your inventories is equally daft) because you can be accused of twisting things in your favour.

So what's the solution? Well, as usual being the author of this article I get to have the pompous self righteousness to dole out advice as I see fit, but in all sincerity the best option you have is to approach an AIIC qualified inventory clerk and have a robust detailed inventory carried out on your property.

The level of detail will ensure that far from having to resolve disputes at the end, there simply won't be any - if you leave no margin for error and no grey area, then there can be no argument and everything will be fully signed and squared away meaning you and the tenant can walk away at the end without a bad word between you.

An inventory clerk also takes note of things such as meter readings, ensuring you and your tenant aren't paying more than you should be for utilities and bills when tenancies change. It keeps everything in the open, documented and very fair.

Having a hyper detailed inventory also compels the tenant to look after your property and to report and problems promptly. It's just one of the many ingredients that go in to making managing property a breeze rather than a headache.

Another hidden benefit is if you are able to file away your inventories you can look back and create budget projections for the replacement of larger items, meaning you can really nail down your cash flow and start thinking very clearly about allocating budgets which will allow you to expand your portfolio.

For every tenancy I put in place, I insist on using a fully qualified inventory clerk - yes, sometimes our clients choose to save money and do their own, and yes sometimes it goes without a hitch and they escape any bad weather - but it's a risk I certainly wouldn't take if I had the option, and in the property game where risks should be eliminated, it would seem counter intuitive to adopt more exposure.

So there we are, don't be an inexperienced lion tamer - and don't let pride come before a fall (sorry, that was a terrible pun) - it's only going to cost you money if you don't use a professional, and for the sake of less than £150.00, that's not a lot to protect you from deposit disputes at the end of your next tenancy.

Precedent set as letting agent loses referencing court case

I've just read a really interesting article by Warren Lewis from Property Reporter that should be of significant interest to Landlords regarding the level of references undertaken by agents when submitting tenants to a property.

What I find interesting, and yet deeply saddening, is that this is rife throughout the industry - the agent in this instance clearly believes that they can just sit back and let a third party company do all of the checks and they needn't lift a finger, but the comedy in all of this is that the agent is the responsible party who is supposedly a professional offering an often expensive service to landlords.

Is your letting agent checking your tenants thoroughly, or will YOU be left with an £8000 bill and a court case to fight?  Don't be the loser, use somebody who does it properly - if not, you've only got yourself to blame for not checking out the agent you picked.

Bigger isn't always better, in fact it almost always guarantees that the jobsworth handling your property won't have the experience, knowledge or care enough to thoroughly check things with attention to detail to filter out dodgy tenants who know their way around the system.

It's your property, your risk - but I wouldn't gamble lightly with it.

A New Way To Think About Homelessness

Before I launch into writing this I want to first extend my thanks to all of the staff and volunteers associated with the various charities and St Albans Cathedral who took part and stayed awake all night to make sure sponsored charity sleepers were safe in challenging and chilly conditions. A big thank you also to our nominated charity Centre 33 and to all those who took part.

On Friday 4th December it was a relatively mild night as December evenings go. I had spent most of the afternoon, as the light faded, packing a small rucksack that I usually take with me on my longer walks in the countryside, with a few extra provisions. Before leaving the house it was the threat of cold that worried me most as I knew from my formative days of late night escapades in the pubs of the town that, even in the summer months, the temperature drops dramatically in the small hours until dawn. As a result, my little back was rammed full of extra jumpers, gloves, hats and kit you might expect a climber on Mt Everest to be using, not somebody bedding down for a night on the grass in an affluent market town in Hertfordshire.

I was wearing five layers and had a belly full of hot pasta when I left the house at 8.30pm and drove towards my open air hotel for the evening. I parked my car in St Michael's village and walked through Verulamium Park. The park was dark, deserted and the solitude allowed me to consider the very real feeling of being alone in the dark without a warm abode or a bed awaiting me later on - this alone is quite an eerie feeling. Clutching my sleeping bag under my arm, I pushed on towards The Fighting Cocks and then up the hill to the Abbey itself which was fully lit and a welcoming sight after the dark depths of the lake at the bottom of the hill.

Upon arriving the scene was bustling with volunteers who all appeared to be in good spirits, swapping tips to keep warm and some already within the grounds building cardboard cities and shelters on a surprisingly large scale! Registration was inside the Refectory in the new chapter house, and was filled with people of all ages carrying sleeping bags, paperwork and kitted out in anything from extreme survival gear to animal 'onesies'. The refectory was to be open all night serving tea, coffee, soup, biscuits, sandwiches and was staffed by volunteers.

After registration I was slowly roasting inside my cocoon of layers so I set out to find a spot which later presented itself at the very far end of the cathedral grounds, just on the south eastern corner of the abbey gateway. Another group arrived and helped me to make the best use of the space, and they also brought with them some cardboard and plastic sheeting to defend against the innate damp and seeping cold lodged in the ground.

The first 3 or so hours were reasonably pleasant, with a good level of interaction with people around us and, when sitting on cardboard, the wind gusting up to 25mph only posed a problem inasmuch as if anything wasn't nailed down it would inevitably be blown away and would require a frantic chase - this of course renders you rather warm and well deserving of a sit down.

I will say now that I cannot even begin to suggest that I understand what being homeless is like. I cannot say with any conviction that my experience entitles me to speak for anyone in such a situation - all I can put forth is that I now have a slightly greater understanding of the hidden elements of the reality of the experience. For me, the cold wasn't really a problem - I had many layers and I was inside a very warm sleeping bag, tucked into a large plastic bag (kindly donated by a neighbouring sleeper) on top of a cardboard box. The temperature didn't affect me, and in honesty the location wasn't terribly uncomfortable either, save for the constant gusts of wind which were at times quite frightening.

The worst element of this was the constant interruption of sleep, whether it is from the wind whipping at the plastic sheeting or my face, passing cars and people, chattering voices and laughter nearby - it's a constant psychological assault, and it really brings home the fact that it's hard enough to get some sleep in a controlled charity sleep out event where you know that the following day you can be in your own bed.....now imagine coping with little or broken sleep on an empty stomach, or when ill with cold, flu or a more serious illness, not knowing if you're safe from robbery or violence, not knowing if you'll be woken to be 'moved on' or urinated on by passing drunken revellers who assume it might be amusing.

I am the type of person who prefers darkness, quiet, and moderate temperatures in order to get a good night's sleep. during my school days as a cadet I have taken part in night exercises where we "slept" (we didn't sleep at all!) outdoors on frozen ground in temperatures of -4 degrees C. That was hard, it was cold, but we were mentally prepared and we knew it would be over the next day.

This occasion it wasn't so cold out of the wind, but I can't stress enough at how much the psychological impact of constant interruptions to your sleep could quite easily break you down - and imagining that night after night, with no end in sight, in addition to being invisible to society. And the problem becomes apparent when 'society' doesn't want the homeless on their streets and employ methods such as spikes in doorways and encouraging police to move the homeless out of town centres and away from residents homes. Imagine the feeling of your former peers and neighbours wishing you gone without a second thought.

In the end I made it through most of the night, and managed to wolf down a cup of tea and a festive turkey and cranberry sandwich from the refectory before gathering my things and staggering off to my car for the zombified drive home and subsequent collapse into my bed. I did sadly end up with a bout of flu and fever which lasted until Sunday which I think was coming on any was so perhaps it was my own stupid fault for taking part when I might have been better calling it off, but I'm glad to say I've now recovered and I feel that I have a slightly deeper insight into homelessness, although I know it's just the tip of the iceberg and I've barely scratched the surface.

I thoroughly recommend taking part in the sleepout. It's a great event, it's fun, it's interesting, it's exciting and it really does open your eyes to a whole world of experience that you might not otherwise have known about. My top tips for making it through the night are;

1. A good sleeping bag and warm clothing are a must.
2. Collect cardboard and plastic sheets and take it with you. Cardboard is a readily available source of insulation and is incredibly portable. You'll need one to put your head in, and a flattened one for the ground. The plastic sheets go under the cardboard as a sort of damp proof course, and also around your sleeping bag to stop rain and dew making everything soaking wet!
3. Go with at least two other people or join another group if you're alone. Make sure you get there early to stake out a good spot that is out of the wind. It's more fun as a group and you can keep an eye on each other too.
4. Take plenty of warm clothing, particularly gloves, hats, scarves and make sure your ears are covered.
5. It's only one night, but having some basics with you will make it more comfortable - small packable items such as water, chocolate, oaty snack bars, fruit juice, and things such as plastic bags for rubbish will make your life easier on the night.
6. Enjoy yourself! The event has a serious message, but if you come along, take part and have fun it will be infectious and encourage more people to take part, which means more money raised for the charities where it will be put to good use in a serious way.

I hope this has helped give you a little insight on the Sleep Out 2015 and encourages you to take part next year.

If you missed the chance to donate and would like to do so, you might just be the key to us getting to our target of £500 raised for Centre 33. You can donate by following the link here.  If you donate via PayPal, they will donate 1% to match your donation, and if you DO donate, please 'Gift Aid' your donation so that the charity can claim back the tax! We are also fundraising through Virgin Giving rather than JustGiving since Virgin are a non-for-profit organisation meaning our chosen charity gets more of the money you donate.

Finally, a MASSIVE THANK YOU to everyone who supported me in doing this. You're going to put a smile on a lot of faces that otherwise might not have had one this Christmas. You're amazing. Thank you.