Public sector land sell off welcomed, but private housebuilders also have role to play Recent news that the Government plans to sell enough land to accommodate 100,000 homes by 2015, released first by the Homes and Communities Agency and then hopefully by the Ministry of Defence and Defra, should be warmly welcomed. This should, however, also come with the caveat that the land is made available to both private and affordable housing landlords at a range of prices, so as not to price affordable housing developers out of the market. However, freeing up public land over the next four years … [Read more...]
‘Private housebuilders sitting on prime land to meet housing targets’
July 21, 2011 By Leave a Comment
World’s Cheapest Home Costs £450 and is Built in One Week
July 20, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Tata Group, best known for making the world's cheapest car (which costs $2,500), is taking its talents to the home-building sphere with its new Nano House. Measuring 215 square feet (floorplan above), the flat-pack pre-fab kit comes with doors, windows, and a roof, as well as coconut fiber/jute walls that are meant to last 20 years. At the moment the Nano, which costs the U.S. equivalent of $720to build and can be built in a week, is being tested in West Bengal, India, and is being positioned as a possible mass-housing solution to the country's homelessness. Later models will appeal to … [Read more...]
What’s the point in a multi-agency house sale?
July 20, 2011 By Leave a Comment
With property websites aggregating the books of most estate agents, surely there is no need to opt for multi-agency selling over sole agency, says Hilary Osborne Property websites such as Rightmove show homes for sale from most estate agents. Photograph: Toby Melville/Reuters I recently put my flat on the market and had three estate agents round to value it. All along I planned to choose just one to market it for me, but each gave me a quote for their commission on a sole agency and a multi-agency basis – and what a difference there was. While the going rate for a sole agency … [Read more...]
How to save enough for your first home deposit in five years
July 20, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Getting on the first rung of the property ladder has become something of a pipe dream for many young people. First-time buyer mortgages are notoriously tricky to get, and can be very expensive. Despite the doom and gloom though, independent financial advice website Unbiased.co.uk reported that 40 percent of it's searches for mortgage advice last month were from first-time buyers. So if you're one of those on the lookout, how can you scrape together enough of a deposit to give yourself the best chance of success? How much do you need? The unnerving prospect of saving 20 percent of the … [Read more...]
Trial backs use of energy monitors
July 20, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Fitting energy monitors to homes could cut gas bills by 20 per cent, a study has found. The six month trial, carried out by the Scottish Energy Centre at Edinburgh Napier University, found gas use dropped when energy monitors were clearly visible. Sixty-five housing association properties were fitted with energy monitors from Ewgeco. These show a red, amber or green light to indicate the level of energy use. In thirty of the homes the monitors were clearly on display, but it was hidden in the remainder. In the homes where the monitor was visible, gas use dropped by 20 per cent … [Read more...]
Attention Landlords – Beating the solar deadline
July 20, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Landlords have a limited time to cash in as subsidy switches from big to small-scale solar panel schemes. Laurence Lacey, associate at Clarke Willmott, explains Following last month’s Department of Energy and Climate Change fast-track review of the feed-in tariff available for large-scale solar schemes over 50kW, smaller-scale rooftop schemes should now be a focus for solar developers and housing associations. This means that many developers will now be turning to housing associations seeking potential roof space on developments, since this will be one of the few areas where, for the … [Read more...]
Interior Design – Room Colour and How it Affects your Mood
July 20, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Intro - Deciding on the perfect colour for your room. While most of us may not spend a lot of time thinking about room colour, it affects every day of our lives. Room colour can influence our mood and our thoughts. Colours affect people in many ways, depending upon one’s age, gender, ethnic background or local climate. Certain colours or groups of colours tend to get a similar reaction from most people – the overall difference being in the shade or tones used. So it’s important to choose wisely. To have a beautiful home, you do not have to worry about trends. Colour trends will … [Read more...]
Reasons to be cheerful about the UK housing market part one,two but sadly not three!
July 20, 2011 By Leave a Comment
As the firestorm of European peripheral debt worries circle Europe and further afield we see continuing debt ceiling worries in the United States there are also questions about the UK economy. If we look back we see that the last quarter of 2010 and the first quarter of 2011 offset each other by one falling by the same amount as the other rose so we had no economic growth at all. Looking forward there are concerns for the economic growth figures for the second quarter too as for example the National Institute for Economic and Social Research has already produced its monthly flash estimate … [Read more...]
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