Nottingham Letting Agent Property Blog

The current finance bill is to encourage more investment into social housing through Real Estate Investment Trusts(REITs), and the Housing Minister Grant Shapps, and the Economic Secretary, Chloe Smith have just published a consultation looking at ways to encourage more private investment. The consultation is seeking to make changes to encourage more REITs for the social housing sector. It’s hoped the consultation will be just as successful as the Affordable Homes Program which brought in private funding of almost £10 billion, and which will deliver 170,000 new homes which is 20,000 more than originally anticipated. The aim is for the consultation...

From this month onwards millions of council tenants will be eligible to purchase their homes at discounts of up to £75,000 as Cameron has revived Thatcher’s right to buy scheme. This was one of her most popular policies. When Labour came to power they began to reduce the value of the discounts available to council tenants, and during the past 20 years fewer and fewer people have bought their council properties due to the increase in house prices and decrease in discounts offered. However from the beginning of this month it's estimated up to 2 million tenants will have access to...

Latest figures show that just 66% of homes are owner occupied, down from a peak of 71% nine years ago. This means one third of homes are rented from the council or housing association, or are privately rented. This is the largest percentage seen since 1988 when the push towards home ownership was at its peak. It's no surprise to hear that the major obstacle facing young people is trying to afford a mortgage, and data from the Department for Communities and Local Government shows just 10% of homeowners are less than 35 years of age.Young people have been amongst the...

Last week Grant Shapps announced more details about the revitalised right to buy programme. Social tenants will be able to receive discounts of up to £50,000, with more people will being able to access the scheme. For example, a tenant who had lived in social housing for five years would be able to purchase a £160,000 property for a discount of £50,000, whereas before they would have been eligible for a maximum discount of £26,000. It’s hoped this generous discount will breathe life into the housing market.Shapps has also promised that these new proposals will protect the housing stock as every...

A recent survey by the National Landlords Association has found nearly three quarters of landlords who have tenants receiving local housing allowance, are considering reducing their exposure to this market. Around 25% are already taking active steps to reduce the number of tenants receiving housing benefit payments, and another 50% have plans to do so in the future  because of concerns about the LHA cap.These caps will limit the amount of benefit available, and are based on the property size. According to the NLA, the impacts of these cuts will vary, and some households may lose hundreds of pounds. There are...

The Prime Minister has announced his intention to look at ways of reviving the right to buy scheme, and he apparently plans to free up huge tracts of land to developers to promote the building of more new homes. His version of the right to buy scheme will differ slightly from Thatcher's, as he wants one new council house built for every existing home sold. He was speaking to the BBC's Andrew Marr and pointed out there are still over 2 million homes which could be bought, and building new property could create thousands of jobs.He is due to lay out...

According to government figures the numbers of people classified as being homeless by local authorities has increased 17% during the last year, and there are worries that the worst may still be come. During the second quarter of this year, the Department for Communities and Local Government said local authorities accepted 11,820 homeless families, compared with 9,590 during the second quarter in 2010. It looks as if it could become a serious problem as this is the first year-on-year increase in homeless figures  is for five years. The housing minister, Grant Shapps has said homelessness is at an historic low, but...