Yep – letting agents again. I’ve written before about these mythical monsters and wondered if I’d been too harsh. Then I thought: what if I’ve been unfortunate, only encountering the worst examples. Somewhere in the solar system, jovial, informative, honest, helpful letting agents must exist. Don’t they?

But the examples I’ve encountered recently have been horrible. They also seem to have gathered up all the properties in all the world in order to control them. Furthermore, some of them are weird.

One company in particular monopolises the flats in one of the best areas, leaving me with little choice: I had to deal with them. But these days prices aren’t too bad (rents really are falling) and so I arranged a viewing via their prickly and officious receptionist.

The apartment block in question was enormous and had been cunningly converted into a maze. I’d been given short notice of a viewing, and called to say I was on my way. The agent greeted me sharply: “I wondered where the hell you were.”
I did call to say I was lost, I said.
“Hmmm…” came her reply.

She looked me up and down with an armour-piercing squint. No small talk, no patter – just a disdainful, frigid absence of words.
“I have the keys,” she said as we approached the flat.
“Good because I don’t.” I joked lamely. Silence and another cyclopean death stare.

I asked about references. She ignored me. I asked about the landlord. More silence. The flat was okay – there was even some storage (yay – cupboards!) which I noticed was packed with half-empty paint tins, which, I was tetchily informed, I’d be obliged to hold on to (“…just in case.”)

I saw another flat. It was furnished bloke-style: matt-black and everything made of what the inventory will refer to as faux leather, with fake designer chairs. It smelled of damp. The wallpaper was peeling off in places; underneath I noticed blackheads of emerging mould.

“Does the roof leak?” I asked, quite reasonably.
Silence.
“It smells of damp – I think the roof leaks. Would you know anything about that?”
Silence, and another baleful squint.

I asked all questions I’ve learned from previous bad experience to ask, like does the owner have an official buy-to-let mortgage, but there was no reply, just another squint, this time paired with a terrifying sneer. Her face was so contorted by now that she looked like a life-model for Francis Bacon. Tenants who ask awkward, albeit pertinent questions are clearly not wanted round those parts

Another firm imposed complex, arcane rules on tenants, so strict that only the blessed Sir David Attenborough, or another modern saint would suffice. They advertised one flat as ideal for students, but operated a no-students policy. Get out that, if you can… I questioned this, but all the agent said, repeatedly was: “Those are company rules, and rules are rules.”

The thought of meeting letting agents has made me feel sullied by association. Seriously, how can I wrestle free of these vampires? And landlords, why do you associate with them?

From http://rentergirl.blogspot.com/

Today we have had the Glazers in to fit the roof bars for the roof window that will allow has views of the gardens from the gallery landing, it will also make our sitting room very light and airy.

There was a lot of discussion as to why Welsh Oak Frame have designed the Oak frame in such a way that it is going to be difficult to finish the inside of the frame to an acceptable standard. .

I had our roofer Mark on hand to work with the installers from Cannon Glass and together they come up with a work around that will get us watertight and should also give us a decent looking roof.

We are now able to continue with tiling the rear part of the roof and now the bars are installed the glazers were able to take accurate measurements for the double glazed units, we should get the glass delivered in the next 4 to 6 weeks.

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From http://www.newbuild.co.uk/blog

So here I am again, flat hunting once more, encountering my own bad news. Letting agents really have taken over a massive wedge of the rental sector. There really are too many newbuilds. Yes, prices are falling, but tenants are heading en-masse for the best places, and I am at the end of the queue (I don’t exaggerate, as some readers imagine, and I hate being right.)

Last time, I was lucky: I found Nice Heights and a fair-minded landlord online, miraculously avoiding all the many weirdoes. But as far as my housing timeline goes, it’s been nasty-nice, nasty-nice, alternating between great places with decent owners, before veering off into psychopathic part-time landlords, amateur and incompetent buy-to-letters and harrowing dovecots. What’s next?

Because of this, and despite myself, I am wistful about the idea of owning a home (not property – a home.) But then, if I did I would have found it harder to take advantage of my recent opportunity (and reason for my move.) Even so, I’d like to buy a home when I get there. In my mind, there is no mortgage, no deposit, no chain, no disreputable, tricky estate-agents, no gazumping, no gazundering, no surveys, no being stuck forever with nightmare neighbours. In my reverie, buying is smooth and easy, slippery like a dream.

First up, I’ll paint my home or pay for an interior designer, as years of magnolia have blunted my senses, and to compensate I want lurid emerald walls and vivid, warm colours so it’ll be sunny all the time.

As for furniture, I’ve even been reading up on sofas, and tables, and four-poster beds. It’s so unlike me. Contrast that with some of the stained, lumpy mattresses and cabinets with the doors hanging off I’ve witnessed when renting. There will of course, be insulation (sleeping in woolly socks and a balaclava helmet deflates the spirit) and I’ve been planning a garden (even though I want to live in a flat.)

Dealing with removal companies, and insurance, and being responsible for repairs won’t put me off. But I want to do this in luxury; there are removal firms who actually pack your belongings for you. I expect there’s a firm to float your goods away, and unpack and re-arrange at the other end.

I do appreciate my freedom. I can move at will. But I still want some security, without landlords who wilfully encourage a grim sense of despondency in tenants, who are left wondering: will they renew the tenancy, please let them renew. It’s like trying to sleep on a the edge of a cliff; you can’t rest because of worrying you’ll roll over and fall off.

I try and make the best of renting, but I really need some security and a semblance of control. I want to chose my surroundings, not endure the whims and notions of an owner, some of whom are prone to selling up capriciously, for revenge or just because they can.

So that’s settled, then. All I need is to be resolute and conjure up a hulking great deposit. That’s all.

http://rentergirl.blogspot.com/2008/12/measure-of-van.html

http://rentergirl.blogspot.com/2008/03/furnishing-my-dovecot.html

http://rentergirl.blogspot.com/2007/10/renting-dreams-home-owning-nightmares.html

From http://rentergirl.blogspot.com/

According to some readers, I have a bad attitude. People see me as an unreasonable, no holds-barred landlord loather, spoiling for a fight. Nothing could be further from the truth: all I want is a quiet life.

When I moved in, ‘Dave,’ my current landlord, didn’t demand exhaustive references, but then, I get no guarantees from him. Thankfully, he’s been helpful, understanding, realistic, reliable and tolerant. I do my utmost to be the same. Unfortunately, I have been enduring a complex and protracted nightmare with my bank much like a scene from the film ‘Brazil’, which involved them apparently losing or deleting my account. I was late paying my rent, which is dreadful.

Delaying payment requires delicately negotiations, balancing the need to collect money with the problems the tenant faces. This latest batch of new landlords who bought in the boom-time are learning that when renters run up arrears, being heavy can be counterproductive. If someone has lost their job, and is claiming benefits, why not be reasonable and wait. They might have been your dream tenant until then, so why lose them? In return, tenants might accept that landlords can’t always come racing over at the drip of a tap.

Of course, some tenants are wilfully dishonest, or presume that all landlords are rich, when usually they are barely covering their costs, especially at the moment. A property owning friend had tenants who ran away to Australia owing three months money. He only just managed to survive.

I’ve written previously about the evil that bad landlords do, but ‘Dave’ has been a star. I paid the backlog as soon as possible, and wouldn’t dream of doing a runner. He’s new to this, and to those in a similar situation, I offer this advice: there will, at some point, be a gap between tenants, a late payment, or even renters who can’t or will not pay. You need an amount put by to cover unexpected situations. Tenants pay in advance, and landlords have the deposit, so in those rare cases when rent is late/goes awol, you should never be owed more than a month. But to avert disaster, you need something in reserve.

Landlords can be excellent – as in actively pleasant and helpful, or simply okay – as in quiet and absent. ‘Emily’ has commented here about her landlord who, when her toddler scribbled on the wall, shrugged and said: “It’s okay – I can paint over it when you leave.” He didn’t rub his hands with glee at the chance to claim on insurance for redecoration while simultaneously docking money from her deposit.

‘Dave,’ the owner of my Nice Heights flat has been reasonable beyond the call of human tolerance, and A in Glasgow was lovely too. It’s not always necessary, or even wise to seek possession at the first hint of late rent. Tenants, if you can wait for a non-essential repair, then try and be reasonable. Remember: we’re both human and we need each other, so if you can, be nice.

From http://rentergirl.blogspot.com/

Today has been manic.

I have started a labourer on site as I just cannot keep up with the “little jobs” that I have been trying to do but that seem to end up taking up most of the day and just never seem to get finished so the sensible thing to do was take on some help which will give me the extra time to get things organised.

Today I have had him treating the Oak facias and barge boards that were delivered on Friday, as with the rest of the external Oak we are using Osmo UV protection oil.

Bricklayers have been continuing with the chimney’s  which are starting to take shape, I really need them to crack on as I want the roofers to start ASAP and they can’t until the chimney is on the roof .

At lunchtime I drove down to Bob at the joiners to give him a tin of the Osma so that he can give the frames a coat to seal them before they install them in the next couple weeks, I also had a sample of the Vale trickle vents so that he can router the holes in the Oak frame. While I was there we went through the sizes of the frame openings so that Vale can get on with the manufacture of the casments.

Having looked at a few of the underfloor heating companies out there I decided to order ours from Robbens Systems although they are based in East Sussex they have visited the site twice to make sure the quote given was correct.  Although it is designed as a self build system I have decided to use one of their registered installers so delivery to site will be in about 3 to 4 weeks.

I also ordered the guttering from Rain Clear Solutions, we have chosen the Evolve rainwater system made by Marley. I considered going down the cast Iron road but thought better of it when I considered both the cost and the maintenance cast iron would need.

The Marley Evolve guttering has the appearance of cast Iron but with the benefits of modern seals in the joints backed up with a silicon compound which is also supplied, made of a coated aluminium it will not rust and will hopefully give us many years of maintenance free service also I felt comfortable with it being manufactured by such a well known company as Marley.

Bed

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From http://www.newbuild.co.uk/blog

Having chosen some exposed rafters in the Master bedroom and in the sitting room at the design stage we decided to have conventional ceilings in the other bedrooms. We did this for to go this route mainly because of the extra cost having Oak rafters throughout.

Once Welsh Oak left the first thing I did was get a Carpenter in to sort the eaves out and it soon become clear that the open eaves we wanted were not going to be easy as the Oak rafters are about  one third of the thickness of the softwood rafters and to make matters worse they are are on different levels.

The Oak rafters are all exposed so the plasterboard and 110mm of insulation is fixed on top of the rafters bringing the level up to the top of the softwood rafters that is fairly straight forward, the tricky bit is that the Oak rafters are set lower than the softwood so we will have to cut 30mm out of the softwood and fix some false Oak feet which will then level everything out and allow a fascia to be fixed to hide the insulation etc.

We will then fix a soffit at the top of the of the rafter thus giving a open eave that should appear to be Oak all the way through.

Well that is the plan anyway.

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From http://www.newbuild.co.uk/blog

Welsh Oak have now completed the frame erection and have now left the site.

They have left another Welsh Oak team to complete the lead work around the windows. They have also been inserting the panels in between the exposed Oak in the external wall or the first floor. The panels are made up of pre cut OSB board with a piece of 140 mm Kingspan attached providing the insulation inside.

Externally  there is a breathable membrane attached to the OSB board then a plastic lathe is stapled every   5 – 10 mm over the whole board then to finish the panel of there is a plastic render bead on the edges with a lead dressing on the lower edges making a really neat job.

These panels will finally be coved by Lime Render which has a natural colour and wont need painting.

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From http://www.newbuild.co.uk/blog

I have been away for a few days so I have not had a chance to post also while I was away the frame erectors found there had been a slight error on the truses on the gable ends.

I had not realised that the drawing showed some of the softwood rafters on 2 of the gables and Oak on the main bedroom gable meaning we would have had to close the eves on the softwood gables and if we wanted the Oak exposed on the main bedroom gable the three gables would have looked odd so I agreed to Welsh Oak making up 10 Oak rafters so that all gable ends will have exposed oak in the eves.

SO this has delayed the completion of the frame by a few day and has cost a extra few £100 pounds extra I am glad it all came to light when it did as I feel the end result will look a lot better.

In the mean time I am getting a few labour quotes for the roof with a view to getting started in the next couple of weeks.

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From http://www.newbuild.co.uk/blog

Two of the UK’s leading estate agencies this week called the bottom of the market, revealing that buyers are returning, the number of house sales is picking up and that, in some areas, prices are even rising again after months of huge drops.

Knight Frank says that “the situation has improved markedly since the turn of the year” and that although prices continue to fall in the first four months of the year, it was at a “much reduced pace”.

“We’ve seen drops of between one and two per cent a month as opposed to to the three to four per cent monthly drops we became routinely used to in the run up to the end of 2008,” a spokesperson says.

“And by April our prime central London index even managed to post a positive result, with prices climbing 0.4 per cent – the first rise for 13 months.”

Another high profile agent, Hamptons International, is also feeling much more positive – revealing this week that 13 per cent more buyers registered with it in April year on year, and that sales jumped by 27 per cent over the same period.

“There have been three consistently good months of UK sales activity and although this is not at the boom time levels of 2007, it is certainly better than for some time,” says Jane Jordgensen of Hamptons International.

“In fact, vendors are three times more likely to secure a sale than this time last year. The start of 2009 has definitely gone as well as expected and we are beginning to witness healthy levels of trading.”

The only problem for agents is a shortage of houses to sell – Hamptons says the number of new instructions is down 40 per cent year on year, while Knight Frank reports properties available for sale down by 28 per cent.

Neither company can say for sure why the market is improving – given continued gloomy headlines in the nation’s papers – but a partial answer lies in mortgage affordability which the Council of Mortgage Lenders says is at its cheapest since 2004.

From http://blogs.propertyfinder.com/outthere

When is a house price index not accurate? The answer, it would seem, is when the market is in freefall.

Look in the papers and you will find a stream of information about house prices from a plethora of sources including the Halifax, Royal Chartered Institute of Surveyors, Land Registry, Rightmove, Nationwide, Hometrack and the Financial Times. 

All claim (or are quoted as claiming) showing which way house prices are heading every month and during the property boom we all stood by, our glasses charged with champagne, applauding the extraordinary rises recorded by these respected property names. And as long as they showed prices going up, most of us (including property journalists) were happy to agree heartily with them. 

But with the exception of the Land Registry, which records prices paid for property on completion, all of them are flawed in one way or another. Some ask agents or surveyors how sales are fairing in or how they are feeling about the market (RICs and Hometrack), whereas the others merely record asking prices.

But are any of these a good way to refection of property prices? I would say not and now that prices are falling at a very fast rate none of them really agree. Here some examples from recent stories I’ve run; all annual figures – ‘Poll of polls’ by agent Chesterton/Humberts (-15.3%); Rightmove (-9.1%); Halilfax (-17.5%); Dept Communities and Local Government (-11.5%) Nationwide (-17.6%) and Land Registry (-15.1%).

So what would you suggest we do, I hear you ask.

The answer is that there is no such thing as a national house price survey. Property markets are by definition ‘local’ and at best regional. While one postcode witnesses a 5% drop, its posher neighbour might register a 5% hike.

National indexes can only indicate very general trends – up, static or down. Anything else just gives us all pointlessly sleepless nights. But for the moment they are the only figures available – and until a way of reporting local, street-by-street figures I’m afraid it will be the same-old, same-old.

From http://blogs.propertyfinder.com/outthere