The inexorable slide to boring neutrality has left us all with beige walls.

It’s official: room decoration appears to have lost all sense of adventure and imagination. Gone are the days of bold and invigorating colour, houses have slipped into a boring monotony of blandness.

In an inexplicable display of conformity, people seem to have collectively decided to all decorate their homes the same colour.

Magnolia seems to be the universal colour of choice, an off-beige which is so unbearably neutral that it must have Swiss heritage. Consumers have been blinded and baffled by the marketing teams behind paint manufacturers who create an overwhelming illusion of choice. Creative teams giggle like young school girls as they pump out a new name for exactly the same shade of beige they have been selling for years.

Anyone who claims there is a significant difference between “Morning Light” and “Vanilla Cotton” is either being excessively pedantic or overly protective of their own wall colour choice.

At what point did the rest of the colour spectrum go out of the window? Where have all the bright yellows, the bold blues and the deep vibrant reds gone? Since when did colour in houses cease to exist?

A contributing factor, of course, is that people tend to move a lot more than they used to. If a house is not a long-term investment then keeping the colour choice neutral makes it easier to sell. With houses and flats to rent, prospective tenants are less likely to be offended by neutral tones.

This kind of thinking leaves no room for inspiration though. Colour can add so much character and atmosphere to a room, yet religiously sticking to inoffensive bland colours stifles potential. If we continue in this rut, the great colours of this world will disappear – lost in a myriad of “Natural Ivory” and “Wicker Cream”.

For the sake of originality; for the sake of inspiration; for the sake of colour… please plump for paint colours a little bolder than beige next time you choose to decorate.

 

Aside from endless hours scanning the latest property brochures, a never-ending list of viewings and countless appointments at your local estate agents, there is a whole lot more involved in the successful purchase of a new property. Unfortunately, finding the perfect new home is not all about which house boasts the most elegant ceilings, which kitchen is equipped with top of the range made-to-order cabinets or which garden would give you enough space to build a patio or install a climbing frame. It is, just like everything else, also all about money.

It’s about how far you can make your budget stretch. It’s about how much you think you will be able to comfortably afford on a mortgage every month. It’s about the size of the deposit you are prepared to make and how long you are willing to commit to repayments.

 

As with any major financial decision, the first step is to seek advice with the professionals. Try to find someone with experience in working alongside people in a similar situation to yourself. Getting all the right information right from the start will help you to be more confident in making a successful property based decision for you and your family.

If you don’t have enough for a deposit there are a range of property loans available. Every bank and building society has something different to offer. To cite one example, Santander alone has a vast array of different kinds of loans to choose from. Shop around the Santander website to see what types of loans are on offer and more importantly, which ones suit you. Don’t be afraid to make demands and state what you want from your new financial arrangement clearly, right from the off.

Finally, take time to consider what long term impacts these decisions will have on your future life. If you want to pay more for a better property, think carefully about the sacrifices this could enforce: the summer holiday, the car, the number of times you eat out every week. The decisions you make now will affect the quality of your life for a long time to come so be sure to dedicate enough time to their careful consideration.

While property prices head swiftly south, one silver-lined cloud has formed for anyone with a short lease – the cost of extending it is also falling.

“How much you pay to extend a lease is linked to how much a flat is worth,” says Lewes-based solicitor Philip Rowland of Adams & Remers. “If prices have gone down 20%, then it could be around 20% cheaper to extend the lease now.

“It’s good if you want to protect the value of your flat and a lot of freeholders are cash-strapped right now, so they are negotiating far less aggressively.”

As a general rule of thumb, says Rowland, if a property is worth £100,000 with a 50-year lease, it will be worth £150,000 once the lease is extended – and more in desirable areas.

He recently completed a lease extension for a client who owned an expensive maisonette in the West End. “They paid £300,000 to extend the lease, and by doing so increased the price of their property by £500,000 to £1.4m, leaving them with a £200,000 profit.”

Roughly, the shorter the lease the more it will cost to extend. According to the Leasehold Advisory Service, a flat with 68 years on the lease, with a value of £150,000 and annual ground rent of £50, would cost £8,250 to extend by 90 years. On a lease with 35 years left, it may set you back £55,368.

Anyone wishing to extend their lease will need to seek the advice of a specialist solicitor and surveyor, then write to their landlord to let them know what they are willing to pay. The landlord’s solicitor then writes back with what they think they should receive, and the haggling process continues until an agreement is reached. On the rare occasions that does not happen, it goes to a tribunal. Landlords have no option but to grant a lease extension if you have been in your property for more than two years.

“The first thing to consider when proposing a price is the existing length of lease,” says Ed Mead of Douglas & Gordon estate agency. “The second is ground rent – which doubles every 20 years or so – and landlords are entitled to be compensated for the loss of this. “

Once the arguing is over, the lease is almost always extended by 90 years.

For desperate flat-owners with short- or medium-term leases, extending is not always the answer, says Mead. “Flats with short- or medium-term leases have been hardest hit in the market, because any property with a problem will fall in value faster than anything else – but it’s not as simple as recommending people extend their lease first, then sell.”

Extending leases, he explains, can be a long and unwieldy process: it can take a year and, if you wait that long to sell in this market, any profit you have made by extending the lease could be wiped out by the property’s value going down.

Jill Christopher, a public relations consultant, recently paid £9,800 to her freeholder to extend the lease on her two-bed property in Tufnell Park, London. The process took a year. “For me, it wasn’t to add value to my property, but to maintain value,” she says. “If the time on the lease had gone below 80 years, my flat’s value would have dramatically changed. Now seemed the time to go for it.”

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media 2009

By Emma Mahony

In the one area of the market that’s booming, brave first-time buyers are finding bargains at auction…

Grinning at his sister Katie standing next to him, Ben Hanley declares in his broad Yorkshire accent: ‘It were auction fever, weren’t it? Look,’ he says, opening up his jacket. ‘The sweat has been pouring out of me.’

This is possibly a bit too much information but Ben was excitedly explaining how he and his 22-year-old sister had just spent £35,000 on a run-down three-bedroom terrace property at auction – but not the one they had driven to London from Riddlesden in West Yorkshire to buy.

Outbid on a Victorian mid-terrace house in Keighley, West Yorkshire, which climbed above the guide price of £47,000 to £71,000, the pair switched their attention to another.

When Katie suddenly waved her catalogue in a final bid, the new property was bought straight off the page, sight unseen, and for £500 more than the guide price.

As first-time buyers at their first property sale, Ben, 24, and Katie typify the auction fever sweeping through the residential sale rooms – the one part of the property market that is really buzzing right now.

Having saved the money over six years working as a man-with-a-van delivery service, Ben does not think they can lose.

‘We’ve got time to work on the house because business is quiet, and if it’s not right, we’ll make it right.

I’d like to move in soon,’ he says.

‘We can stop living with our dad now,’ interrupts Katie, still on a high from the thrill of the sale.

It’s no surprise that property auctions are booming. With bank accounts paying derisory interest on savings, and the Bank of England last week cutting interest rates again as well as introducing ‘quantitative easing’ – increasing the amount of money in circulation, which carries a huge risk of out-of-control inflation – buying a fixed asset such as a house makes financial sense.

‘Bank accounts are being cleared and there’s a surge in private investors looking for a better return in the relative security of property investment,’ says David Sandeman of the Essential Information Group (www.eigroup.co.uk), which collates data from auctions for would-be buyers.

And for first-time buyers it is a great opportunity. According to Sandeman, more lower-priced stock is on offer: in the past three months of 2008, 16.3 per cent more residential lots were offered for sale than in the same quarter of 2007, but they achieved only £561 million compared with £677million the previous year.

Repossessions – 75,000 are anticipated this year – are fuelling the market, providing 500 of the 3,151 residential lots in February, a rise of seven per cent on the previous year.

Auctions mean bargains: there are also no estate agents, no chain, and buyers know that the property will be theirs within a month – exchange of contracts happens at the fall of the hammer.

Graham Penny, auctioneer at London’s Must Be Sold auction, where Ben and Katie and many other first-time buyers bought last week, has noticed the influx of new faces to the rooms. ‘People know that they will find repossessions at auction, and that they are at the right price, so families are taking their money out of banks and coming along.’

Gary Mercy at Allsop, the largest residential auctioneer in the UK, agrees: ‘We sold 91 per cent of our catalogue in last month’s sale and had more than 1,000 people through the door. It is very strong at the moment.

‘I think auctions represent value for money for first-time buyers because the estate agents are still reflecting the aspirations of the sellers and not what the market will pay.’ Allsop’s highest sale in their February auction was to a private buyer attending an auction for the first time, who bought a townhouse in Kensington, West London, for £2.52million.

But the real problem for first-time buyers is arranging the finance. At auction you have to pay a ten per cent deposit with a personal cheque, and then you may have as little as 14 days to pay the remaining 90 per cent.

If you don’t complete by the allotted date, you are liable to be sued for damages, as well as losing your deposit – so finances have to be in place beforehand. Because properties at auction are often in poor condition, this makes it harder for those buying their first home – rather than a buy-to-let property – to raise the money commercially..

‘If the property is in a poor state, lenders will want mortgage valuations, and if work needs to be done, further reports on damp, electricity and other problem areas may be required, all of which can take longer than the auction period allows,’ says Ray Boulger of mortgage advisers John Charcol.

‘But you may get a “decision in principle” to borrow up to a certain amount.’ If you have about 30 per cent of the price, short-term bridging finance can work – though some banks are wary – which can give buyers time to improve the property and then obtain a mortgage.

Newlyweds Jed and Dawn Gibbs, who at a December auction paid £122,000 for a Thirties semi in Bitterne Park near Southampton, raised the money by borrowing £120,000 from his employers, Halcyon Holiday Cottages.

The loan has a rate of 12 per cent over six months, by which time the house, which needs considerable work, should be in a state to borrow against. Similar properties sell for up to £180,000.

As soon as they moved in they had to spend £2,000 of their £4,000 refurbishment budget on fixing the bay window. ‘But we are putting in a Sixties kitchen which we bought for £150, and we have all the original fireplaces and doors,’ says Dawn, 27.

Many first-time buyers are turning to the bank of Mum and Dad to secure their homes. At last Tuesday’s Must Be Sold auction, Amanda Weller, 50, was helping her son Andrew, 24, buy his first home.

They had been looking for a house in Kent since Amanda sold her house 18 months ago. They bought a four-bedroom detached house that went £22,000 over its guide price to £132,000, where Andrew and his wife Katie, 24, a nursery nurse, will live.

‘I wouldn’t want to go through that again, but I am happy we got a good deal,’ says Amanda, a funeral arranger, who is financing the purchase.

There is nothing to buy in the area in a similar state for less than £179,995, so we did well.’

Competition is forcing up prices

Restoration work will be done by Andrew, a builder, and he has budgeted £20,000 for a new kitchen, bathroom and boiler.

‘It’s an ideal situation to do it this way,’ he says, ‘because I can do all the work myself.’ Refurbishment of auction properties is no small matter if the buyer is hoping to finance some of the purchase by mortgage.

Danny Collins, 39, who runs a pub in Gamlingay, Cambridgeshire, with his girlfriend Alannah Hulks, 19, needed to supplement their deposit of £80,000 with a mortgage when they successfully bid for a £139,500 house in Sandy, Bedfordshire, at the Must Be Sold auction. Its guide price was £135,000.

Fortunately, it was in good condition and Danny knew that the next-door property had sold for £170,000.

‘The only thing that is a bit annoying is that the completion date is in 14 days – most seem to be 28 days,’ says Danny. ‘Fortunately we had prepared our finances.’

As more people wake up to auctions, competition is starting to force up prices. ‘Before, we might have had one person interested but now people are paying more because of competition between bidders,’ says Mark Townsend, of regional auctioneers Countrywide Properties.

‘In some instances people have been paying more than 20 per cent above the reserve price.’

Maxine Parker felt she paid over the odds at last week’s sale because she had already made an offer to estate agents Spicer McColl of £135,000 for a traditional two-bedroom property on offer in Clacton-on-Sea, Essex.

Maxine, 58, who divorced four years ago, ended up paying £146,000 for the house – £36,000 over its guide price.

‘I was forced to come here today because the agents told me it was going to auction anyway,’ says Maxine, whose sister is helping her buy.

So much for the buzz of the sale room but what about the sober reflection the day after? Is there a feeling of anticlimax? A quick call to Ben and Katie Hanley to see if they had visited their new purchase in Halifax, bought on a whim, brought an interesting response.

‘When I got there, it sunk in that I’d bought it,’ says Ben. ‘It’s a good house, I think, but I haven’t been able to see inside because of the downstairs blinds.

Do you know when I’ll get the keys?’

This, and other good questions, are perhaps worth asking before you walk into your first auction.

Tips for buying at auction

VISIT AN AUCTION

Watch an auction before bidding on a property. Solicitors and specialists in auction finances set up stalls and are useful to talk to so you understand the process.

TAKE YOUR CHEQUEBOOK

Auction houses require two forms of identification, together with proof of address, and will take a fee of about £400 on the day.

USE A SOLICITOR

Most auction houses place contracts and searches online, so involve a solicitor from the outset to check issues such as access and restrictive covenants..

VISIT THE PROPERTY

Auction houses arrange group viewings three to five weeks prior to sale. See the place once or twice, preferably with a builder and surveyor. Most auction properties are in a poor state, so you will need to include renovation costs in your budget.

Author: Mark Jarman

There is currently a great deal of interest from homeowners who want more information on Sell and Rent Back schemes, people want to know all about Sell and Rent Back, what it is, how it works and who it’s suitable for. At the independent comparison site  http://www.comparepropertybuyers.co.uk/  we have drawn up answers to the following commonly asked questions.    

1. What is Sell and Rent Back                

Sell and Rent Back is a fast growing Industry where you sell your home to a Property Investor but instead of moving on you stay in your home as a tenant renting it back from the Investor who purchased it from you.      

2. What is a Shared or Part ownership Sell and Rent Back Scheme?      

One of the most advanced Sell and Rent Back schemes is known as a shared or part ownership scheme. With such schemes you sell some of your home to an investor whilst retaining a share yourself. This gives you the benefits of security of tenancy whilst keeping a financial interest in your home, if property prices go up your share goes up too.        

3. What are the main Advantages of a Sell & Rent Back Schemes?      

Sell and Rent Back can be a way of either raising capital or avoiding repossession and staying in your home. You may need to unlock your capital from your home to clear any debts you may have or to fund a better retirement. Sell and Rent Back schemes can also be a way of funding your retirement without having to sell your home.        

4. What are the main Disadvantages of Sell and Rent Back schemes?      

First and foremost is the fact that most Investors who offer sell and Rent Back will usually only offer you up to 80% of the value of your property. This is because most Investors take the prudent view that property prices will fall still further.      Some Sell and Rent Back Schemes do not guarantee you a long term rental period, always take legal advice before entering into a Sell and Rent Back agreement and if you want to rent back long term make sure you have a written contract guaranteeing your right to stay. You should also agree a fair market rent in writing.      

 5. What Legal Protection do I have?    

You should always take professional legal and financial advice before entering into any Sell and Rent Back scheme. Always have a Solicitor to represent your interests and oversee all of the paperwork. If you want to guarantee your long term residency make sure you get an agreement in writing which is approved by your Solicitor.      

6. How much does a Sell and Rent Back Scheme cost?      

 Sell and Rent Back schemes should not cost you any up front money whatsoever. A reputable investor will usually pay for the cost of a valuation and any legal fees. The investors will eventually make a return by either selling the property or by charging you what ought to be a fair market rent.      

7. How quickly can I Sell my House and Rent it Back      

Most Investors are cash buyers actively looking for property investments and Sell and Rent Back opportunities, they can often act very quickly and purchase within one month.      

8. Will I need a Hip (Home Information Pack) to Sell and Rent Back?      

If you sell your house to an Investor you will not need a Home Information Pack as it is classed as a private sale, this should save you several hundred pounds.      

9. I am very close to being Repossessed can I still Sell & Rent back and stay at home?      

You can sometimes avoid repossession if you reach an agreement to sell and rent back with an investor. Even if time is short an Investor will either pay cash and aim to complete within a week or so. Alternatively the Investor may apply to the court to stop your repossession order to give you time to complete your sail. An investor can usually only help in cases where there is a minimum of about twenty percent equity in the property. If you are facing repossession make sure you get independent legal advice before entering into any agreement.      

10. Where is the best place to find a Sell and Rent Back Scheme?      

There are many Investors advertising on the Internet via search engines such as Yahoo & Google or you could always go to the comparison site Compare Property Buyers for a quick no obligation quote.       http://www.comparepropertybuyers.co.uk/  is the  only  Independent Comparison site for Sell and Rent Back Schemes and offers general information on Sell and Rent Back schemes along with a Free, No Obligation, Comparison service.