We are thrilled to announce that we have won “Best Property Finder, London UK” and “Best Property Finder UK” in the Luxury Collection International Property Awards in association with Bloomberg and Google. We had only entered the award for Best Property Finder London, but as a regional winner we were then entered into the competition for the whole of the UK and were delighted to hear that we had won overall! We are continually striving for excellence and invest heavily in staff development and ensuring that our people continue to learn so that we are always at the top of our game.

The Directors have believed for a long time that our truly bespoke approach, finding property off-market if necessary sets us apart from everyone else.  Last year 68% of our Clients fell for properties which we sourced just for them.  These were all properties which were not on the market and which our Clients wouldn’t have found for themselves. In this market, with everyone nervous about whether prices are going to stay strong, “off-market” has become the new buzzword in property because vendors and developers want to try to charge a very high price – sometimes more than double the true worth of a property, and sometimes uninformed overseas investors in particular, will be prepared to pay these highly inflated prices.  And so agents have started ‘offering things discretely to a select few’ as they put it, which usually means, offering things to a few nutters who might be prepared to pay well-over the odds.

We’ve been sourcing property off-market for decades, but we do so by identifying properties which would work perfectly for our Clients and then taking the time to get to know the owners of these truly great properties and persuading them to let us show our Clients and then negotiating a fair price reflective of the market price – not a crazy price, at least from the buyers point of view!

Anyway, I digress.  It is great to hear our Clients say good things about us and lovely to receive some public recognition.  So to all our Clients, thank you, for making our job such a pleasure to do – we hope to work with you again soon!

At Manse & Garret Property Search we are almost on first name terms with a number of council planning offices across London and Kent. With three clients currently on our books looking to build their dream properties, a lot of time is inevitably spent on the telephone and in meetings with duty planners and building control.

I must admit that I do have my favourite planning departments: Kensington & Chelsea and Westminster provide the least painful experiences! Equally, I also have a few that I dread dealing with (although I won’t name any for fear of reprisals!)

From the midst of the planning process, preserving the character and appearance of our streets can seem like a bit of a hassle, yet you need only look at a beautiful streetscape in Hampstead Village to know that it is worth it. This is why I am still in a state of disbelief over the report of a developer in Twickenham who bulldozed a semi-detached Regency house, without permission in January of this year.

I may perhaps be slightly biased, as in terms of architecture I happen to be very fond of the housing stock which has survived from the 1820s, but even without my personal aesthetic preferences, I cannot believe that anyone could demolish a house that was attached to another without permission, in order to cut their own developer costs.

The developer was fined £80,000 by Richmond Council, and also had to pay Richmond councils £42,500 legal bill to cover the cost of taking legal action. I imagine that this will serve as a warning to other developers who may be tempted to subvert, or indeed, simply ignore planning regulations in future.

Technorati Tags: Buyers agents, London Buyer's Agents, London Property Buyers Agents, Planning, Planning Permission

Tags: Buyers agents, London Buyer's Agents, London Property Buyers Agents, Planning, Planning Permission

Stamp Duty Allowance

Announced in March 2010 by the Labour Party, the increase in the stamp duty on residential property purchases over £1,000,000 increased on April 6^th from 4% to 5%. This increase is intended partially to fund the tax gap created by doubling the stamp duty allowance for first time buyers to £250,000.

One effect on the housing market in London has been that although property has come to the market between January and March, there has been no shortage of prospective buyers, particularly at the top end of the prime central London market, encouraged by bonus figures being released at the start of the year. Selling and buying has been frantic; the prospect of paying an extra 1% on top of a purchase has put pressure on people to move before April. There have been bids and good offers on those properties which have been reasonably priced at the beginning of this year. We have seen properties selling at and above asking price before they have even fully come onto the market – not quite at 2007 levels, but certainly reminiscent of the pre-crash boom.

A consequence of this is that the dearth of property is now even worse than it was at the beginning of the year, and there remain many frustrated high-end buyers, not best pleased by the knowledge that the purchase of a home will cost them upwards of £10,000 in additional tax.

It is likely that the 5% stamp duty will be with us for the foreseeable future, as the government needs the revenue and luxury, top end property is an obvious source for it, to a government conscious of its electoral viability. The majority of buyers at the top end of the market who are most likely to be affected by the increase in stamp duty will be the plethora of overseas buyers and will not be a part of the electorate.

The shortage of property exacerbates the demand in prime central London and key towns in the South-East, where property remains a favourite with overseas investors. The unrest in the Middle East and the recent declaration by Portugal will encourage investors further into the prime central London market which continues to be perceived by most as a comparatively safe place to invest in property.

Technorati Tags: First time buyers, House Prices, House prices in London, investors, London property, London property market, london property market news, property investors, Stamp Duty

Tags: First time buyers, House Prices, House prices in London, investors, London property, London property market, london property market news, property investors, Stamp Duty