Erdington Homeowners Have Turned to the Rental Market to Cash In By £11,200 Each   Should you sell or should you buy in this most interesting Erdington property market?   I have calculated that at least 51 Erdington house sellers have rented a home to break their house chain in the last 12 months, although [...]

The bungalow is a building that has represented a more leisurely, gentler way of life since  the early 1900’s. Bungalows have been sold as an aspiration for those about to retire, saving  them the annoyance of having to climb stairs. With an ageing population, one would think  they would be building more bungalows, yet nothing could be further from the truth. In fact,  this could be one of the main issues that is holding back many mature homeowners moving  home, thus creating a bottleneck in the Erdington property market for the younger families  who are being held back and unable to move into the larger homes they so need to grow  their families.    So, before I answer that question, let me share this fascinating fact about bungalows. The  word ‘bungalow’ originated in India, not the UK. The name is derived from the Hindi word  ‘baṅglā’ or the Gujarati word ‘baṅglo’, both of which seem to refer to a home occupied by a  Bengali person. The colonial English started to use it for themselves in the late 1600s to  describe the same sort of basic lodgings that sailors and staff of the invading East India  Company used.    Anyway, back to the here and now in Erdington.    There are 646 Bungalows in Erdington.    When you consider there are 30,582 properties in Erdington, that  means only 2.1% of property in Erdington are bungalows.    To give you an idea of the age demographic of Erdington homeowners, there are 6,658  Erdington homeowners aged 65 years old (and over) and 7,867 Erdington homeowners aged  between 50 and 64 years of age.    You can see demand for bungalows is only expected to grow.  Yet new homes builders are  having to deal with soaring land prices meaning to get a profit from the site, they are under  pressure to build more vertically than horizontally as with bungalows (as bungalows take up  so much more land).     The last available data is from 2018 and only 1.6% new builds in the UK were bungalows,  interesting when it was just over 7% in the middle of the 1990s. As British people are living  longer, those existing Erdington bungalow homeowners will be living in them longer, thus  creating even more of a bottleneck in the Erdington property market.    So, what is the answer?    Well with building land in Erdington at a shortage, maybe new homes builders should be  forced under planning rules to reserve ground floor apartments to be set aside for older  people to encourage them to move out of larger houses. I would challenge the long-held  point of view that building more bungalows in Erdington is the pre-eminent way to urge  growing numbers of mature ‘last-time buyers’ to move out of their under-occupied  Erdington homes and free up their large homes (where their children have flown the nest)  for younger Erdington families to grow.    With the new Planning Regulations due to be in place in a couple of years, local authorities  could require builders to set aside a share of homes for mature residents, as they are already  obligated to subsidise local community facilities or low-cost social housing in return for  obtaining their planning permission to build in the first place.    [...]

Erdington house prices rose by 0.5% last month, according to the Land Registry. This means the annual rate of house price growth in Erdington has increased to 12.2%.         Looking at the national figures, many people were concerned the UK property market was overheating as spring saw annual growth of 9.9%, the highest rate [...]

as 251.1% more people sell in June compared to the Erdington area 10-year average         June 2021 was the busiest month ever for UK estate agents, home removal companies and conveyancers since monthly records began as HMRC logged 213,120 residential transactions in June, a jump of more than 216% nationally on the [...]

And the reason you shouldn’t either         I know of many Erdington buy-to-let landlords who fell into property investing by accident. Many didn’t want to sell their family home when the Erdington housing market crashed in the Credit Crunch of 2009/10, yet still needed to move (often for work). They thought they [...]

… yet Bitcoin investors would have made £7,325,600 in profit. Is investing in ‘Bricks & Mortar’ dead?         Investing in property has historically been a sound investment, yet alternative investments (like Cryptocurrency) have been gaining traction over the last five years. So, should we all ditch buying our own home and buy [...]

The value of an average Erdington semi-detached house has increased in value by £13,102 in the last 12 months, an increase in value of 8.62%.         Yet the costs of building an Erdington home have shot up even more in the last 12 months, meaning the price of Erdington new homes and [...]

How Eco-friendly are Erdington Homes?   And how new Gov’t rules will mean draughty low-eco Erdington homes will drop in value         ‘It’s Not Easy Being Green’, was the song that Kermit sang on Sesame Street.       Yet now being green is a normal way of life for most of [...]

Would it surprise you even more when I said the ratio of house prices to wages are still lower today when compared to 1871? Yes, you read that correctly, as a proportion of average wages British house prices are 17.6% proportionally cheaper today than they were in 1871.       I wish to talk [...]

… whilst possible new mortgage rules for Erdington homeowners would make it harder to sell their draughty old properties       As the UK has committed to a legally binding target to be carbon neutral by 2050, one of the biggest producers of greenhouse gasses are residential properties. To hit that target, every UK [...]

All the signs are that the Erdington housing market is sat on good foundations, yet one key hazard could still scupper the market.       ‘UK Property Prices Rising at Record Levels’ is the headline of many newspapers. In the last few weeks, the Halifax reported they had grown by 6.5% in the last [...]

…as Erdington first-time buyers now only need a 5% deposit for a mortgage.         Erdington landlords, sell your property portfolios, your tenants will soon be leaving in droves as they buy their first home with the new 5% deposit mortgages backed by the Government’s new mortgage-guarantee scheme revealed in March’s budget! These [...]

As 1 in 6 Erdington homes are selling within a fortnight of coming to market         One of the most astounding things that has happened in the last 12 months was something that did not happen. Even after the country saw the deepest recession since the Great Freeze of 1709, with GDP [...]

Would it surprise you that there are 67% fewer properties for sale today in Erdington than a decade ago? Property values are much higher than a decade ago and the property market at the moment in Erdington is on fire. In all my years as an agent, I have never seen it like it is [...]

So is it a good idea to rent in between moving home, to be chain-free?       Moving home is said to be the third most stressful thing you can do, so if you can do anything to reduce that stress, so much the better? When buying your next Erdington home, being chain-free can [...]

A look back at the Erdington housing market over the last decade       With all of us completing the Census, a couple of weeks ago, it made me realise profoundly that mine and my family’s life, which from our own point of view seems unique and delightful, makes us all into a series [...]

Has there ever been a better time for Erdington home sellers? The Erdington property market, for people looking to sell, is at its sturdiest for at least the last five years with home buyers jumping on to the Erdington property ladder with abandon. Erdington house prices are anticipated to rise throughout 2021 after the stamp [...]

There is no getting away from the fact that the rise in the number of buy-to-let properties in Erdington has been nothing short of astonishing over the last twenty years. As a result, many in the press have said Britain is a broken nation, with many twenty and thirty-somethings unable to buy their first home. [...]

A brief history of Erdington and the current every day transport links and local amenities that make Edrington properties sought after.

Yet higher mortgage rates could see Erdington buyers paying a lot more each month for the privilege   Being an Erdington first-time buyer in the last 12 months has not been an easy thing. Just before lockdown there were 400 ‘5% deposit mortgage’ deals and first-time buyers were able shop around to get the best [...]

...and new 5% deposit mortgages for Erdington first-time buyers The Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced two initiatives to keep the Erdington property market firing on all cylinders into 2021. Firstly, the £500,000 zero-rate Stamp Duty band has been extended to the 30thJune 2021. After then it will phase down to £250,000 for an additional three months, [...]

How wealth is distributed will always be a contentious issue, especially as the Baby Boomers (those aged between their late 50’s and late 70’s) wealth has grown exponentially over the last 20 years, compared to the wealth of the younger generation. With most UK property in the hands of the older generation, with its total [...]

Looking back at the Erdington property market for 2020, it can certainly be seen as a frenetic game of two halves, albeit with a very long half time in the spring. Between the General Election in mid-December and Christmas, many Erdington agents saw an unusually higher uplift in activity in the property market just as […]

What does this mean for Erdington property owners? With most Erdington families home schooling their children in lockdown and the forthcoming Stamp Duty Holiday deadline on the 31st March 2021, less Erdington properties have been coming onto the Erdington property market since the new year. This has prompted a 25% drop in the supply of Erdington homes [...]

When William the Conqueror invaded our fair shores in 1066, like all good kings, he needed to buy loyalty and raise cash to build his castles and armies. He did this by feudal law system and granted all the faithful nobles and aristocrats with land. In return, the nobles and aristocrats would give the King [...]

12 months ago, the unemployment rate in Erdington stood at 6.5% of the working population, yet with Coronavirus hitting the UK, what impact will this rise in unemployment have on the Erdington property market? As I have discussed a number of times in my articles on the Erdington property market, this summer saw the Erdington [...]

Roll the clock back to April 2020, and major financial economists and property market commenters were sounding the alarm. The very best-case scenario was a 5% drop in property values by the end of the year, and most were in the 10% to 15% range. They forewarned the Covid-19 stimulated recession would trim tens of [...]

...and the three reasons why it will not be the catastrophic scenario some are predicting In the last few months, the Erdington (and UK) property market has resisted and flouted every economist’s prediction. With the economy a shadow of its former self, unemployment set to hit 11.9%, the Government on track to borrow nearly half [...]

Looking back at the Erdington property market for 2020, it can certainly be seen as a frenetic game of two halves, albeit with a very long half time in the spring. Between the General Election in mid-December and Christmas, many Erdington agents saw an unusually higher uplift in activity in the property market just as [...]

With the banks reducing the number of low deposit mortgages (i.e. deposit of 10% and below) since Covid-19 hit in the spring, this has meant that the number of Erdington first-time buyers has been decreasing quickly, meaning many of those would-be Erdington buyers wanting to make the first step on the Erdington property ladder are having to [...]

...and the 5 ways on how all Erdington landlords can escape the worst of the coronavirus downturn on their Erdington rental property. With the second lockdown starting on the 5th November 2020, does this mean Erdington landlords can wave goodbye to their Erdington buy-to-let investment and see it go up in smoke on the bonfire [...]

What will a no deal Brexit on the horizon, the end of the stamp duty holiday in March, mortgage payment holidays coming to an end, unemployment set to rise after furlough and ongoing on/off coronavirus restrictions do to the Erdington property market and the value of your home? In the late spring of 2020, every [...]

Boris Johnson has attracted both praise and horror in equal measure with a new plan for 95% mortgages to help beleaguered first time buyers to get on the property ladder, but would that expose UK taxpayers to too much risk? In this article I discuss the implications of what that would mean both nationally and [...]

Post lockdown, the need for Erdington families who want bigger homes has meant Erdington homebuyers must now pay considerably more to trade up to that larger home… One thing that has come out of lockdown has been the inexorable movement of Erdington households wanting to upsize to a larger home. Often considered to be first [...]

The Erdington property market is an enigma and chock-full of contradictions.     Notwithstanding an economic recession and forecasts of property values dropping, nobody seems to have informed the Erdington homeowners selling their homes and those Erdington people looking to buy them. As I have discussed in many recent articles on the locality, the Erdington [...]

With only 1 in 4 Erdington house sellers actually selling their home in the last month, Erdington sellers and buyers will need to continue to be pragmatic if the surprisingly strong current levels of activity in the Erdington property market are to be sustained.     To start, we had the once in a lifetime [...]

Roll the clock back 20 years and any self-respecting late 20/early 30 something would never say on their first date that they lived with their mum and dad. It was seen as a sign of immaturity being tied to your mother’s apron strings with as a failure to leave the family home. Yet over these [...]

Step By Step – Property Specification, Certificates and Regulations Guide for HMO Landlords   HMOs do have some extended regulations to comply with compared to single family properties, largely related to fire safety   HMO Licence Required if the property is rented to 5 or more individuals Required if the property is 3 storeys   […]

Simple Landlords Guide   Existing HMO Properties without licence If you have an existing property with 3-6 residents and have never applied for a HMO licence then you would need to apply prior to June 2020 deadline.   The property would need to be up to the current HMO regulations download here.   After June […]

For over 10 years, we have provided a Birmingham HMO application service for landlords to get property HMO compliant and application filling to Birmingham City Council.   The Service we provide is broken down into simple points and the pricing can be constituted individually   For a complete HMO service, we offer a full service […]

Should you wait to buy your first home in Erdington or buy now? What sort of mortgages are available? What sort of deposit is required? These are questions all Erdington buyers are asking at the moment, yet this week I would like to focus on Erdington first time buyers and what it means directly and […]

Despite Government regulations that have been in place since the 26 March 2020, when in-person viewings were made illegal, Erdington buy to let landlords have during that time been chomping at the bit to build their property empire by looking at buying additional properties for their Erdington buy to let portfolio.   There are plenty of […]

An immediate fallout of the Coronavirus pandemic is that it has placed many Erdington families house moves on hold. Government guidelines state all house buyers and house sellers who are in the process of selling their Erdington house and moving to a new house must adapt to these temporary arrangements, adjusting their usual practices, agreeing […]

Before the Covid-19 pandemic hit, 2,058 Erdington (or B23 & B24 to be exact) people worked mainly from home, or about 6.7% of Erdington’s 30,701 workforce (compared to the national average of 14.9%). Yet over the last few weeks, many hundreds, even thousands more Erdington workers have joined them in their spare rooms or at […]

With almost everyone spending more time at home, it’s normal for you to have started noticing things you didn’t notice before. It is also normal that you have asked yourself, at some point, if there is anything to do, other than cleaning, to get rid of viruses. But what you may not know is that […]

Erdington Electricians are going to very busy in the next 13 months as they will have to test the electrics of every private rented property in Erdington and potentially may have to install new fuse boards and wiring in some circumstances.   New regulations set out in the Housing and Planning Act 2016 gave the […]

So now we are only a matter of a couple of weeks into lockdown, yet can you believe it I am still speaking with agents from all over the UK, and I do not jest, properties are still being sold and let even in these unprecedented times. Yet I would like to address the question […]

The last three or four weeks, unquestionably, have been one of the most life-changing times we have seen since WW2. The imminent threat of the Coronavirus has taken over the world, the UK and Erdington and will challenge you, our families, our relationships and test us all.   The drive of this worldwide action of […]

In 1979, Margaret Thatcher was voted in on a Tory landslide with the ‘right to buy your own council house’ being a mainstay of Conservative policy. She encouraged people to buy their own their own council flats and houses, although it might interest you to know, that the council tenant right to buy idea was [...]

Freehold or Leasehold .. which is best? Well, when buying a property in the UK there are two main types of ownership – freehold and leasehold and, when boiled down, they mean the following... Freehold: The person who owns the freehold of a property owns the property and the land it stands on. Leasehold: As [...]

The British housing market has never been so newsworthy. Every other day, there is an article in the newspaper or online about impending house price drops, house price rises, building on green belt, mortgage rates up/down, first time buyer affordability and the woes of being a buy to let landlord, to mention but a few. [...]

Well my recent articles about Erdington’s most moved street in the last 3 years and the Monopoly board article (the one where I listed the most valuable streets) caused quite a lot of interest locally, so I decided to see what else I could find out about the B23 postcode area, and I have been [...]

The Government’s Annual Housing Survey is 50 years old this year. It has taken a snap shot of the UK’s property market every year since 1969 and in the recently published report for 2018, it wasn’t a surprise that owner occupation is still the most predominant tenure, yet now more people own their home without [...]

The foundations of the Erdington Property Market over the summer have continued to be principally sound; yet the existing political macroclimate means that the critical element of consumer confidence has been reduced and that is triggering some potential Erdington property buyers and Erdington house sellers to falter slightly and hang fire making any firm decisions [...]

Has England’s green and pleasant land all of a sudden become England’s green and overcrowded land? With the nation’s ever-increasing population and the double whammy that people are now living longer, this means as each year goes by, there is an ever-growing strain on public services and in particular my favourite topic - housing. It’s [...]

Board games seem a thing of the past for youngsters nowadays with their consoles and mobile phones yet a family favourite in our household that will bring young and old together is Monopoly. Mayfair is the square everyone wants to buy and whilst it is the most expensive to buy – it offers the greatest [...]

Improving the energy efficiency of Britain’s 27.2 million homes, which are responsible for more than a quarter of the country’s CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions, is seen as key to tackling the issues of climate change, fuel poverty and our country’s energy security. This is particularly important as in June the Government announced they [...]

Of the 16,900 houses and apartments sold in Erdington (B23) since 1995, 1,400 of those have been new homes, representing 6.4% of property sold. So, I wondered how that compared to both the regional and the national picture …and from that, the pertinent questions are: are we building too many new homes or are we [...]

The average homeowner in the UK moves every 20.2 years… That average in the 1970’s and 80’s was around every 10 to 11 years; in the 1990’s it increased to the mid-teens (in terms of years) and in the early part of the Millennium, it dropped again to the low teens. When we had the [...]

In 1979, more than 4 in 10 British people lived in a council house, yet today that figure is only 1 in 12, whilst according to Shelter 65% of families on the Council House waiting lists had been on those lists for more than a year and 27% had been waiting for more than five [...]

Nationally, the number of new homes created in 2018 was 222,194, the highest since 1989. Yet since 2002, the average number of properties built in the UK has only been 146,700 per year. You would think, seeing all the new homes sites around, you could ask are we building too many houses, especially off the [...]

Many Erdington people ponder the best places to invest their hard-earned savings and the best piece of advice I can give you is to do your homework and speak to lots of people. It depends on your attitude to risk versus reward. Normally, the lower the risk, the lower the reward whilst a higher risk [...]

Erdington Property Market Do We Have the Right Sort of Erdington Homes For the 21st Century? Would it surprise you to know that in some parts of Erdington, predominantly prosperous areas with high proportions of mature residents, the housing crisis is not one of supply so much as a dispersal of that supply? Theoretically, in [...]

New Home Building in Erdington and Birmingham rise 57.3% above the average Nationally, the number of new homes created in 2018 was 222,194, the highest since 1989. Yet since 2002, the average number of properties built in the UK has only been 146,700 per year. You would think, seeing all the new homes sites around, you [...]

With the fall in the value of the pound, low-interest rates, panic buying and reports of job losses, 2019 is becoming crucial for the UK – all thanks to the looming Brexit, and its uncertainties. The property sector isn’t left out. According to the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), prices of houses have taken [...]

As 52.4% of Erdington Property on the Market is Sold Are there any bargains because of Brexit? Bargains – well yes and no – and let me explain why. To find a bargain you need to know the ‘market’, yet there is not one ‘property market’ in the UK. In fact, the British property market [...]

Erdington Property Market vs London Property Market Anyone would think that national news, especially when it comes to talking about the property market, is just focused on London centric. In fact, over the last 5 years, the London property market has really manipulated the UK on averages to such an extent that many lenders like [...]

A couple of years ago I made the decision to walk to work every day rather than catch the bus. The reason for this was threefold. Firstly, near where I live, there is only one bus that can take you into town. One bus. A nightmare journey that took far too long to follow its [...]

The latest Hometrack house price index has revealed that, as prices in the capital slip, Manchester and Birmingham are the two cities that have seen the biggest growth in house prices in the 12 months to August. According to the analysis, Manchester has seen prices rise by 7.3%, closely followed by Birmingham at 6.7%. Edinburgh [...]

With the Government preparing to control tenant’s deposits at five weeks rent, Erdington landlords will soon only be protected in the event of a single month of unpaid rental-arrears, at a time when Universal Credit has seen some rent arrears quadrupling and that’s before you consider the damage to the property or solicitor costs. It [...]

Erdington property values are unexpectedly 6.2% higher than at the end of 2017, notwithstanding the uncertainty and threats over the potential impact of Brexit in 2019. This has exceeded all the predictions (aka guesses) of all the City of London economists, in an astonishing sign of strength for the local Erdington and wider national economy. [...]

There is no way to lie: there is not one person in the whole of Europe who is not or were not uncertain about Brexit and its consequences. If you work with Property Market or even if you own one or more properties, you are twice as worried about what the future holds for the [...]

Perched in the heart of England, Birmingham is the country’s second largest city after London and one that’s great to explore… especially on a first time trip! With a handful of museums, country houses, parks and some incredible shopping spots, there really are so many amazing things to do in Birmingham. Whilst growing up in [...]

The Government's Advisory Committee on Climate Change recommended ending the use of gas heating on new homes starting in 2025 as a report last month informed. The green solution is built only super-efficient properties heated with low-carbon energy instead. This will also mean lower bills for owners and tenants. The move is one of a [...]

- Birmingham climbs 14 places up the top European cities for property investment. - London moves down the ranks as investors grow wary of high prices Birmingham has been heralded as the new darling of overseas property investors looking for bargains as escalating prices in the capital forced increasing numbers to explore new options, a [...]

Unlike stocks, there’s no easy way to ascertain the exact value of your current property or the property you plan to purchase. As a multi-property owner, I’m glad there aren’t any ticker symbols jumping around every weekday because they are just a distraction. It’s all about buying, maintaining, and holding for as long as possible [...]

Despite the endless stream of misleading headlines, Millennials are now in their mid-20s to early-40s, and along with the oldest members of Gen Z, Millennials are beginning to purchase homes of their own. So what does that mean for the broader real estate marketplace? Simply put, as Baby Boomers continue to retire and start downsizing, [...]

In 2019 is hard to think in a business that actually does a WAY better job than the similar online solutions you can find. At Henley Charles, we are proud to offer a huge Online presence to our clients, but we are even prouder to put customer service and the personal experience first. Not only [...]

Before the decision was taken about the UK leaving the EU, all sides of the investment market faced a lot of uncertainties. Once the decision to leave was certain and with the due date is almost here, experts say the cloudy air has drifted away and the Breast could be good for the UK real [...]

I have been doing some research, looking both at National and Regional reports on the demand and supply of property and people together with future projections on the economy, population and family demographics with some interesting results. According to the Office of National Statistics, in the last financial year nationally, private renting grew by 74,000 [...]

I am of the opinion that buy to let investment in Erdington, in the long-term, will bring substantial returns for landlords, irrespective of latest regulation and tax changes. Taking a very conservative (with a small ‘c’) view, I believe landlords will see a projected net profit of £288,983 per property over the next 25 years [...]

My analysis has shown that up to the end of the last quarter, Erdington first time buyers purchased 221 Erdington properties. With wages rising at 2.8%, unemployment at a low rate of 4.2% (down from 4.6% from a year earlier and the joint lowest since 1975), national GDP rising at 1.87% and inflation at 2.3%, [...]

What Will Happen to Erdington Property Values if Interest Rates Rise? The current average value of a property in Erdington currently stands at £162,600 and the base rates at 0.5%. In many of my articles, I talk about what is happening to property values over the short term (i.e. the last 12 months or the [...]

Over the last twenty years, there has been a shift in the way the Erdington (and the UK’s) property market works. In the 1960’s, 70’s, 80’s and 90’s, a large majority of twenty somethings saved up their 5% deposit, went without life’s luxuries of going out and holidays etc., for a couple of years and [...]