What do the party manifestos mean for the property industry?

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With the 2019 general election just around the corner, the
majority of Britain is focussed on the political sphere as the nation
speculates about how things will pan out on 12 December. All the major parties
have now launched their 2019 manifestos, outlining their key policies and
pledges. Each party’s manifesto presents different potential legislative
changes, which will impact buy to let landlords and the private rented sector
as a whole.

While Brexit has been the major focus for the 2019 election, housing
features prominently in the manifesto policy pledges from all parties. From
Labour’s rent control policies, to the Lib Dems’ Right to Buy reform and the
Conservatives’ ‘lifetime deposit’ scheme; there is a lot for the British public
to consider when it comes to housing that may influence their vote.

Each party’s manifesto has implications for a different
future for the private rented sector in the UK, and those operating within the
industry are making their decisions based on which policies benefit their
values.

Sean Hooker, Head of Redress at the PRS, offers
his insights into how the key party pledges on housing will impact those
involved in the property industry in his reflective article, ‘Promises
promises promises! What do the party manifestos mean for the property
industry?’ Sean provides an overview of the pledges which relate to
the property world that each political party has included in their 2019
election manifesto. He also delves into the key messages from the campaigns and
discusses some of the implications of the main proposals in each manifesto.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – What do the party manifestos mean for the property industry? | LandlordZONE.

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Concerns over councils investing in retail properties…

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Retail Investments:

A recent trend for
hard-pressed local councils to supplement their income by borrowing
to invest in commercial property could be a dangerous short-term fix
warns central government.

The Treasury is
attempting to steer local authorities away from this strategy, some
of which have purchased retail premises occupied by struggling high
street businesses. The result, thinks the Treasury, could be councils
being forced into bankruptcy.

Fall-out from High
Street businesses going bust, creating high vacancy rates in many
towns, results in rapidly falling local property values. Last week
interest rates from the Public Works Loan Board were increased by one
percent last week to reflect the increased risk, the Sunday
Telegraph reported.

As interest rates
rise, the cost of borrowing for local authorities could skyrocket,
while potential loss of income from long-term vacancies could
jeopardised the solvency of many a local council.

In the face of
struggling retail centres some councils have been snapping-up
shopping centres – five have been sold to councils since 2016,
while property companies have been exiting the sector. Whilst these
councils may have experienced a welcome initial income yield, this
often proves short-term; prices are low for a reason, and property
investing expertise is often lacking.

A recent deal involved Hammerson offloading the St Oswald’s retail park in Gloucester to the local council for £54m as the leading property company continued its own strategy of dumping retail shopping centres. Likewise, Mole Valley district council in Surrey bought an Asda site in South Wales for £11.5m, according to reports by The Sunday Telegraph.

Large property
companies are experiencing a torrid time in retail, with values
collapsing as more retailers go to the wall: Hammerson, British Land
and Intu have all seen their portfolio valuations and profits
decimated as their retail tenants close stores, seek rent reductions
or trigger controversial company voluntary arrangements (CVAs) to
rationalise and restructure.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – Concerns over councils investing in retail properties… | LandlordZONE.

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Rental industry giant, Hamilton Fraser, to launch deposit alternative product

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UK lettings and landlord insurance industry giant, Hamilton Fraser, has announced the launch of its own in-house deposit alternative brand, Ome.

Having previously highlighted the problems surrounding the increasing trend for such schemes, Hamilton Fraser has decided to tackle these issues head-on itself

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UK Property Prices Sees Lowest Growth All Year

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Recent findings from the Halifax House
Price Index show that the UK’s property has seen a 0.9% growth in
price from October 2018. A property in the UK will now cost an average of
£232,249.

Halifax’s managing director Russell Galley has commented on these recent
figures, stating that “Average house prices continued to slow in October, with
a modest rise of 0.9% over the past year. Whilst this is the lowest growth seen
in 2019, it again extends the largely flat trend which has taken hold over
recent months.”

Mr Galley further claimed that “A number of underlying factors such as
mortgage affordability and wage growth continue to support prices, however
there is evidence of consumers erring on the side of caution.”

The Halifax report states that house prices in August to October (their
latest quarter) were 0.2% higher than the previous one, this being May to July.
The findings also reported a monthly change of – 0.1%.

Alongside this slow growth in property prices, findings from HMRC have
shown that sales in properties have been significantly high; reaching levels
that have not been seen since August 2017. From August to September, the data
reveals that there has been an increase in houses sold of 5%.

It has been reported that 101,740 homes had been sold this September. In
addition to houses sold, the amount of mortgages approved has also increased,
with reports from the Bank of England revealing that in September, 65,919
mortgages were approved.

Why are UK house prices experiencing slow
growth?

This year’s considerably slow growth of UK house prices may be due to
Brexit uncertainties, with Halifax’s Mr Galley stating earlier this year that
“We remain unchanged from our view that activity levels and price growth will
remain subdued while the UK navigates political and economic uncertainty”.

Many in the property industry believe that prices could begin to rise once
Brexit uncertainties have cleared, with Yopa’s chief property analyst Mike
Scott stating that once the outcome of Brexit has settled, “it may then give a
short-term boost to house prices”. Mr Scott further claims that “the stock of
houses for sale is quite low, and demand can react more quickly than supply
once the uncertainty is lifted.”

What the upcoming year will bring to Brexit, and to the UK more
generally, is yet to be determined. What can be said about this slow growth in
house prices at present, is that they are improving affordability to house
hunters across the country.

Ashley Ilsen from Magnet Capital commented: “There
needs to be a bigger push from the government to incentivise people to build homes
again. We all know we’re a long way away from the targets that we are supposed
to meet and this is not going to improve without drastic changes to both the
demand and the supply side.”

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – UK Property Prices Sees Lowest Growth All Year | LandlordZONE.

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Founder of Landlord Action, Paul Shamplina, wins Best Seminar Speaker

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Founder of Landlord Action and Brand Ambassador for Hamilton Fraser, Paul Shamplina, has won ‘Best Seminar Speaker’ at The National Landlord Investment Show Awards, after receiving nearly 40% of the overall votes.

The National LIS Awards took place on 21st November 2019 at the Grosvenor House Hotel

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Blog: Future Renting Wales 2019

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Welcome to the live blog from the RLA’s Future Renting Wales conference 2019! Landlords, letting agents and property professionals attended the conference in Cardiff and heard from Emma Williams, Deputy Director of Housing at the Welsh Government, Kate Faulkner and many more! Delegates heard legal updates, and about key issues relating to their lettings including […]

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The cost of an ASBO hotspot

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Research by Springbok Properties, has looked at the property cost of living in one of the nation’s most anti-social areas based on the average house price in locations with the largest number of ASBOs issued compared to the wider area.

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Housing market performance – Labour v Conservative

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House Price Growth Higher under Labour:

From 1974-2019, house price growth (taking inflation into account) from all four Labour prime ministers’ terms in office, added together (119%), significantly outstripped that of Conservative prime ministers (5%). Only one region of the UK/Northern Ireland saw higher house price growth under Conservative governments.

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Rental industry giant, Hamilton Fraser, to launch deposit alternative product

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UK lettings and
landlord insurance industry giant, Hamilton Fraser, has announced the launch of
its own in-house deposit alternative brand, Ome.

Having previously
highlighted the problems surrounding the increasing trend for such schemes,
Hamilton Fraser has decided to tackle these issues head-on itself, providing a
transparent product aimed at delivering complete market choice for UK tenants
and landlords, without compromising their rental wellbeing in the process.

Ome
is the latest brand to launch in the Hamilton Fraser Group and will be the
vehicle for its Deposit Replacement Membership. Ome will operate independently,
enabling agility within an adapting market, but with the support and entire
resources of the Hamilton Fraser Group behind it, including its extensive
knowledge of deposit protection having operated the government authorised
scheme mydeposits since 2007. Ome will also benefit from Hamilton Fraser’s own
adjudication service HF Resolution, which already provides services to many of
the existing deposit alternatives.

This is already the case with many of the
offerings in Hamilton Fraser’s extensive portfolio and will ensure that,
regardless of which deposit path tenants and landlords opt to go down, they
receive a customer focused service. Not only this, but Ome’s digital first
approach will provide Hamilton Fraser with a pioneering brand as they continue
to make improvements to customer service and operations.

Why Ome?

Ome aims to
address a number of market changes, particularly with many tenants now renting
as a lifestyle choice, coupled with the introduction of the tenant fee ban and
the industry milestone of mandatory client money protection.

In addition to
these external changes in the private rented sector, Hamilton Fraser already
has the relevant internal expertise. In fact, Hamilton Fraser is already
providing the adjudication services to many of the leading deposit alternatives
through HF Resolution and has been offering traditional deposit protection
since 2007 through mydeposits.  So, with
Hamilton Fraser experiencing increasing demand from even the largest property
industry brands for these products, and with the expertise and tools already at
its disposal, the company is extremely well placed to deliver such a product
via Ome. 

Ome will look to
tackle existing industry issues through an open approach, ensuring every tenant
and landlord is aware of the pros and cons of deposit protection options, and
how both an alternative or traditional deposit scheme might best suit their
individual situation. Ome doesn’t want to dissuade anyone from using the
traditional format, but they do want to offer the flexibility that more than
one choice can provide.

Deposit
alternatives are not an affordability product. Ome has been designed as a cash
flow solution to provide an option that doesn’t require a hefty upfront sum for
those tenants that would rather financial flexibility. 

Ome is as much about protecting landlords as it
is about helping tenants. Ome will provide landlords with the exact same
financial protections that they would receive with a traditional deposit
scheme.

The only question Ome encourages landlords to ask
themselves is whether or not they want to deal with the administrative and
legislative burden a traditional cash deposit requires.

With increasing reports of some landlords not protecting
deposits correctly and rogue agents running off with tenancy deposits, Ome’s
alternative product protects against these risks.

Co-founder of Ome,
Matthew Hooker, commented:

“Ome is about
offering choice and transparency within the market rather than completely
rewriting the tenancy deposit rulebook and I think Ome’s Deposit Replacement
Membership will be the “go-to” option for many renters and will
complement the traditional deposit schemes in today’s rental market.

Hamilton Fraser
provides such a wealth of resources at our fingertips and has a rich history of
expanding and improving its consumer offering. As a result, we are in a strong
position to offer the best deposit replacement product available today in Ome,
whilst also driving positive change in the UK rental sector and, like Hamilton
Fraser, we will continue to raise industry standards.”

Group CEO of Hamilton Fraser, Eddie Hooker,
commented:

“Hamilton Fraser is one of the country’s leading
specialists in landlord and tenants’ services and products and is well known as
an expert in the sector. Therefore the launch of Ome is complemented by the
huge resource and credibility that the family group provides. When you think
about it, a deposit alternative product is a very natural expansion for us
because we know the space so very well and we’ve been asked by our many
landlord and agent clients to provide one. So we have.

Hamilton Fraser’s
business ethos is to offer products that protect businesses and consumers, to
provide market-leading customer service and to educate the market where we can.
With this mission to raise standards in the private rental sector, the next
natural step was to challenge the new crop of deposit products and demonstrate
ourselves the standards that should be expected within the sector.”

Additional
Information

Tenant responsibilities Tenants will be held to the exact same obligations as a traditional deposit scheme. They must understand that they are still responsible for leaving the property in the same condition they found it, and most importantly that they must pay all the rent and bills they are contracted to pay within the tenancy agreement.

If a tenant does not look after the property then
Hamilton Fraser’s experienced adjudicators will assess the settlement figures
owed to the landlord and the tenant will be obliged to pay them. If they don’t,
the landlord will be financially protected and the tenant will be held liable
under contract.

Ome’s deposit alternative will build on the good
work done by the traditional deposit schemes in raising standards and improving
communication between all parties to the tenancy agreement. 

Tenant references will be required but, in line
with the theme of offering choice, Ome will not dictate what referencing
supplier can be used. 

Landlord and
agent obligations

Landlords and agents can continue to rely on
their existing referencing relationship with the only requirement being that
the landlord must comply with Ome’s minimum referencing standards. 

Ome will require
landlords and agents to perform property inventories and check-in and check-out
reports.  This is not only because
disputes at the end of the tenancy will be evidence based, but also because it
creates better transparency and communication between the landlord and tenant,
reducing conflict at the end of the tenancy should a dispute arise.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – Rental industry giant, Hamilton Fraser, to launch deposit alternative product | LandlordZONE.

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SNP Manifesto – PRS Lite

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The SNP have released their 2019 general election manifesto. This has been very briefly summarised with the key points of interest for Landlords and the PRS industry. Download the full manifesto here

After wading through 50 pages the below was all that could be found on first read that affected the housing market.

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