Houses For Cash UK Blog

Higher interest rates seem to be working to slow down house prices in the UK. July saw a massive slowdown which has brought the annual growth rate down to single figures. This has been the slowest growth rate since April 2006 after 5 interest rate increases in a year.

This leaves the Bank of England having to make tough decisions in the coming months. Economic growth is steady but consumer finances are really starting to feel the pressure of higher interest rates. Will they punch or will they pinch, we’ll have to wait and see but the 6% figure definitely seems to be looming!

The major floods across the UK have sent UK property investors packing. Estate agents are reporting how thousands of property investors are choosing to invest in warmer European destinations due to the floods here in the UK. The floods have coincided with heat waves across most of Europe and new flight paths opening up have strengthened the stimulation to invest abroad.

Various countries around the globe are feeling the pinch of over inflated house prices and the bubble seems to be bursting. The US has seen a dramatic slowdown and has been badly hit with a sub prime mortgage downfall with high mortgage arrears and house owners being unable to avoid repossession.
Both New Zealand and Denmark are earmarked alongside the UK to be next in line for a big fall in house prices with the UK said to have property over valued on average by 20%.
Germany, Italy and Japan are the least vulnerable for a crash.
Fast house sales are a luxury we can still remember but seem to be fading gently into the past. After recent years where estate agencies promised to sell your house quick they are admitting a slowdown in time scales and a scaling down in the market over all.
Reports of people wanting to sell their house privately are seeing an upturn, either through the internet or selling houses for cash to private investors. This is largely due to new technologies and people wanting to save money where ever they can.

Whilst the UK property market is pointing down Colliers profits are pointing upwards. Colliers chairman Sir John Ritblat said Colliers had nearly doubled their pre-tax profits in the first half of 2007. This could be down to acquisitions and most profits being geared on their commercial property arm.

A recent study by Lambert Smith Hampton has shown Cardiff and Newport are the best performing retail property centres.
In most other locations there is a very gloomy outlook with no predicted growth for the rest of 2007.
Lee Mogridge head of Lambert Smith Hampton Wales said “In Cardiff rents have grown for the first time in three years with the city experiencing rental increases of 8.1% in 2007 so far”.

You thought you needed a quick house sale ? Well imagine if you had 20 buy-to-let mortgages to maintain and 20 mortgage arrears actions against you. Repossession after repossession.
The UK has around 400,000 buy-to-let investors and the situation for them is not looking good with landlords realising that the rental income is not covering their mortgages in many cases. This coupled with the average time to sell a house becoming much longer due to a slowdown in the market, has ‘crisis’ written all over it. Most investors are coming to the end of their fixed-rate terms on their mortgages so the rate increases could spiral them into debt. Normally Landlords would just increase the rents and pass the cost onto tenants but due to the increase in competition are scared to do so in fear of losing tenants. The best time to sell houses is spring and early summer so with late summer and autumn approaching the future is not looking so good for apprentice landlords.

Click here for a free valuation or just call the freephone number on 08000 82 10 81

When looking to move home, most homeowners don’t look at the actual cost of moving, they just say to their estate agents: sell my house now for X and then expect to receive this figure and then buy another house without any further costs.
These are the potential costs when you sell your house:
• Early redemption fee with mortgage (if you have one this can range from 0.5% up to 10% so make sure you check the small print)
• Estate agency fee if you choose to use one: usually around 1.5%
• Solicitor fees usually around £450 upwards
Now here are the potential costs when you buy a new house once you have sold the old one:
• Mortgage broker fees
• Lenders fees
• Solicitors fees
• Survey fees

With all of the above in mind it is essential to do your figures before making the move.

Latest figures are showing home repossession, mortgage arrears and CCJ 's (county court judgements) are on the increase, whilst there has been a drop in personal insolvency, showing that lenders are cracking down on any type of debt management plan and IVA 's (Individual Voluntary Arrangements). This points out their strict policy with people who fall behind on mortgage and other loan repayments. People are either facing repossession orders or trying to find a way of selling a house quickly.

Selling houses quickly seems to be the order of the day right now due to record repossessions, higher insurance premiums, higher interest rates and thousands of home owners coming to the close of their fixed rate mortgages. So can people still secure a quick deal before they land themselves in trouble? The answer to this is yes. Home owners still have a choice of several options:
1. Increase the pressure on Estate agents or employ multiple agents
2. Be realistic about the market and how that is reflected in your asking price
3. Sell to a private investor or property company for cash. This option obviously being the fastest route to sale and in some cases offering home owners the option of renting back their home should they wish to stay in the property.
So there you have it there is a way out but don’t hang around thinking about it. Act now!

The number of mortgage arrears and home repossessions have reached an 8 year high according to the council of mortgage lenders (CML). Lenders repossessed 14,000 homes in just 6 months showing an increase of 30% on the year before. People with bad credit mortgages (sub-prime mortgages) and bad credit loans have been hit the hardest according to Michael Coogan of CML who said “The greater risks inherent in sub-prime lending are resulting in significantly higher levels of repossession in that part of the market compared to mainstream experience.”

All this comes at a time when the Bank of England plans to increase the base rate again very shortly which can only add to the mayhem. Howard Archer, of Global Insight, said “Clearly, the higher that interest rates rise, the greater the danger that a growing number of people will be pushed over the edge and there is a clear need for many households to improve their personal balance sheets.”

Reports are showing how the UK sub-prime crisis could be every bit as bad as the one which hit the US economy recently. With lenders acting fast on mortgage arrears and the property market slowing down in the house sales department the bubble is ripe for bursting according to global economists.
Capital Economics Limited said "With higher interest rates yet to have their full effect, mortgage arrears are likely to rise further, while unsecured bad debt might start to rise again too.''
Approximately 125,000 households are behind on their mortgage re-payments which will no doubt lead to an increasing amount of repossessions in the near future.

If you are looking to sell your house fast, then you should know the stamp duty bands here in the UK, as they can affect the speed at which you sell your house. You should be aware that if your house is up for sale at £250,001 or above, then the buyer has to pay 2% more in stamp duty than if it was £1 cheaper at £250,000, which mounts to a lot of money and could therefore put off potential buyers:

Here are the bands

up to £125,000 - 0% (no stamp duty)

£125,001 - £250,000 - 1%

£250,001 - £500,000 - 3%

£500,001 or more - 4%

Jill Livingstone of East London said " I wanted to sell my house fast and thought we had it on the market at a very reasonable price of £255,000, but no one came to view it, I then saw an article on stamp duty and realised I was just above the threshold of 3%, so I reduced the price to £250,000. Within days I started getting viewings and have since accepted an offer"

So there you have it, be aware of the bands!

Watch out for my blogs next week where I will show you how to check whether your area is stamp duty exempt

I got into property because I wanted to sell my house for free and realised the only options seemed to be estate agents or auctions and to sell through these guys I had to pay big fees.

So I put an advert in a local news paper and instead of inserting my advert for a 3 bedroomed semi in the 'for sale' section it appeared in the 'wanted' section and I was inundated with requests from other people desperate to sell their houses fast and privately. My phone was off the hook and I also realised a lot of people wanted to rent back their homes and didn't want to move out. They were only selling their homes to clear debts and when I was chatting to Chris about this he came up with the idea of offering a buy back option so people could re-purchase their homes when in a better financial position.

Then we met Mark the internet guru and http://www.housesforcashuk.co.uk was born

We had found a way of providing all of the above services FOR FREE.

Debt management companies have soared over the last few years due to people getting too deep in the red. As I have said before credit cards and loans are not a bad thing it's just how people use them that causes the problems. The UK is starting to see issues far worse than we have seen in recent years and these problems are causing people to lose their homes and this is a very serious problem.

People get credit cards or loans, then they get more loans to pay off these loans, then they re-mortgage to pay these off, then the Bank of England raises interest rates, then they raise them again, then again, then.................................................................................................

Then people get into mortgage arrears, try to re-mortgage but can only get bad credit mortgages, with massive premiums and interest rates, because they fall under the sub-prime bracket, then they get into further arrears, then they try to re-mortgage and this time they can't, then....................................................................................................................................

Then unfortunately people get repossessed.
The only option at this point is to sell your house fast and that is where Houses For Cash UK can help you, but move quickly before repossession orders arrive and the courts swoop in.

If you want to sell your house online you need to know the facts before you start:

1. Find a reputable website to advertise
2. Check how many sales they have completed, to make sure they are shifting houses
3. Don't pay too much. You should be able to advertise for around £19.99
4. Manage your own expectations. If estate agencies are struggling to sell houses at the moment then so will online websites. The best way to sell your house fast is to sell to a private investor or property company.

It is definitely worth doing your homework before paying to place an advert and selling your house privately.

For those of you who don't know about HIP's (Home information packs), it is now a requirement for all homes in the UK, being marketed, to have one.
HOWEVER - if you sell your house to http://www.housesforcashuk.co.uk we will take care of this for FREE so there will be no cost to you and certainly no hassle.
So there you have it! Selling your house fast for cash has never been easier and we even take care of the HIP

Click here for a free valuation or just call the freephone number on 08000 82 10 81

A lot of our customers/clients come to us because they have equity in their houses but, for various reasons, have mortgage and/or loan arrears and need help to get rid of them.

This is one of the great advantages of selling your house for cash because we can also offer you the opportunity to rent your house back, which means...

1. You get to live in the same house (and the rent is often lower than your mortgage payment)
2. You get to clear ALL of your debts (and therefore get a new start)

..and this is being seen as more and more of a valid and useful solution to people looking for help with mortgage and loan arrears.

If this sounds like something you might be interested in investigating further, give us a call on freephone 08000 82 10 81

We've had a lot of emails from our Scottish Brethren recently wondering how to sell a house in Scotland and we have emailed all of them back with the same answer so i thought I would post it on the blog to diminish any confusion around Scottish house sales and Houses for cash UK:

We buy houses in England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland and if for any reason we don't buy it then we can usually find someone who will.

So there you have it: we CAN cater for private house sales in Scotland

What does rent back mean? It means you can sell your house and live in it even once it has been sold, either on a short term or long term basis.

Houses for Cash UK, allow you to sell your house and rent it back from us giving you the chance to release equity without having to move out. As I've mentioned in previous blogs I came up with the idea about 10 years ago when I wanted to sell my house then rent it back because I needed some equity release but didn't want the upheaval of moving to another house and I couldn't find anyone who would buy it then rent it back to me

I've had a lot of emails recently asking: "How long does it take to sell a house?" and we all want to sell houses quickly here in the UK but there are many variables including:

Market Conditions - This has a huge affect on the market and we are feeling this at present as conditions are generally slow across the UK due to houses being over priced and interest rate rises amongst other things
Location - It may be slow across most of the UK but some areas are stilling moving fast especially in certain affluent hot spots in central London.
Route to market - Estate agencies seem to be moving very slow at the moment where as selling to private investors is the quickest way
Condition of property - If your property is in a bad condition then this will probably slow things down unless you are selling to a private investment company
Size of property - The size of your property relative to the area you live is very important. If the demand in your area is for 3 bed houses the a 1 bed apartment will not sell quickly but then again neither will a 5 bed detached.

So be aware of the above variables when selling your property

Click here for a free valuation or just call the freephone number on 08000 82 10 81

The question on everyone's lips at the moment seems to be: "how do I sell my house online for free in the UK?" or just "how do I sell my house online?"

There are numerous ways:

Find a website that will allow you to advertise your house. Some of these will allow you to upload a certain amount of information for free.

Or

You could find a private investment company who will buy your house without any costs being incurred.

There will be more on this subject in the coming weeks

Click here for a free valuation or just call the freephone number on 08000 82 10 81

"Houses London Selling Faster", seems to be the title in most property magazines but are they right?

The truth is London is like most major international cities, it has it's posh parts and it has it's not so posh parts. London's trendy parts always seem to sell quickly no matter what the rest of the market is doing but it's 'not so trendy' parts are selling just as slow as the rest of the country

Click here for a free valuation or just call the freephone number on 08000 82 10 81