Direct Property News

The squeeze by the Government on home owners and business premises means Britain has the highest property taxes in the developed world, it has been revealed. Analysis by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) shows property taxes accounted for 12.7pc of the total tax burden in 2014, the latest year for which data are available. This is up 0.3 percentage points compared with 2013 and is more than a percentage point higher than in 2011.

New research from the Council of Mortgage Lenders has revealed significant insights about landlords’ profile, motivations, and plans for the future. The research, by Kath Scanlon and Christine Whitehead of the London School of Economics, broadly finds that private sector individual landlords – whether landlords with buy-to-let mortgages or other landlords – are adopting an “even keel” mentality.

The latest research by Halifax has found that privately owned housing stock in the UK has soared in value by £1.9tr (or 51%) to over £5.5tr in the last ten years. The average value per household in the UK now stands at £241,682, up from £173,837 in 2006 – representing an increase of £67,845. This increase has been driven by a 51% rise in the average house price and the stock of privately owned homes expanding by 1.8 million, from 21.3m to 23.1m.

Planning cuts make the UK Government’s housing targets impossible to meet, according to the vast majority of local authorities who also want to see a rise in fees. Nearly 90% of local authorities believe that a cash injection is needed as their resources are not sufficient to meet the target of a million new homes by 2020, according to new research. The research from the Federation of Master Builders (FMB) and the Local Government Information Unit (LGiU) is the first of its kind to draw upon the experience of both local authorities and SME house builders from right across the UK.

UK rents are expected to rise much faster than property prices over the next three years, according to the chief operating officer of one of Britain’s leading property franchises. Dorian Gonsalves of Belvoir, suggests there will be a 15% increase in rents by 2020. This, he feels, is due to, ‘a raft of recent anti-landlord Government policies in the past year,’ though he notes the rent rises will vary depending on region.

The UK’s build-to-rent sector is probably the country’s property winner for 2016 and the coming year is set to be even better as investors and developers alike are showing confidence in the sector. The Government has already made its support for the sector very clear, and investor are also showing interest despite the Brexit decision and any economic uncertainty that may come with that. JLL recently revealed in a report that investors as well as developers continue to recognise opportunities in the country’s build-to-rent sector. For investors, one of the main turn ons is the security of rental income in London and regional cities the market brings with it.