Posts tagged ‘London’
Top 10: Olympic rental properties
The market isn’t big but the large sums to be made from this summer’s Games most certainly are, if the properties available to rent near Stratford’s Olympic village are anything to go by.
Stratford in East London, which normally features an average rental price of £1,700 a month, has been flooded with properties being offered at up to £10,000 a week, prices you might normally expect to pay in Chelsea or Kensington.
The area offers 277 such short let Olympic properties at the moment for between £4,000 and £6,500 a week, as displayed by our Smart Maps tool below.
Top of the pile is a house that’s ten minutes on foot from Stratford (see below), available for £10,000 a week or £43,000 a month. So what else remains to rent at the top of Stratford’s Olympic property market?
1. £10,000 a week
What: It might be sparsely furnished but it has seven bedrooms and therefore could sleep 14, making the rental price look more affordable per head.
Where: Ten minutes by foot east of Stratford Station in a quirky street of terraced mid-Victorian houses.
2. £6,500 a week
What: Three bedroom terraced mid-Victorian house that’s been expensively decorated throughout and includes an upmarket Italian kitchen. Comes with off-street parking, broadband and a twice-weekly cleaner.
Where: On a pretty and quiet street three miles south-west of the Olympic site. A bit out on a limb, but still just 20 minutes by public transport to Stratford station.
3. £5,000 a week
Where: A stone’s throw from the stadium overlooking both it and a canal.
What: Very large two-bedroom corner flat in a new-build block.
4. £5,000 a week
What: Three bedroom split level penthouse with three balconies, most offering excellent views of the Olympic site (pictured below).
Where: Five minutes by foot east of Stratford town centre and access to the Olympic village.
5. £5,000 a week
What: A furnished three-bedroom 1970s terraced house with a garden and, most crucially, off street parking. Has been refurbished recently.
Where: Just over the trainline from, and east of, the Olympic village. A five minute walk from Stratford rail and tube station too.
6. £5,000 a week
What: Noughties-built end of terrace family home in a residential-cum-industrial area. The attraction is its size – five bedrooms so will sleep ten people. Available only as a month-long let.
Where: Five minutes walk – and to the east of – Stratford town centre.
7. £4,800 a week
What: Tastefully decorated late Victorian terraced house with five bedrooms and a Zen style garden.
Where: Near Bow Street railway station, which is two stops (or two miles) south of Stratford.
8. £4,000 a week
What: Sportingly funky three-bedroom split level apartment with balcony. Pictures were obviously taken in late December, as there’s a Xmas tree in the lounge.
Where: Overlooking the Olympic village on a road to the west of the village.
9. £4,000 a week
What: Two bedroom new-build flat.
Where: Overlooking main stadium and canal from the west on a perimeter road.
10. £4,000 a week
What: A classy apartment in a recently-built block with three double bedrooms.
Where: Near a Unversity of London faculty next to the Olympic site.
Why is renting so expensive?
This is a legacy post from the findaproperty.com blog which is now maintained as an archive within the Zoopla blog. Links have been preserved.
How much do you spend on your monthly rent? And if you’re no longer a renter, how much did you pay the last time you had a landlord or letting agent to keep happy? Unless it was a very long time ago, you probably spent a pretty penny and certainly more than you wished you had. So spare a thought for those who rent now, especially the growing numbers of single-person households living in small homes.
That’s because the latest FindaProperty.com Rental Index reveals the cost of renting a flat has reached an all-time high. Rental asking prices for studio flats have increased by nearly 7% in the past year to reach an average £718 a month, while one-bedroom flats increased by 2.5% to a record £660 per month.
It’s all smiles when you get the keys to your new rental home, but affording the monthly rent isn’t always so much fun
Overall, asking rents have increased in the first quarter of 2012 and are now at £868 per month, 1% up on the same time last year, but below the record high of £890 in September 2011.
But it’s the proportion of take home income spent on letting a home that brings the renting story to life.
Tenants are now spending on average 38%, or £10,416, of their typical £27,242 net salary on rent. In London, it’s even more – households spend 71%, or £25, 824, of their average £36,384 net income on paying rent. Or think about it another way – the average rental household in London spends nearly as much on their rent in a year as the average UK household takes home as income.
There’s an important regional story here too. Renters in South East England spend the next highest proportion with 42% of take-home income going on rent; in the South West it’s 39%; in the East of England it’s 33%; and in the West Midlands, Wales and the North East it’s 32%. Those in Scotland spend 31% of their take-home income on rent; in the North West and Yorkshire it’s 29%; and in the East Midlands it’s 28%.
But what’s causing this? Quite simply, rents have risen because of stricter lending rules which have made it harder for aspiring buyers to get a foot on the property ladder. As a result, less of us are buying, more of us are renting and the increased demand for homes to rent have forced asking prices up. The good news is that mortgage lending was 30% up in March compared to January, according to the Council of Mortgage Lenders.
And while some of that increase is down to buyers scrambling to complete their sales before the end of the stamp duty holiday for first-time buyers, it’s still a good sign. Let’s hope we don’t have to wait too long for the trickle down affect on rents.
Britain’s home value hotspots: How much is my home worth?
This is a legacy post from the findaproperty.com blog which is now maintained as an archive within the Zoopla blog. Links have been preserved.
Homes in the UK’s most highly valued postcode area are 637% more expensive than homes in the lowest valued postcode, according to new data from FindaProperty.
For the first time ever, FindaProperty.com has used its new home valuation tool to find the average values of homes around the country according to their postcode areas, revealing a huge geographical disparity between homes in the south and the north.
Homes in London top the FindaProperty.com list of the UK’s most valuable postcode areas
The valuation tool uses a statistical model to come up with an estimated home value by looking at factors including Land Registry sold prices, historical price movements, property size, location and what comparable properties have recently sold for.
Homes in the West London postcode area of W, which include parts of Kensington and Chelsea, are the country’s most expensive and have an average value of £793,426, according to the list, which ranks the 120 postcode areas in England and Wales by value. This is almost £100,000 ahead of the next most expensive postcode in the UK – London’s SW area, taking in parts of Westminster and Richmond – where homes have an average value of £695,475.
At the other end of the spectrum, homes in Motherwell, Scotland, in the postcode area of ML, including Lanark and Hamilton, have an average value of £107,706 and are more than six times less expensive than homes in the most expensive postcode area.
The top of the list is dominated by postcodes in the south with London postcodes taking up the first five positions on the list. Homes in Kingston Upon Thames (KT), which includes Surbiton, Epsom and Esher, is in sixth position with an average property value of £459,289, while London’s N postcode is in seventh position and Slough’s SL postcode area, which takes in properties in Gerrards Cross, Marlow, Maidenhead and Windsor, comes in as the ninth most valuable area.
Homes in Harrogate in North Yorkshire, in the postcode area HG, are the most highly valued homes in the north of the country and ranked 27 on the list with an average value of £278,190.
These average home values are fascinating because they give us a snapshot of how our neighbourhoods perform compared to the rest of the country.
But what about specific information on the property we call home?
In a perfect world, to value a home ourselves, we’d start by with local property market knowledge – how much have similar homes sold for recently; what are the prices being asked for them now?
But, this all takes time to research, which isn’t something most of us have a lot of.
Property websites have seen this gap in the market for home valuations and are fast developing newer and more accurate ways to help homeowners, and wannabe homeowners, get a handle on specific home values.
The latest tool has just been launched by FindaPropety.com and brings together official sold price data from the Land Registry with other titbits of local market intelligence to generate an estimated value for individual properties.
And who wouldn’t want access to this information, especially as it’s free and instant? In a fragile property market, knowledge really is power regardless of whether you’re staying put or not.
Find out how much your home could be worth with FindaProperty.com’s new valuation tool.
Rihanna’s perfect home: An umbrella factory in Manchester?
She’s been snapped taking the tube, shooting videos and sampling the night life so it’s not too surprising that Rihanna is now on the lookout for a semi permanent London home as she prepares to make a new TV series in the capital.
The sultry Umbrella singer will be living in the UK from May to July for a new fashion focussed Sky Living reality TV show and reportedly wants to find a suitable bolthole in which to base herself.
She was originally looking for a new home in East London, reports The Sun newspaper, but has now shifted her house hunting efforts west and is searching for a secure gated mansion in Kensington or Earl’s Court.
We couldn’t resist having a quick scout around for a new home for RiRi and found this boutique one bedroom flat we thought might be perfect for the singer.
Although it’s in Manchester, the speedy two-hour train trip to the capital is surely a small price to pay for the opportunity to live in a former Umbrella factory…
How to find a property to rent for the London 2012 Olympics period
Over the last four weeks we have seen an increase of 161% in searches for the term ‘Olympics’, a trend that is almost certain to grow over the coming months.
International demand for short-term rental property in London over the summer is set to be fierce. Hotel room availability in the city during the Olympics is becoming non-existent with hotel rooms having been booked out months, and in some cases years, in advance making short-term property rentals a great alternative.
Consequently, with just under 5 months to go until the London Olympics, we have made it easy for the millions of international visitors heading to the capital for the Games to find accommodation. From the Zoopla home page we have linked directly to search results highlighting houses and flats available to rent in London as short-term lets during the summer.
With almost 1,000 properties in London currently listed to rent during the Olympic period, there is a vast range of options to select, from a one-bedroom flat for £200 per week within walking distance of the Olympic Stadium to a six-bedroom house in trendy Notting Hill for an Olympic £30,000 per week
So if you are visiting this Summer and looking for accommodation, here are som tips to help you.
Top tips for international visitors looking to secure an Olympic rental:
1. Use a reputable lettings agent, such as one listed on Zoopla.co.uk
2. Be prepared to make a quick decision to avoid any disappointment
3. Have all relevant references & identification paperwork needed ready
4. Check the location & nearest transport links using Zoopla map view
5. Make sure any deposit paid is protected by a tenant deposit scheme
Properties available as short-term lets during the Olympics can be found here
As always, please feel free to share and use this research, all we ask is that you credit the source as Zoopla.co.uk and link to Zoopla.co.uk. Thank you.
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