Bathroom Design – From Taps to Bath Panels

If you are considering putting a house or apartment on the letting market it is important to have everything looking its best. Especially with the market how it is at the moment, with a record number of new landlords joining the fray every week. With the market becoming so saturated, competitiveness is at its highest.

For the reasons mentioned above it is imperative that your property is done up to the highest quality it can be. This article will look at the bathroom in particular to discuss some of the things you should remember.

First of all, it is important to ensure you choose cool and/or neutral colours for your bathroom, light shades of green or blue are common and even white is used a lot. Choosing these simple colours can help to prevent putting potential tenants off.

Another key factor to take in to account is the furnishings. Opting for minimalistic and simple furnishings ensures a broader appeal, so you won’t be turning as many (if any) viewers away.

The bathroom equipment is important, anything from the use of tiles or laminate flooring to choosing the type of shower and bath panels. As long as you keep in mind a “less is more” approach and keep things simple then you stand a better chance of pleasing everyone.

Choosing the right furniture for a letting property

This can be quite a difficult task for most landlords. As most letting properties come fully furnished, you have to be careful when choosing the furnishings, style and colours of all the rooms in the building.

If you go for the modern look, you might put people off who want somewhere with a little uniqueness.
Whereas if you opt for a more traditional approach, this can be too specific for some peoples likings.

One way is to furnish the home with current trends, for instance a popular style at the moment is Eastern Asian, such as oriental furniture. Opting for something like this ensures you will get custom now, but if you think you will have a rapidly changing clientele then it is best to go for the ‘ess is more’ approach.

Keeping things simple doesn’t necessarily mean going modern. You can go for natural colours but use wallpaper with a small and tasteful pattern. This will appease both fans of simplicity and tradition. Even though I mentioned it above as quite trend-specific, oriental furniture has quite a sleek and modern style, whilst retaining a sense of something different.

Many people are opting for Swedish furniture due to the development of budget-furniture stores like Ikea, although it has a nice simple style it lacks imagination in many respects and can be seen as dull by many.

Landlords worried over rise in rent arrears in 2009

The research by the National Landlords Association (NLA) revealed that 71% of the landlords who responded to the survey are worried that rent arrears would rise substantially during year 2009. Only 1% was optimistic and felt that arrears would come down next year. 28% expected no change in the current scenario. Read the rest of this entry »

Property prices in London falling speedily

Severe credit crunch and downturn in housing industry has started adversely affecting property prices in London and that too at a faster pace than other places in the UK, as reported by the online change of address service, UK. Read the rest of this entry »

RICS predicts 50% fall in the UK commercial property values by 2010

Capital values of the commercial property would come down by at least 16% in 2009, according to prediction by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS). The fall in values would continue in 2010 and touch up to 10%. Read the rest of this entry »

Britons’ aspirations of holiday homes in France crushed

The fall in sterling value and severe credit crunch has crushed the hopes of Britons to own a second home in France.

The online association FNAIM of French estate agents has stated that properties in many areas including Brittany, Dordogney were finding no buyers resulting in collapse of second homes market in France. Read the rest of this entry »

Mortgage lending nosedives 70%

The housing slump is worsening further with a 70% fall in mortgage lending in October. The Bank of England reported that its net lending, excluding repayments and redemptions, touched just £459m in October, the second lowest amount since 1993 when the Bank of England started collecting data. Read the rest of this entry »

RBS extends helping hand to those with mortgage arrears

The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has offered breathing time of six months for the struggling families who have not been able to make payment of their mortgages.

The bank has assured that it will not repossess the homes of borrowers who fell behind on mortgages for at least the next 6 months. It also ensured that customers can avail of independent advice from legal experts before bank initiates legal action. Read the rest of this entry »

TSA to promote higher standards in UK’s social housing

The Government appointed Tenant Services Authority (TSA) aims to enhance standards in UK social housing and serve as a watchdog for the UK’s eight million tenants of social housing.

TSA chief executive has promised to accord top priority to participation of tenants in the body, which will be organising national consultation meets commencing from December and continuing through till March 2009. Read the rest of this entry »

UK Retail and Property Executives decide to help each other

The difficult economic environment has brought together a group of retail and property leaders to help each other in coping with the downturn. The group will also cooperate in sustaining employment, service, investment and value to customers. The group consists of the largest property and retail groups of the UK. Property owners in the group include British Land, Aviva Investors, Westfield, Liberty International, PRUPIM, Legal & General and Land securities.

Retailers having three or less than three shops and paying GBP50,000 or less as annual rent to the above mentioned owners would be allowed to pay monthly rent in advance instead of quarterly basis if they agree to direct debit mode of payment.

Hundreds of shops are expected to benefit from this arrangement.

The group of property owners and retailers is also working on reduction of service charges by 20% and giving a share to owners in cost savings. The pilot for this initiative has been constituted: Land Securities at White Rose and Leeds, British Land at Meadowhall, Sheffield and Westfield at Merryhill and PRUPIM and Capital Shopping Centres at Cribbs Causeway. This initiative would help identify best practices to operate malls and retail sites more efficiently.

The group believes that monthly initiative would help retailers in cash flows while service charge reduction would support viability of retail sites and help economic operations.