March 2012

Sane guide to letting during the Olympics…

The Independent have published a realistic guide to letting during the Olympics. Here are the stand out points:

1. If you are currently letting it to tenants, don’t terminate your existing rental agreement for two weeks of higher rent – good quality long-term tenants are worth their weight in gold

2. Centrally located properties, waking distance from public transport will do well – remember too that guests will be expecting hotel standard accommodation

3. As a rule of thumb, look at 2-3 times the standard rental value of the house: a typical three bedroom property in Shoreditch which is convenient for the Olympic Park would let for £600-£800 per week so during the Olympics this would go up to around £2,000, maybe even £3,000.

Read more here

FT: The UK is on track to be a ‘nation of renters’

The influential ratandmouse website reports that FT Advisor picked up on Council of Mortgage Lenders data showing rents beginning to fall and predictions by YouGov’s head of financial services that the UK would be a “nation of renters” by 2020.

The ratandmouse says that the piece points out increasing buy-to-let lending, too, and identifies a new trend among landlords… with rental properties seen as pension investments rather than the basis for larger professional landlord portfolios.

Read more here

London, a city that has found strength in flux…

The New York Times today reports on the 300,000 Parisians who have moved across the Channel to Paris-on-Thames, aka London. They come in search of jobs and the global swirl: that raucous mix of innovation and grunge missing in a too-perfect Paris.

A new lycée, a new radio station (French Radio London) and a new electoral constituency all testify to the exodus, as did the appearance in London last week of the French Socialist candidate François Hollande.

More than 300,000 French now live in London, making it the sixth-largest French city. Most are under 40. They learn English and they learn that globalization is not merely the catalogue of woes so laboriously laid out by the French left over the past couple of decades.

Click to go to NYT story by Roger Cohen