Homes & Property will soon launch EventRent - a new service that will enable you to advertise your property to potential tenants for the 2012 Olympics. Anyone looking for accommodation will be able to search by location, property type and price to find the perfect place to stay during the Games.
You can register your property already, HERE.
We have just added HomesForStudents to our websites list. They currently list 161 properties and 233 rooms available in London and you will be glad to hear that it is entirely free for university and college students to use!
A group of London estate agents have launched a new property portal FabricProperty.com. The site focuses on luxury homes in North, North West, West and Central London areas.
What makes Fabricproperty.com so special? VIDEOS! They’ve got good quality videos of properties for sale which you can find under Showcase Properties. The Be Inspired section features interior design ideas presented by designers.
There’s quite a lot of reading material on the site, too. In the Property Market Advice corner you are encouraged to ask questions from the agents and read about the current issues in Insider View. Area Focus looks at the different areas obviously and these are a good read as they offer some good inside information.
The property search is very basic and simple and just gave us 2441 rentals in London. You might get confused when the search results won’t show you the postcode or area. We think the reason for that is because estate agents know the streets better than taxi drivers and they are just trying to show off here;) It is a relief to see the maximum price for a rental property is £30,000 per week. They will have to lift it when the One Hyde Park penthouse will come on the market.
The portal was born from the co-operation of Fabric magazine and estate agents Aston Chase, Savills, Plaza Estates, Bargets, Hamptons International, Beauchamp Estates, Behr & Butchoff, Winkworth, Benham & Reeves, Brian Lack & Co, Anscombe & Ringland, Arlington Residential, Chesterton, Day Morris, Glentree Estates, Godfrey & Barr, Goldschmidt & Howland, Harris Latner, Heathgate, Litchfields, Parkheath, Sandfords, TK International, Vickers and Wigmore Estates.
One of our favourite UK property portals Findaproperty.com has just come out totally reconstructed. The yellow measuring tape and note sheet finally look like they belong on that site!
What has changed?
- Cleaner, less cluttered look;
- Easy to start your search – the home page features a big search box;
- “Photos only” view option has been added to search results;
- Local area information panels with all details now easier to see and read;
- It’s now easier to see how many additional photos are available for each property;
- The map is now visible on the main property details page. New tab design system allows easy access to Google Streetview, Area info, sold prices and EPC info.
That is by far not everything, there is a lot more to discover! Go and have a look yourself: Findaproperty.com
We are very happy with the changes. Sometimes you want to stick to the old version but Findaproperty.com definitely looks better now.The only thing that we would still complain about is the quality of the photos on the site. It is simply not possible to fully enjoy the new photo browsing option. This is probably is in the interest of a faster site.
The popular portal that was first launched in 1997, looked like this back in May 26 of 1998:
Remember this? In the beginning the site only had 1,300 properties vs. over 626,614 today.
Online room rental website FlatMateRooms.co.uk recently re-launched introducing a new pricing structure, introducing a totally FREE advertising option.
Whilst most companies in the room rental market work like a dating website where members register free but have to pay when they want to contact another member, Flatmaterooms didn’t follow this path and allow you to advertise free. They have also introduced a great value paid option too called Jump The Queue.
Both options are explained below:
1. The Free Option allows members to advertise rooms to rent or room wanted adverts free but only Jump the Queue members will have access to your contact details in the first 7 days after that everyone has access to your details.
2. The Jump The Queue option upgrades your membership and lets you
- Contact the newest adverts 7 days before anyone else giving you first choice
- Makes all your adverts featured
- Gives you a higher ranking
- Gets you twice as much interest
- All members get access to your adverts from day one not having to wait 7 days
- 30 days Jump The Queue Membership costs £10
Landlords can advertise up to 3 properties for free.
FlatMateRooms website also has a full advice centre covering over 40 subjects, an easy map search facility, you can upload photos even a video.
We like the clean look of the site and it really is very easy to use, so why not give it a try – jump to FlatMateRooms.co.uk
Property portal Globrix has recently added a new section called Know, where you can search for all kinds of information related to properties, such as local estate agents, house prices, and area details.
Go to www.globrix.com to explore:
1. Klick on Know
2. Choose House prices & area guide or
3. Local agents
4. Choose the area you are interested in – insert area name, postcode or even just London, if you like.
Choose rentals to filter out recent additions, see the most expensive and least expensive offers.
If you are wondering how much is the price for the flat you are renting – the current house prices and trends on the market are all listed here. There’s a lot of othere valuable information on properties for sale as well – mortgage rates, number of properties currently for sale, price changes, etc.
Lists of nearby schools, transport, restaurants, shops, services, parking spaces, and crime statistics on the bottom of the page are very useful when relocating.
Rental property marketplace upad CEO James Davis has just sent us the following announcement:
upad gives UK landlords £100,000 in free online advertising
Following hot-on-the-heels of its national launch, upad, the online property rentals specialist, is giving away £100,000 in free online advertising to the UK’s landlord community.
Between 10th and 19th June 2009, upad will allow almost 1700 ads to be posted at no cost, enabling landlords and estate agents across the UK to advertise as many vacant properties as they want free of charge.
Launched in London in October 2008, upad is ‘reinventing renting’. The site enables landlords to advertise each property for a one-off cost of £59. And, since its national launch at the end of May 2009, the service is now available to the 1.5 million landlords across the UK.
James Davis, upad’s CEO, explains: “upad aims to prevent vacant properties costing landlords time and money. Our free online advertising campaign is intended to encourage landlords across the UK to sign up risk free to upad, to try out a new way of doing business.
“It’s time for the property rentals sector to evolve. Portals and websites need to support landlords in their bid to generate tenant leads, and the current economic climate has meant that this has never been so important”.
To take advantage of upad’s free advertising, simply register as a landlord, and click ’Add Property’ to post your free listing. It will immediately appear on the site and upad will begin distributing your property to its network of over 50 rental and classified websites.
Would be good to hear from renters who already using the site. We are just about to take a closer look!
The new FindaProperty.com Rental Index for May 2009 was published last week.
Key points from the London market overview:
ASKING RENTS
- Asking rents increased in 23 of the 33 London Boroughs, suggesting that the London market is beginning to show some early signs of recovery.
- Overall the London market saw a month-on-month rise in asking rents of 0.4%, from £1,623 pcm in April 2009 to £1,630 pcm in May 2009. In addition, of the 10 boroughs that showed month-on-month falls in asking rents, all of the declines were modest with the largest fall being in the City of London, where rents fell by only 1.3%.
- Despite the recent growth in rental prices, the London market is still far from making a full recovery. Overall, rental prices have fallen by an average of 6.6% year-on-year between May 2008 and May 2009, with only the three boroughs of Barking & Dagenham, Hillingdon and Greenwich showing positive annual growth.
London Boroughs Overview, excerpt from Findaproperty.com May 2009 Rental Index Report.
RENTAL YIELD
- The average rental yield across the Capital stands at 4.74%; however, investors are continuing to receive better returns in London’s outer boroughs, especially in areas which are undergoing extensive regeneration. Average yields in excess of 6% can be found in Barking & Dagenham (6.44%) and Newham (6.52%), two areas which have seen some of the largest yield growth over the past year, with rates of return rising by 1.11 percentage points and 0.34 percentage points respectively.
- It continues to be the prime areas of central London such as Kensington & Chelsea and Westminster as well as affluent areas of south west London, including Richmond-upon-Thames and Wandsworth, which have the lowest rental yields. Kensington & Chelsea has the only sub 4% average yield in London at 3.92%, followed closely by the City of Westminster with a yield of only 4.12%. In addition, rental yields in some prime areas are falling with Westminster recording a 0.72 percentage point fall in the yield over the past twelve months.
Download the full report here > FindaProperty.com Rental Index May 2009
Estate agent Knight Frank‘s website has been redesigned.
See if you like browsing the rentals in the grid view just as much as we do – jump to view all rentals in Greater London .
The photos are in much better size in the new version (image on the right; old version on the left).
On the right hand side of our blog we have a few links to websites we recommend London renters to use for rental property search. These sites deserve to be on the pedestal for several reasons but also just because they contain more rental listings than others.
We thought it would be a good idea to write down the number of property listings each portal has in one specific London postcode, and then come back to see where all of them stand after a few months.
Number of residential property ads in SW3 (Chelsea and Brompton) on more popular UK property portals:
PROPERTIES
IN SW3 PORTAL
1916 Findaproperty.com
1874 Primelocation.com
1340 Globrix
1076 Nestoria
1066 TrovitHomes
1000*** Rightmove
645 Zoomf
625 DotHomes
502 ThinkProperty.com
342 HotProperty.co.uk
225 Look4aProperty.co.uk
209 Zoopla
202 Fish4Homes
200**** PropertyFinder.co.uk
41 TheLettingSite.co.uk
30 PropertyIndex.com
?* PropertyLive.co.uk
?** Enormo
13.4.2009
*Estate agents’ owned website does not allow searching for properties from only one specific postcode (they suggest we look at all the offers within 1 mile radius as well).
**Postcode search not available.
***The site says 1000+ but lists exactly 1000 properties.
****The site says 200+ results but lists exactly 200 properties.
St. James in March
Most popular blog post: 10 Reasons to Rent in Pimlico
We were sure it would be a hit! Nick is doing a good job promoting his flats.
PS! if you want to send us the description of your favourite area in London – we’d be happy to publish it!
Most visited page: Most Expensive Rental Apartments in London UK
Keyword combination of the month:
negotiating rent london
how to negotiate lower rent
negotiating lower rent
ask landlord to lower rent
letter to landlord to lower rent
Haven’t we reached the bottom already?
Source: Google Analytics
FindaProperty.com was the first UK property portal to integrate Google Street View (on the day it was launched 19. March 2009), and just a week later 2 more portals follow!
Primelocation.com has just added Google Street View to their listings allowing renters see properties from the street level as well as from aerial imagery from Microsoft’s Bird’s Eye View.
Zoopla integrates Google Street View. Just click on the button above the map and zoom to the street inside the listing.
*This is where I used to rent: Cumberland Court, Great Cumberland Place W1
Google has just released Street View for UK!
London renters can now get to know the street and surroundings of their new rental without leaving home. Just think of how much time you can save if you can have a look at the area before going to the viewing! You can check if the building is in good condition, or whether the noisy street is too close or far enough.
We’re off to explore!
If you want to try it out >> go to Google Maps >> write the address or find the place >> drag the yellow man (on zoom, in the upper left corner) to where you want to be.
BREAKING NEWS: All the listings in FindaProperty.com now have a link to Street View – just find the yellow man icon on the right hand side and click on it!
New website LoveYourLandlord.co.uk invites tenants to rate and comment rentals and landlords/letting agents in UK.
The site is simple to use, and it’s very easy to add your review.
Those who register on the site before 30. April 2009 have a chance to win Acer Aspire Series Laptop (rrp 389.99, details HERE).
There is just one review for a London property at the moment – 194 Finchley Road.
© propertylive.co.uk
The estate agents’ portal PropertyLive has finally revealed the identities of the people on their site.
They are in fact all working in the property industry, and one of the most interesting characters is indeed Mr. Dickinson from Douglas & Gordon. Just as we suspected.
Too bad City of Westminster is still the only area we can search. 2241 rentals available there at the moment.
