Attention, teenagers, and others young at heart - if you’ve never heard of tenancy deposit protection before, click here.

Picadilly Circus, Earthware streetview

Staying in is the new going out, declares MailOnline, and it’s true.

What does this mean for renters? Are we no longer visiting the estate agent’s offices? Can we rent an apartment without leaving home?

FINDING A RENTAL
Property portals and agent websites have become quite advanced, and we have no problem finding a selection of seemingly suitable places without leaving home.

WHAT’S MISSING? We need to get a better feel of our future home. Floorplans with exact measurements can help but it’s not enough. Videos are the good. 3D visualisations would be excellent but the making of them is time consuming and expensive.

It is also difficult to know the area without being there, although it is very important that you do. It will take time for  Google Earth to develop into something like Second Life but until then, satellite photo maps are good for exploring the surroundings. Lauren sent us a link to Earthware’s streetviews (see Picadilly Circus here) - you can now take a virtual stroll on some of London’s streets.

SIGNING THE CONTRACT
Even though I see a lot of risks with that, there is no problem with getting the initial contract signed without having to go to an estate agent’s office or without meeting the landlord. The renter usually just has to provide copy of the ID, references, and transfer a deposit. It is however very risky, in our opinion. How can you be sure you are talking to the right person, and not some fraudster? We’ve heard too many horror stories to trust anyone.

WHAT’S MISSING? Some sort of verification system. It would be great if somehow I could be sure that this person/firm has indeed got the right to rent this apartment to me, that there is an apartment, that the bank details he/she gives me are indeed correct. We could seal the deal without ever leaving home.

We would definitely use Gumtree again, if they could only verify the advertisers somehow.

Some things will always be worth the walk - like Chard’s new office in Fulham Broadway - it looks so pretty on the outside:)

Time to reveal the results for the poll that we posted early in October!

Our question was: Which property website do YOU think London tenants should use for searching rental flats and houses from estate agents?

We hear it’s wise to search from more than just one website these days - some agents use only Globrix, some only FindaProperty.com.

With that poll we were hoping to clarify which ones are the best to use today, in order to avoid wasting time on sites that are, for example, still in very early stages of development or maybe don’t have as much choice of rentals.

So here are the top 3 property websites that our readers suggested:

1. Primelocation.com 43 votes
2. FindaProperty.com 39 votes
3. Globrix 8 votes

These are the 3 websites renters should use or start with when looking to rent an apartment or house in London (from an agent). The rest of the results can be found here.

While I understand that most of the voters must have been representing one or the other website nominated - the result matches our current preferences. Obviously they are working hard on informing the end users!

Here are some comments from the people behind the websites:

Poppy Dinsey said:

Yes, I am completely biased because I work at Globrix…but I spend a lot of time on all of these property sites and as a renter in London I genuinely think Globrix is the best for would-be London tenants.

The main reason I think Globrix is better is that you get the best picture of what’s available, we’ve got fantastic market coverage of London rentals. Then of course there’s the fact you can search by specific road names and specific key features…balcony, designer kitchen, roof terrace etc. You get direct access to the letting agent, no annoying forms that keep you stuck on Globrix forever. And of course, you can search by ‘freshness’, in the fast moving London rentals market, knowing that an ad is less than a week old is important to many searchers. On so many of the incumbent portals, you can be looking at rental ads that were filled with tenants months ago.

Michael O’Flynn said:

In reply to Poppy above, think I should point out that:

1. Here on FindaProperty.com we have had a recency filter on our search for some years now - people searching for London rentals (and we have massively comprehensive coverage - over 55,000 properties advertised at present) can filter by last 24 hours, last 3 days, last week, last month.

2. We have full contact details of agents on the site … email addresses and telephone numbers. Globrix don’t. They send you out to the agents’ sites so you then have to waste time navigating lots of differently designed sites to find these details/register with agent etc …

3. We don’t have ‘annoying forms’ - to register (which you don’t need to do to use the site) you only need to add an email address, name and password.

4. You can register with us to have email alerts matching your requirements delivered direct to your inbox - which really is useful in the fast moving London rentals market

It’ll be interesting to see how the poll results pan out!

Thanks
Michael O’Flynn

Ben said:

In order to justify which website to use for your rentals, if you are in the market to find a rental I would use as many as i can - spending 10 minutes on each and saving your contacts and contacting them by email or phone - all these websites survive by you looking at them and more importanly contcating them via the websites.. try and remember this when looking at portals. DOnt just call them direct without respecting the portals business.

In terms of choise - Findaproperty & Primelocation is a great start to look for rentals - one for the whole general market - and Primelocation maybe listing properties of a special nature mid to high end renters…

Good luck in your search - Long live the portals..

for now the numbers speak for themselves

Ben.

Raj Doofitz said:

The choice between Primelocation and Findaproperty is the only one the searcher need to make, and that is relative to their needs. Primelocation has 400,000 properties and more than 100,000 international properties which is great for the luxury property searches or investment property potentials or quality agents to secure rental accommodations, whereas the FAP site tend to be more affordable properties. So I suppose it depends on the user’s needs.

Both sites are easy to use and offer Email Alert services to make your search a lot easier, make the sites work for you whilst you are of doing something more pleasurable like shopping for furniture for your new pad…

Singer/goddess Leona Lewis has decided to buy the apartment she was renting in Hackney (East London), as her landlord had to sell, according to Virgin Media.

Excellent news for Hackney Borough!

While we have no idea which part of the council she resides, one of my favourite areas in Hackney is London Fields E8 (see photo above). There’s the park, Lido pools, Broadway Market, rows of Victorian terraced homes… and very reasonable prices!

Via: theRatandMouse
Image: Leona Lewis official website

Do not share private information such as bank transaction numbers or copies of the documentation money transfer related to a person to person with any other party.

Here’s a piece of BBC Watchdog’s story:

Before he arrived in the UK, Emily had asked Lazaros to prove he had the funds to pay for the flat. To do this, she asked him to use Western Union to transfer the 1st month’s rent and the deposit to someone he knew - even to himself if he wanted. All Emily wanted to see was the receipt for the transfer which would show Lazaros did actually have enough money. So Lazoros transferred £660 to himself and sent Emily the receipt as she requested. When Lazaros discovered that his flat wasn’t for rent, and that Emily Brown didn’t exist, he went back to Western Union to retrieve his £660. But it had gone. Someone had already withdrawn the money.

Read more…

Landlords and tenants have never gotten along better. With reasonable rent levels, we are much more confident about staying in the renter group. The ladder can wait.

As the unsold homes flood onto the lettings market, rents are plunging, writes The Observer:

Hamptons International agency reports that in some London areas - such as Knightsbridge and St John’s Wood - the amount of rental stock on its books has doubled compared with this time last year.

‘We are experiencing an oversupply, which means we have seen a definite reduction in rent, and it’s a huge surprise to landlords,’ says Emilie Dawes, lettings director for Marsh & Parsons. ‘We had a property off the King’s Road recently that was valued by another agency three months ago at £1,800 per week - it has just let for £995.

To the article…

Tenants are just as vulnerable to defaulting on rent as struggling homebuyers are to meeting mortgage repayments, writes Lorna Bourke in CityWire:

Judienne Wood, lettings director at Kinleigh Folkard & Hayward is predicting that in 2009 the lettings market will remain fragile. ‘We will continue to see a fall in tenants registering as most will not move unless they really need to,’ she says. ‘Our stock levels are likely to rise as more would-be sellers rent out their homes and canny investors will buy investment properties cheaply to rent out. ‘As such, there will be a greater choice for tenants and the supply/demand ratio will increase.’

Read more…

Some notes from Knight Frank’s latest residential market research:

- Demand has risen over the past few months - mostly for more modestly priced properties. At higher price points, there are some properties that have remained on the market for considerable time without finding a tenant.

- New supply coming on stream from so-called ‘forced landlords’ – frustrated vendors who are unable or unwilling to sell their property in the current market and, as a result, have opted to let it out.

- Not only are there more houses and flats on the market than before – there are more highly-specified, well-presented properties on the market than is typically the case.

Read the whole report.

“Can you recommend areas that are equally nice but not as expensive as Chelsea or Mayfair?” asks a British renter, who is new to London.

What would you recommend? We will have to list some options here.

For comparison - here is what the average monthly rents are in these areas that are too expensive. According to FindaProperty.com area info:

London SW3 - Chelsea, Knightsbridge
London W1 - Mayfair, Soho, Fitzrovia, Marylebone

Police are reminding residents with uPVC doors to lock them with a key.

Some people think that by lifting the handle and closing the door the lock is engaged, but unless the key is used too it can still be opened from the outside.

Officers spread the message after a significant increase in burglaries involving unlocked uPVC doors in recent weeks, reports Barking and Dagenham Post.

Recommended reading: Home security

(photo: upvcdoorcompany.co.uk)

New research by estate agent Ludlow Thompson says that the demand for UK properties from Polish citizens has risen significantly in the 3rd quarter. From 1.8% of the total overseas demand in the second quarter to a 3.5% share of demand in the third quarter of this year. Read more at Housefund.co.uk (found via: Globrix blog)

*Approximately 204,000 Poles are said to be working in London (not including those who have set up as self-employed or are employed in the black economy). The main hub of the London Polish community is Hammersmith in West London, as well as Ealing, Enfield and Haringey.

*Did you hear about that new Polish TV-series “Londyńczycy” (Londoners in Polish)?

Benszymanski at PolishForums.com gives a little insight as to what happened in the first episode

Well it’s the first episode so really they were just introducing the characters and setting the scene. There is a girl who has gone to London to be with her boyfriend who turns out to be a drug dealer and already is getting her in trouble, there is a guy who has moved with his son to be with his wife (who’s already been there 6 months). There’s a couple who work in a bar (although they had a bust up). As you can imagine most of them live in Ealing and there’s lots of shots of red buses driving about…

*Here’s a LINK to a good English-Polish/Polish-English dictionary.

265 shops
96 escalators
50 exciting eating places
14 movie theater screens
gym (opens in 2009)
spa (opens in 2009)
library

Mega mall Westfield opens it’s doors on Thursday in White City, Shepherds Bush W12.

The 7 000 people working there will be expecting ca 70 000 visitors daily. Half the employees will consider moving closer to the shopping centre… Not to mention those true shopaholics, who want to live near their mecca.

Rental prices for flats and houses in W12 according to the properties available on Rightmove are as follows:

Studios £175-295 pw
1-beds £200-345 pw
2-beds £250-950 pw
3-beds £315-630 pw
4-beds £375-875 pw
5-beds £800-850 pw

I dare you to take the central line tube to the viewings.

68 and 72 Cadogan Square (c) George P. Landow, The Victorian Web

Even the prestigious Cadogan Square in Knightsbridge SW1X is struggling to find new tenants, reports Times Online. They found 31 apartments available to rent, 10 of which have come on the market in the past three weeks.

“It’s the middle tier that has been hit hardest,” says Jane Ingram, head of lettings at Savills. “Properties like the ones on Cadogan Square, which previously went for between £1,000 and £2,500 a week to City high-flyers, are languishing on the market.”

Rents are coming down by at least 10%, if not 20%, according to Ingram – “And because you’ve got the stock coming through from the sales market, as well as lower tenant demand, things are just sitting there.”

The lower, “bread and butter” end – properties that let for less than £650 a week – is still active, as is the top tier – more than £3,000 a week in upmarket areas or above £1,500 everywhere else in the capital.

Read the full article: High-end London rents are falling

Nestoria property search engine lists 432 properties to rent in Cadogan Square. Click here to browse.

Unless you have just landed in the UK, you probably know that all the tenancies that started on or after the 1st of October 2008, have to have an Energy Performance Certificate. The EPC shows two things – the Energy Efficiency Rating (relating to running costs) and the Environmental Impact Rating (relating to the carbon dioxide emissions) of a dwelling. Each rating is shown on an A–G rating scale similar to those used for fridges and other electrical appliances.

It is not mandatory for the landlord or agent to put the scores or graphs in the online advertisements of residential rentals but thankfully the bigger estate agents have already started doing it.

Property agent Knight Frank adds a “View EPC Graph” button in the rental listings on their website.

Missing EPC scores will lead tenants thinking that:

a) there is no certificate - without which the tenancy agreement cannot be signed;
b) the agent or landlord doesn’t care - which probably means they are not so good at managing the property either;
c) the score is very low - running costs very high.

Many prospective tenants will put those non-transparent offers aside until they have seen everything else available.

Suggested reading: Energy performance certificates for dwellings in the social and private rented sectors, A guide for landlords (*pdf)

A new booklet for landlords gives advice on how to spot drug factory in the rented property. The police has found them in London areas that you would never suspect, so this concerns everybody.

In case you are suspicious of your neighbours, here are some signs that the landlords are advised to look for:

How to spot a cannabis factory

- A strong, pungent smell coming from the property
- Electrical wiring that has been tampered with
- Beware of booby traps. Electrical wiring may have been rigged up to door handles etc.
- Powerful lights left on in the house throughout the night
- Windows blacked out
- A sudden jump or increase in the cost of electricity bills
- Scuffed paint or wallpaper
- Large quantities of bin bags, full of vegetable material, thrown away
- Rewiring efforts or bypassed circuitry

In case of other drugs

- Large amounts of chemicals products
- Coffee filters
- Boxes of red matches
- Stripped battery cases
- Ephedrine or pseudoephedrine based medicines (cold or allergy medicines)
- Strong or unpleasant chemical smells such as ammonia
- Chemistry equipment such as glass flasks, chemical reactors etc.

Here is what landlords and letting agents should be aware of when letting out rented premises:

- A prospective tenant’s willingness to pay months of rent in advance, or above the going rate, particularly in cash
- Never accept rent in cash. Ask for bank account details.
- Never accept tenants without checking references and backgrounds first
- Be suspicious if a tenant never allows you access to the property or refuses you entry to certain rooms or areas of the property
- If the tenant asks to meet you away from the property to pay rent, or to discuss anything about the accommodation
- If the tenant puts deadlocks or alarms on internal doors, and has made attempts to install fortifications on the exterior of the property.

Source: Landlord’s Guide To Keeping Illegal Drugs Out Of Rented Properties (*pdf)
Via: ThisIsPlymouth.co.uk