uk: Property Porn comes to Twitter - 02/16/09 05:33 AM
Well, I have been quiet haven't I? The good news is that my lack of blogging has not been because the real estate market in the UK is so bad that I've gone to cry under a rock, oh no. I've just been so flippin busy lately that blogging has taken a bit of a sidestep.
I have lots of news, so I'll just tell you what I'm particularly excited about - Twitter!
I have been addicted to Twitter for a long while now and although Twitter is a hit with US based real estate agents, your UK counterparts haven't flocked … (9 comments)

uk: UK House Price Predictions for 2009 - 12/28/08 10:40 PM
Around about this time of year, everybody starts to make their predictions on what they expect 2009 to bring. Well they certainly do here in the UK, and I'd be surprised if it was much different in the US! When it comes to house prices, this years forecasts are of particular interest to EVERYONE.
Just like in the US, 2008 saw a pretty nasty time for UK real estate. Prices dropped dramtically, transactions decreased, and many estate agencies had to close their doors forever. In fact, 32,000 estate agents lost their jobs in 2008, nearly half of the entire estate agent … (6 comments)

uk: UK area in focus - Guildford, Surrey - 11/10/08 12:51 AM
Whenever I write or post pictures from various parts of the UK, all my ActiveRain friends seem to like it. So this is part of a new daily series introducing you all to various parts of this lovely little island! If you've got any special requests for certain English places, just drop me a line and it could be featured next!
Today we're talking about Guildford :-)

Guildford, in Surrey (South East of England), is a rather nice little town which more than a handful of my colleagues have called 'home' over the years. I grew up ten minutes down … (11 comments)

uk: UK area in focus - Oxford, Oxfordshire - 11/04/08 01:29 AM
Whenever I write or post pictures from various parts of the UK, all my ActiveRain friends seem to like it. So this is part of a new series introducing you all to various parts of this lovely little island! If you've got any special requests for certain English places, just drop me a line and it could be featured next!
 
Today we're talking about Oxford :-)

Oxford, or The City of Dreaming Spires as some people like to call it, is in the South East of England. Perhaps best known throughout the world for its famous historic university, there's … (2 comments)

uk: Ever wondered what a real estate agent does in the UK? - 10/12/08 04:50 AM
A lot of the US agents I speak to are curious about the real estate buying/selling process that takes place here in the UK. After all it's not just interesting for curiosity's sake, it's very important if you're ever selling to UK investors who are used to a very different process.
I've made a little video over at AgentGenius to try and give a brief overview of what we do and how it's different, would be interesting to hear what you think of our system :-)
You can read the post and watch the video here.
Have a super Sunday people! … (16 comments)

uk: 40% of British homebuyers lose their nerve before sale completes... - 07/23/08 09:38 PM
According to new figures from the Bank of England, in some parts of the UK as many as four in ten homebuyers pull out before they complete. I’m seriously resisting a sexual innuendo here, immature I know! The Bank of England said…
“‘In the market for established homes, more transactions were falling through, with some estate agents reporting a cancellation rate of up to 40 per cent recently. That was partly due to the unwillingness of many sellers to accept a lower offer.”
But, understandably, many are resisting buying now in the hope for a better bargain later down the line, … (25 comments)

uk: A walk around Chester, England.... - 07/21/08 04:15 AM
This weekend I had a fabulous excuse to leave London for a few days, it was my grandparents 50th wedding anniversary (awwww true love). Inspired by the fabulous response to my last little walking tour, I remembered to pack the camera and get snapping as I spent some time in one of my favourite British cities.
Chester is in the North of England and is most famous for it's fantastic history. Chester is one of our fantastic Roman cities and is nearly 2000 years old (blimey!) and the original Roman walls that encased the city are still intact...there's even an amphitheater, … (45 comments)

uk: UK rental attitudes are changing, how is it stateside? - 07/15/08 10:06 PM
In the UK we have a site called Gumtree, it's a lot like CraigsList...an online classifieds site with ads from dating to house sales. Gumtree recently published a report examining today’s British rental market. The findings were very interesting and I'd be interested to hear if you think there are similarities with your markets.
According to the study, half of Brits (51%) believe the national obsession with getting on the property ladder is old fashioned and needs to change. Over two thirds of 25-44 year-old renters (71%) are not planning to take a mortgage at all and will invest their money … (10 comments)

uk: By 2050, will we live in fear of the 'Carbon Police'? - 06/25/08 01:36 AM
According to a new survey, over 40% of Brits believe there will be 'carbon police' by 2050. And not only that, a quarter of Brits believe ‘offenders’ will have to go to ‘energy rehab’ and take ‘energy addiction classes’. Imagine, you’re reading National Enquirer in 2050 and instead of a headline about Amy Winehouse’s latest crack pipe episode you’re shocked beyond your very core that Britney Spears forgot to turn off the tap whilst brushing her teeth. Whether or not Britney or Amy will still be with us in 2050 is besides the point, nearly half of us think that the … (4 comments)

uk: Monday morning property news from the other side of the globe :-) - 06/15/08 09:23 PM
Consumers are cutting back when moving home. A survey by Lloyds TSB has found that one in ten homeowners are planning to sell their property without the aid of an estate agent to help cut costs. Over half of all those surveyed said they wouldn’t be hiring removal men, opting instead for doing the shlepping themselves to save the pennies. Read more at HouseFund. New homes slump worst since 1945. 100,000 construction jobs are expected to go this year as the number of new homes being built plummets to its lowest level since 1945. Read more at The Guardian. Review calls … (8 comments)

uk: British property news in a nutshell - Thursday 29/05/08 - 05/29/08 12:32 AM
Lots of activerainers contact me saying they're interested in finding out how the British property market is getting along in these difficult days, so I'm going to start doing a daily round up of the key goings on here on this little island! It may not all be relevant to you, but I firmly believe there's always a possibility to learn from each others markets - heck that's why I'm on this US site in the first place :-)
So, here's our hot property stories of the day...
House prices fall at fastest rate since records began. Okay that’s not necessarily … (4 comments)

uk: Let Google second guess you... - 04/11/08 06:17 AM
Google Suggest is one of my favourite products currently in Google ‘Labs’ mode. It’s very simple really, Google offers you suggestions for what you might like to search for in real time as you type in your query. Just typing in the letter M brings up a suggestion for MySpace, as the clever Googlebot has worked out that this is what you’re most likely to be looking for.
Now Google won’t just suggest anything, there has to be a high probability that the suggestion will be accurate. So I was very pleased to see that Zoomf now appears as an official … (40 comments)

uk: Lunt - What's in a name? - 04/09/08 10:43 PM
When I was little I remember reading in Smash Hits magazine (a fine publication) that a girl had persuaded those who lived in her cul-de-sac to officially change the street name to ‘Spice Girls Close’. I was insanely jealous and expected my parents to move across the country immediately just so I could live in a street named after every 10 year old girl’s heroes. We didn’t move, I quickly got over it.
There are plenty of wonderfully weirdly named places in Great Britain, be it Donkey Town in Surrey or Splatt in Somerset. I certainly wouldn’t want to live in … (4 comments)

uk: Zoomf, The Rebirth - 03/19/08 03:23 AM
Sounds like the name of the latest summer blockbuster, I envisage Zoomf being some sort of crazy alien that Sigourney Weaver spends 90 minutes trying to decapitate. But it’s not a movie, it’s just me announcing the latest redesign here at Zoomf towers.
For those of you who just know me as 'that girl that posts from London', Zoomf is the real estate search engine I work for. We always try to improve our product, but this redesign is the most significant in a while. New bits and pieces are being added as we speak so I’ll do a proper round … (2 comments)

uk: Don't judge a house by its door... - 03/05/08 03:11 AM
It doesn’t have quite the same ring to it as the famous ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’ phrase, but it seems that we are being a little bit prejudiced when it comes to house-hunting.
It can be very distracting to be viewing a house with horrifically ugly furniture, and some people will need the agent to keep reminding them that the heinous floral sofa won’t be there if you choose to move in. On the other side of the coin there are the super DIYers that have mastered the art of walking into a house with molding bathroom walls … (20 comments)

uk: I live in Britian - GET ME OUTTA HERE!!! - 02/21/08 11:31 PM
Writing from the UK...giving an insight into our market :-D
The title is not the name of the latest prime time reality TV show, it is in fact the sad reality that the UK is facing as more and more of the talented workforce up and leave.
The UK has won the disappointing title of having lost the highest number of qualified professionals in the world to other countries, more than one in ten clever Brits have taken their skills elsewhere and now 3.247 million Britons live abroad. The level of people packing up and getting out is at its highest in 50 years. We've even beaten Mexico.
But is it surprising? … (5 comments)

uk: Disgustingly expensive British properties... - 02/20/08 03:17 AM
Who remembers the year 2000? We approached it with such trepidation, terrified every computer in the country would become infested by the ‘millennium bug’.
Well, back then there were 322 streets in the UK where the average property fetched in excess of a million pounds. Today, you would expect that figure to have grown but you may be surprised by just how much. It’s now a staggering 2,183 streets (at least) that have an average price of 1 million pounds.
As much anxiety as there has been over City bonuses recently, estate agents estimate that £5bn worth of bonus money was … (5 comments)

uk: British family spending on housing has doubled since 1957... - 01/30/08 10:56 PM
In the good old days, you could let your children play outside all evening, you’d dress up (and save up) to go to the cinema, Pluto was a planet and curry came in one flavour and was bought in a can. But times change and as it’s only penny sweets that seem immune to inflation, it is unsurprising that family spending habits have changed over the years too.
The BBC have done an interesting analysis on the subject looking back over the past 50 years int he UK. The NHS will be pleased to hear that the proportion of family spending … (0 comments)

uk: Dining room, what dining room? - 01/30/08 03:14 AM
A report in the Telegraph, about a survey by Halifax Home Insurance, which was blogged about on FSBO, which you’re now reading about here on ActiveRain (blimey) has found that by 2020 the humble dining room will have disappeared from British homes.
Just this year over half a million Brits will be demolishing their dining rooms, in most instances to make one larger living space. I guess this is understandable, open-plan living is highly desirable and, with many of us eating our dinner on our laps in front of the TV, the idea of a whole room just for dining when … (2 comments)

uk: Buy my house and get a free Porsche, yacht and fully stocked cellar!!! - 01/23/08 02:29 AM
Excuse the misleading title, I’m not actually selling a house and I’m certainly not offering any highly desirable freebies, instead I am referring to an interesting article published in The Times this week describing the latest craze in ‘buyer incentives’.
Everyone loves a free gift, and incentives are becoming more and more alluring. Take magazines, it used to be exciting to crazily rub your wrist on the page and to smell of Calvin Klein for free, now a girl can expect to see a free pair of flip flops, a novel or a full size mascara stuck to the front of … (5 comments)