• Put Aside Two Minutes Of Your Life

• Sit Down At Your Computer

• Turn Volume To ‘ON’

For the fourth quarter of 2011 the number of repossessions was 8,500, nearly 9% down from 9,300 in the third quarter, but 5% up from 8,100 in the fourth quarter of 2010.

On arrears, there continued to be a modest improvement across all arrears bands  in the fourth quarter, and in 2011 as a whole compared with the previous year. At the end of 2011, 159,400 mortgages had arrears equivalent to 2.5% or more of the mortgage balance, 7.5% down from 172,400 at the end of 2010.

Buy to let properties accounted for 5,900 of the repossessions in 2011, up from 4,700 in 2010. The overall repossession rate was 0.32% in 2011, 0.31% on owner occupied properties and 0.42% on buy to let. This compares with an overall rate of 0.33% in 2010 which was made up of 0.32% on owner occupied properties and 0.36% on buy to let.

The CML said that higher repossession rate on buy to let is not reflected in the arrears experience, however, with the buy to let sector experiencing a lower level of arrears than the owner occupier sector.

While the three months arrears rate stood at 1.98% of all mortgages at the end of 2011, the proportion was higher among owner occupiers at 2.06% than among buy to let mortgage holders, some 1.38% if receiver of rent cases were excluded and 1.79% if included.

Although arrears and repossessions throughout 2011 were fairly stable, the CML has no current plans to revise its current 2012 forecasts for the year. Worsening unemployment and continuing pressures on the cost of living seem likely to result in some further deterioration in the position of households in 2012.

The CML anticipates that this is likely to result in around 45,000 repossessions and around 180,000 mortgages in arrears of 2.5% or more by the end of the year.

‘Low interest rates and good arrears management by lenders are helping the vast majority of those borrowers who face difficulties to keep their homes and get back on track. This will continue, but in the face of wider economic difficulties and rising unemployment, we are concerned that there will be a higher number of people facing more serious problems in 2012,’ said CML director general Paul Smee.

‘Anyone worried about their finances should talk to their mortgage lender and take advice on their other debts as soon as possible. This will give them the best possible chance of staying in their home even if they have a spell of financial difficulty. Forbearance cannot be indefinite; but for most households arrears are temporary and can be resolved,’ he added.

Meanwhile, separate figures from the Finance & Leasing Association (FLA), the trade body for the second charge mortgage market, shows that in 2011 second charge mortgage lenders repossessed 827 properties, 4.3% down on 2010′s total.

The number of second charge mortgage repossessions rose by 11.3% in the final quarter of the year compared with the same period last year, with second charge mortgage providers taking 178 properties into their possession. But low levels of repossessions earlier in the year meant that the total for the year as a whole was down on 2010.

The FLA currently expects the number of repossessions in 2012 to be very slightly higher than in 2011.  ‘Repossession levels have fallen for the third consecutive year as lenders continue with forbearance measures aimed at helping customers in financial difficulty to remain in their homes. These measures have been shown to work, as total repossessions are 48.7% down in 2011 on the total in 2008,’ said Fiona Hoyle, head of consumer finance at the FLA.

‘Repossession remains the last resort if all other measures have failed. However, economic uncertainty persists and we may see this reflected in a slight rise in the number of repossessions in 2012,’ she added.

David Brown, commercial director of LSL Property Services, said that rock bottom interest rate has placed an artificial cap on repossessions, and has prevented the current squeeze on household budgets from feeding into a growing number of arrears cases.

‘However, with the UK’s economy in the doldrums and spending cuts beginning to take hold, arrears and repossessions are likely to rise as the year progresses. While we don’t forecast the increase in repossessions in 2012 to be as high as the 24% predicted by the CML, the country’s economic malaise and the weakening labour market will filter through into the repossessions market, and an increased number of borrowers will face severe mortgage payment problems,’ he explained.

‘Nevertheless, we don’t expect substantial spike in repossessions figures until the bank rate is hiked, and borrowers in financial difficulty face increased mortgage payments,’ he added.

A client asked if I could take a look at a property today as it had been struggling to sell, despite it being for sale with two estate agents for quite some time. In fact it had been for sale for over a year!

It didn’t take too long to realise what the problem was at this particular property.

Now let me think what could be wrong? (Hint: There is a For Sale board in the garden).

How Not To #1

Tend to garden, especially around marketing materials…

How Not To #2

Place board in upright position. It makes it easier to spot…

How Not To #3

Take seasonal photographs. Well it’ll be winter again soon…

So the property isn’t a great one and the price isn’t competitive either, but the seller told me of a willingness to adjust this.

The marketing is a shambles. One For Sale board hidden, the other laid flat on the floor, photographs from a year ago.

And if the agents reading don’t like it – sorry guys, but it’s real!

For more information on how to effectively market your property, call the experts!

See Stephen, they can wear suits and drive Mini Coopers, but there’s no substitute for a consummate professional!

Due to popular demand, I have decided to keep this article updated if I see any further ‘tips’ whilst out on my travels. Watch this space!

For Honest Mick’s own article on For Sale & To Let boards, see THIS amusing article.

How Not To #4

Don’t display a closed sign when you are open. I was going to go in and buy a dozen…

How Not To #5

Ensure board is at visible height. Feet don’t buy… (or rent)…

How Not To #6

Always make an effort to tidy the bins and make sure the guest mattress has been put away prior to viewings…

How Not To #7

If it says ‘Prestige’ at least try. Don’t bolt a sign to a lamp post and chuck the ‘luxury’ description behind a dead end sign…

How Not To #8

If you are asked to sell something that looks like this – REFUSE!

How Not To #9

Tenants like to know a place is secure. Whether you need to make it this obvious I’m not so sure…

How Not To #10

If you are not the green fingered type, flick through the Yellow Pages under ‘Gardeners’…

How Not To #11

A real ‘half hearted’ attempt. Sometimes thinking ‘that’ll do’ is nowhere near good enough, especially in todays market…

How Not To #12

And when you get that eagerly waited success and secure a tenant, always ensure you do thorough references…

How Not To #14

Interior photographs are always great, but let’s not do them for the sake of doing them…

How Not To #15

Well actually, when this was spotted I thought, if there was an award for ‘Most Difficult Sale of the Year’…

How Not To #16

Always try to be on the winning side…

Watch this space for more…

The new powers would be aimed at controlling busts and booms, by banning unsustainable mortgages and preventing another housing bubble, or stimulating more lending.

The Financial Policy Committee (FPC) at the Bank will be able to set LTV limits – for example, setting them at 75% if it feared a credit bubble, or at 95% if it wanted to encourage more lending.

Osborne told MPs in a debate on the Finance Bill that the new committee, which has already been set up but does not come into legal force until next January, is to be led by the Governor of the Bank of England.

He said: “Its job is not just to try to moderate a credit boom but to try to alleviate a credit bust.”

The committee’s job will be to prevent lenders repeating the scenario of the pre-2008 credit crunch. Then it was commonplace to offer mortgages with 125% LTVs in the belief that property prices would continue rising, along with people’s ability to repay their loans.

Osborne said that the previous light-touch regulation had been an ‘unmitigated disaster’ for the economy. He said the FCP would be ‘entrusted with the stability for the whole financial system’.

Osborne said: “In many senses, this is the bread and butter of people’s daily lives, and it is very important that we understand that, as we create these instruments of policy that don’t currently exist.”

He said of the Bank’s new powers that it did not have to use them, adding: “I should say that these are just possibilities – they are potential tools that the committee might want to use.”

Halifax reported a 0.6 per cent increase in prices, taking the average property value to £160,907 in January compared to £160,063 in December.

Overall, house prices have changed little in the past eight months, Halifax said. The average price in January, at £160,907, was very similar to that in May 2011 – £161,039.

Halifax said record low interest rates of 0.5 per cent, unmoved since March 2009, continued to underpin demand, and offset negative developments in the economy that would otherwise push prices lower.

Low interest rates have seen mortgage payments fall to their lowest level as a proportion of household earnings for a new borrower for 14 years, Halifax added.

Looking ahead, Martin Ellis, housing economist at Halifax, said: ‘If the UK can avoid a prolonged recession, we expect broad stability in house prices in 2012.’

Prospects for house prices over the coming months will depend on events in the eurozone and the repercussions of developments there for the UK economy, they said.

The Halifax report follows Nationwide’s house price index last week, which showed prices dipping slightly in January, with a 0.2 per cent fall. Nationwide said that as a percentage of salary, first-time buyers were benefitting from monthly mortgage payments costing the lowest amount for almost ten years. However, it added that many first-time buyers found themselves locked out by big deposit demands and tight credit scoring.

The Halifax figures come as the industry-wide number of mortgages approved to finance house purchases – a leading indicator of completed house sales – held steady at close to 53,000 for the third successive month in December.

Overall, approvals in the final three months of 2011 were 3 per cent higher than in the previous quarter and 16 per cent higher than in the same period of 2010, according to the Bank of England. But mortgages for house purchase are still running at about two-thirds below long-term average levels.

Housing demand may have been helped by a slight improvement in the number of people in employment in the three months to November, which was 18,000 higher than in the preceding three months.

Elsewhere, Halifax said typical mortgage payments for a new borrower – both first-time buyers and home-movers – at the long-term average loan to value ratio stood at 27 per cent of disposable earnings in the fourth quarter of 2011. This was well below the average of 37 per cent recorded over the past 27 years.

Shockingly, all these photographs are real.

Lets take a look at a few..

Lightweight plastic sign: £25. Piece of 3×2: £6. Decent nuts and bolts: PRICELESS!

If boards could talk…

Quick! Hide! No one will spot me if I hide here! Count to twenty then come looking!

One, two, three, four… Where did that sign go???

Now if I bought this place I could get my dosh out from the Western Union, treat myself to an Indian dinner…

and finish off with a nice lady ;-)

Not 100% sure but I think this house is in an auction? You can’t beat a bit of repetition repeating itself.

When deciding on marketing colours for a sign, don’t pick any from the 1970′s dude…

Competition is great, but there really is no need to start a fight…

If you are going to ignore planning regulations and display more than the one board allowed, ensure the owner is aware of the situation.

So thats One, Two…

Three, Four!

Is this Pearson Ferriers new ‘branch’?

“If we can’t sell houses let’s try trees eh Mitchell? Yes Julian there will be a big market for those”.

This tree sales lark is catching on all over town…

If this sign could talk (its in bottom right being all inconspicuous) it would say “I don’t want to attract attention, its just not my style”

Never pose a question you’d not want an honest answer for…

I’d guess it would be “No, it’s far too expensive”…

Put any more information on a board and you could save on the phone bill as no one will ever need to communicate ever again!

This is that bad I’ve saved any embarrassment by blanking out the telephone number. Not that they would get any calls!

The property must be located in the stratosphere somewhere judging by the arrow?

All just numbers to me Stephen…

Keep an eye on fading boards, it gives err, the wrong impression.

Oh I forgot to put 4 BEDS on the sign, not to worry I’ll just slap it on #afterthought.

“Sometimes you say it best, when you say nothing at all” or not, in this case.

Official Opening 10am Monday 27th February 2012

In the lobby of the Glass House, an empty office building that stands as a relic to Ireland’s cataclysmic property bust, money is changing hands between an old woman and a 15-year-old girl.

“Go off there and get a couple of sweets for yourself,” says the woman, as she hands over a block of €50,000 (£42,000) notes.

“I should have brought my handbag in here, I could have made a fortune,” she jokes.

The money, which forms a pulped brick of shredded notes, is part of an art installation – and home – built by unemployed Dublin-based artist Frank Buckley.

Mr Buckley has invited strangers into the space in the hope that it will inspire debate on the state of Irish national debt and the meaning of currency.

Like many of his friends and acquaintances, Mr Buckley fell victim to Ireland’s economic crisis. At the height of the property boom, he bought a house on cheap credit.

He wanted a place where he and his two children could live together with his wife, who had recently moved from Zimbabwe with four children of

“I borrowed all that money, which was very much encouraged,” he says. “I take responsibility for it but it was very easy for me to do.

“We were in this bubble, confidence was high, we were untouchable and within the space of two or three weeks it just took its toll.”

He had no fixed income and within months of buying the house found he couldn’t meet his mortgage repayments.

Under the financial strain, his marriage broke down and he moved into the shed at the back of the house as bailiffs came to take his furniture away.

His friends and acquaintances struggled too and a close friend, a property developer who had lost everything he owned, took his own life.

Staring at a stack of decommissioned notes he had acquired from a friend to use as confetti at his wedding ceremony he started questioning its real value.

“I thought, ‘God, this is what this paper is doing to us?,’” he says.

He decided to create art that would bring the absurdity of the Irish economic situation to light and made paintings from the shredded notes and coins which he exhibited towards the end of last year.

Then the idea came to him to build a house.

“I was sitting outside the Glass House building waiting for a friend of mine to come out and I thought, ‘Wouldn’t this be fantastic, to do a structure inside the building with the shredded notes,’” he says.

He rang the building’s agent who had seen a review of his most recent exhibition and forwarded him to the owner who was immediately keen.

The mint agreed to supply him with more bricks of decommissioned notes. There was a vast amount of paperwork involved but mint officials were very accommodating and took care of it.

They have given the money to Mr Buckley on a loan basis and will dispose of it when he is finished.

Mr Buckley had never built a house before. “I got a hammer and nails and my brother brought down a generator and plugged it in. I had a light and I started from there,” he says.

The house is constructed from sheets of plywood and frames donated by a local DIY shop.

The outside walls are built from stacked bricks while inside, the shredded euros are used to plaster the walls and carpet the floor. It has a double glazed window, a high security front door and a toilet.

Mr Buckley now lives in the house during the week, returning to the shed in his family’s back garden at the weekend.

Since he opened it to the public on Monday the house has received more than 300 visitors and he has been overwhelmed by the positive reaction to it.

But despite the success of the installation he is still struck daily by the poignancy of the Irish economic situation and recalls the reaction of his young visitor as she handled the block of useless notes.

“The girl said, ‘If I could use this as money, I would get out of this country.’” he says. “And to me that was really sad.”

Thanks to the BBC for the article.

• Astra Zenica shed 7,300 jobs
• American Airlines cuts 13,000 positions
• Sony reports massive quarterly loss
• Tesco loses market share

But Facebook is about to float at $5 Billion.

So, what’s my point?

The internet is the place to be. Sell or rent  your house with an agent who knows how to!

Town hall chiefs say it will give housing officers a chance to explain rent changes and other issues.

Mid Devon District Council has refused to say how much the trip in Tiverton this month will cost. Critics say it is a waste of public money at a time of massive cutbacks. Cllr Kevin Wilson said: “I’m surprised no one thought about the connotations of the word ‘muppet’.”

The authority insisted that tickets are being paid for out of rent income, not council tax.

But the TaxPayers’ Alliance said: “Tenants should be able to get advice without the need for free cinema tickets.”

The council was previously slammed for handing tokens for free fish and chip suppers at a “meet the public” event.