A report this week has indicated that house prices will be on the up an up for the whole of this year.

The indices published by nationwide show that property prices rose by a full one percent last month. The reasons are simple ones of supply and demand. Properties are in scarce supply and high demand in most parts of the country. Sending the price steadily higher. Nationwide predicted a stabilizing of prices through the coming months but also that movement even minor should all be upward.  Meanwhile, the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) has also claimed that prices are set to grow a further five per cent over the course of the year.

For sure this means that those expanding their property portfolio will have to have deeper pockets to make a purchase but there is also a very bright side.

All of us landlords like to see the overall value of our investment increasing. We understand that we are in this for the long haul but in the end we love to see our money growing. Most landlords will be thrilled with Nationwide’s prediction.

In contradiction to what many experts have been saying there was an article on a popular property site this week that suggested that those who had predicted a tenant boom were being proven wrong.

This article took the attitude that the predictions pf plentiful supply of people wanting to rent had already proven false. It said that what was happening instead was that people were staying at home with parents much longer than we had ever seen before. This is in an effort to avoid having to make purchase in difficult times. The article goes even further and states that also very common is the situation where people who were already renting return home as the cost becomes prohibitive.

I am certainly not going to argue that none of this is happening. Clearly there is an element in today’s society. Many of us have long ago accepted that we will have our children on our hands much longer than we had anticipated. However, I think these young or youngish people who are unattached without families, in the main, are the tip of the housing iceberg.

I think this call is far too premature. I am still thinking that a tenant boom is on the cards if not a housing crisis.

Void periods are dreaded by all landlords. It is part of the nature of the business that occasionally you are going to suffer them but if they drag on and get out of hand they have the potential to seriously damage your financial position. It is with a great sense of relief that landlords greeted the news this week that figures show that average void periods are slowly improving in the UK.

There is no call yet to get too excited as void periods are still higher than we would like but are improving. The numbers for the national landlord’s association are encouraging. In March 2010 around 52% of landlords had experienced voids in the previous 12 month period, down from 55% in the last three months of 2009. There was also a fall in the average duration of voids from 19 days to 17 days.This is all good stuff and we can only hope that the trends continue. All signs seem to indicate that it will with many still claiming strongly that housing is going to become a scarce commodity in the near future. Of course none of us want to see a crisis but enough people to fill our properties would be great. 

 According to a recent survey, 70% of UK landlords report seeing an increase in property prices in their area recently. This sounds like good news and in one way it certainly is. The property price increases will go a long way towards reversing the capital loses a lot of landlords experienced in the recent crash. There is also a less favorable side to this bit of news, however.

A lot of landlords who were in a strong financial position had been slowly and steadily increasing the amount of properties in their portfolio, something that is bound to be a financial boon for them in the future. The rise in the market is going to put the brakes on this activity.

One thing is for sure landlords have proven to not be behind the door in predicting the changing face of the property market with the same survey group reporting last month that only 28% of landlords expected to add another property to their portfolio in the next 12 months.

The fact that housing stocks remain low, however, is potentially more good news for the average landlord. Another property bubble could see many forced out of buying into renting ensuring the flow of tenants. 

I was astounded this week to hear that the figure for tenants at risk of a gas leak is as high as one in three. After all the publicity that we have had regarding the safety requirements for gas appliances it is almost beyond belief that this number is correct. However, according to a recent survey 36% of tenants are in properties with expired gas safety certificates and even more worryingly 26% inhabit a property that has never been checked for safety.

This is mind boggling to me. As we all know it is now a legal requirement that every rental property is checked for gas safety annually and the certificate provided to the tenant. Ignorance of this particular law is no longer any excuse either legally of morally as it has been in place long enough now for all landlords to be aware of it existence.

The figures from UK health and safety serve to emphasise the importance of following the regulations. In the last twelve months 18 people have died as the result of gas leaks and 310 more ere injured.  The idea of being the landlord responsible for one of these accidents is enough to chill the blood and personally I do everything I can to try and prevent that occurring.

Please join me in being responsible in regards gas safety. You owe it to your tenants and to the greater reputation of the private rented sector.

94% of residential landlords are certain that there will be significant interest rate rises but not until the beginning of 2011. This is in spite of the fact that the Bank Of England recently decided not to shift on its record breaking low rate of 0.5%.

In landlord circles the prediction is that there may be small rises in rates before the turn of the year but it is likely to be 2011 before we see anything that is really worth talking about. They are also putting a figure on things and coming in slightly higher that the average economic expert with a predicted rise of 1.25%. Others have been forecasting more like 1.1%.

Some landlords are displaying somewhat pessimistic tendencies with 10% predicting the rise to reach 2%. Only one in a hundred are pessimistic enough to predict anything as dire as a 3% rise though, so that is some comfort.

With all this in mind it seems that some landlords are still content to start looking for properties to expand their portfolios especially in the London area. Just under half of London landlords are looking to buy up. the rest of the country is slightly more reticent with the figure being more like a fifth.

A recently released report has finally acknowledged the serious contribution to the housing market made by the residential landlord. We have been going on about it for ages but it is nice to see the government catching on and giving praise where it is due. The most important factor in the government report is that the economic good being done by the private rent sector has also been noted.

This has lead to the treasury stating that it is considering making to the form of buy-to-let regulation it originally envisaged. This is great news. As we have said all along fair regulation is not an issue but there is no need for the everyone to be regulated as strongly. Some parts just do not need to have someone constantly looking over their shoulder.

It seems now that the treasury is leaning a little more towards our view which is that the residential BTL sector should be treated the same as the commercial one but with a few more safeguards in place. Well, at least we are hoping that is what all this means.

At the same time though some parts of society are trying to lay the blame for fewer first time buyers at the feet of landlords, but more about that tomorrow.