Latest Property Market News

The total value of the UK’s housing stock reached a record £7.29 trillion in 2018, according to fresh research from Savills.
The total value of the UK’s housing stock increased by £190.3 billion last year, led by gains in the regions.
London accounts for 24.3% of UK housing value, compared with......

MPs will finally hold their vote on Theresa May’s Brexit deal tomorrow, with just over two months to go before the UK is set to leave the European Union.
Remarkably, the PM’s template to exit the bloc faces virtually certain defeat – by an eye watering majority of 228, according......

A buy-to-let landlord in Edinburgh who evicted a young family and dumped their belongings in the garden after they fell into rent arrears may lose his landlord’s licence.
David Love, who owns a portfolio of 15 buy-to-let properties in and around Edinburgh, hit the headlines last year after evicting mum-of-nine......

Following a prolonged period of strong growth, the Highlands and Islands region has been replaced as Scotland’s fastest growing rental market.
According to the latest Scotland Buy to Let Index from Your Move, Glasgow and Clyde posted the fastest rent rises in November 2018, toppling the Highlands and Islands, which......

The introduction of the Private Residential Tenancy (PRT) in December 2017 has led to major changes in the industry in Scotland, but many landlords north of the border are falling foul of the new rules, according to the Govan Law Centre.
The PRT means that private residential tenancies are open-ended,......

Brexit has “smashed property market sentiment to smithereens”, according to Jonathan Samuels, the chief executive of the property lender Octane Capital.
Buying and selling property requires confidence but confidence, as we edge closer to Brexit, is close to zero, the CEO said.
For countless prospective buyers, Brexit has put everything on......

More needs to be done to stem the rise in short-term lets on Airbnb in Scotland to ensure that the market north of the border is not left facing a housing disaster, according to the chief executive of the Scottish Association of Landlords (SAL).
A surge in the numbers of......

It’s been a busy year in terms of legislation in the Scottish lettings industry. The introduction of the Private Residential Tenancy (PRT) in December 2017 has led to major change in the industry and has brought with it clear benefits for both landlords and tenants in Scotland. The PRT......

It’s now three years since the then Conservative Chancellor George Osborne introduced a series of measures aimed, principally, at cooling the overheating London housing market.
The inexorable rise of property prices in the Capital threatened to create a financial bubble of potentially devastating proportions whose impact would ripple across the......

The proportion of let properties in the UK owned by overseas landlords is at its lowest in almost a decade, new figures show.
The proportion of homes let by international landlords in Great Britain has dropped sharply from 14.4% in the first half of 2010 to 5.8% in the first......

There has been sharp slowdown in rental market activity as we draw closer to the festive period, the latest data from the Agency Express Property Activity Index has revealed.
The percentage of properties ‘to let’ in November dropped by 1.6%, while properties ‘let’ were down by 7.2%.
Looking back at the......

There was bad news for buy-to-let landlords in Scotland yesterday when the Scottish Finance Secretary Derek Mackay proposed a 1% hike on the tax payable when acquiring an additional property north of the border.
Mackay set out his plans for tax and spending for the year ahead at Holyrood yesterday,......

Draconian tax changes applying to buy-to-let investors will leave many private landlords with little alternative but to evict tenants and sell properties en masse or simply increase rents for tenants, according to according to Paul Smith, chief executive of Touchstone Education, which runs courses in property investment across the......

There has been a sharp rise in the number of tenancy deposits held across the UK, new figures provided by deposit protection outfit The Dispute Service (TDS) shows.
The annual review provided by the TDS reveals 6.8% growth in deposits held nationwide, with Northern Ireland in particular seeing a 13.85%......

Landlords currently looking for the UK’s best buy-to-let areas should consider locations with a high student population, with yields of up to 12% still achievable if you know where to look, according to new research.
A fresh survey by TotallyMoney provides both an interesting insight into the market and a......

Buy-to-let landlords in Scotland continue to achieve higher returns on their property investments than their counterparts south of the border, the latest Scotland Buy to Let Index from Your Move reveals.
The average Scottish rental price edged up by 2% in the 12 months to October to reach to £573......

Campaigners opposed to mortgage lenders allowing landlords to rent property to people claiming benefits tried to voice their discontent over the weekend by attempting to storm a Bristol branch of NatWest.
Activists from campaign group Acorn demonstrated outside the branch in Broadmead on Saturday. They handed out leaflets to customers......

There was greater choice for those looking to rent last month, reflected by a sharp increase in the number of properties ‘to let’ and indeed ‘let’, according to the latest figures from the Agency Express Property Activity Index.
The percentage of properties ‘to let’ in October increased by 24.2%, while......

Buy-to-let landlords who have adopted a high yielding investment strategy may be interested in new analysis of the BTL market that reveals where the best investment opportunities currently are.
The research, undertaken by Shawbrook Bank, has identified the North West and Scotland as the top UK hotspots to invest for yield......

A buy-to-let landlord in Edinburgh, who faces losing his license after evicting a young family, is appealing to his other tenants for help to avoid being blacklisted by the council.
David Love, who owns a portfolio of 15 buy-to-let properties in and around Edinburgh, hit the headlines earlier this year......