Returns from property take time as well as timing

As a callow youth I remember being deeply impressed on first hearing this founding axiom of the investment world, which was delivered by the sage in question tapping his nose and closing one eye. By this stage of the lunch the nose was glowing redder and more bulbous (his, not mine) but I was determined to remember this pearl, startled that so few people had been lucky enough to share this amazing insight.

Further research revealed that the land in question had already been snapped up by a combination of the Church Commissioners, the Royal Family (along with various aristocratic connections) and the Prudential. Add a few other insurers and land companies and this Sceptred Isle was obviously well and truly spoken for, bar the odd scrap of common land masquerading as a village green.
Never mind, I thought, there’s still the opportunity to make money from what you put on that land – property. But getting a return from property requires time as well as timing. This is not a new rule and would seem to me to be reasonably easy to remember. But it’s a lesson that has to be learnt time and again by our banks who seem to lack any sort of corporate memory.

During the last boom banks lent property companies about £225bn, of which about £43bn comes due this year. As many of the companies the banks lent to have gone bust, are going bust or are operating in the teeth of a deep recession, the chances of getting much of this loan book back are slim. This was true in the last recession and the recession before that and the recession before that. You get the picture.

Yesterday, Manchester-based Modus Ventures became the latest property company to go into administration. So far banks have delayed calling in loans and repossessing properties but the creation of the state-backed asset protection scheme will speed this process up.

A huge amount of bad news can be expected for the rest of the year as a shrinking economy causes tenants to stall on rental payments, disturbing cash flows to landlords which cannot subsequently service bank loans. The banks will be forced to write off the debt, ensuring they’re loss-making at least for this year and next. Will the banks learn their lesson this time? Probably not.

The next mistake they are moving towards inexorably is to sell the property they repossess cheaply to raise cash. Right on cue yesterday, London’s Alternative Investment Market (Aim) announced May would be its strongest month for nearly a year for specialist companies raising cash for investment; the biggest sector involved? You guessed it, property.

In one week alone this month a total of £700m was raised in the City by several new property investment funds. Those gnarled old veterans are at it again, ready for what one described as “the counter-cyclical buying opportunity of a generation”.

Magna deal will keep Vauxhall on the road

When General Motors files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the US on Monday, as expected, the recession will claim its biggest victim. But America’s bankruptcy protection laws mean the old banger can be wheeled into the body shop and re-emerge a restructured company with new engine and parts. A group of careful new owners could run it for another 100 years. The UK lacks the same laws, arguably putting our economy at a disadvantage.

Here we’ve been subjected to anxious days of talks over the future of GM Europe, including our Vauxhall plants in Luton and Ellesmere Port. It now looks like Magna, a Canadian car parts group, will take over the factories but Lord Mandelson’s hope that no UK jobs will be lost appears hopeless. Magna plans to cut 10,000 jobs in Europe and while sites such as Ellesmere Port are highly productive, the UK has to shoulder its share of the pain.

But as a new entrant to the industry here, Magna needs to maintain sizeable capacity so is unlikely to cut to the bone. If it happens, the deal will be better than nothing and likely to save as many UK jobs as possible, but certainly not all.

MPs Phantom Mortgages

MPs who have used taxpayers’ money to pay for “phantom” mortgages on their expenses should be investigated by the police and prosecuted, David Cameron says in an interview with The Daily Telegraph.

The Conservative leader’s warning came as Elliot Morley — the former Labour minister exposed for claiming more than £16,000 for a mortgage he had already paid off — announced he was standing down as an MP.

Mr Morley said he had made the decision with “regret” and insisted that he had done nothing wrong.

But in the interview, Mr Cameron said that Scotland Yard detectives should investigate any suspect expense claims “without fear or favour”.

He admitted being “ashamed” at MPs’ behaviour.

The comments will increase pressure on the police to take swift action against MPs who have admitted serious errors – and potential fraud.

At least three other MPs – David Chaytor, Ben Chapman and former Conservative frontbencher Bill Wiggin – have also made phantom claims for interest on mortgages.

Lawyers believe that such claims may breach the 2007 Fraud Act and the 1968 Theft Act – and might therefore constitute criminal offences that could result in MPs being imprisoned.

In today’s interview, Mr Cameron said: “If people have broken the law in claiming expenses, like mortgage payments for mortgages that don’t exist, should they be subject to the full force of the law? Yes of course they should.

“I’ve said it’s not for me to call in the police but the police know what the law is and if they feel it’s been broken they should be able to look at that without fear or favour.”

Mr Cameron’s call comes on Day 23 of The Daily Telegraph’s investigation into MPs’ expenses. So far the claims of more than 460 MPs have been published. Today it can be disclosed that:

More than 40 MPs lived in the Dolphin Square estate in Westminster when they were offered a controversial deal to sacrifice their right to cheap rent in return for a substantial windfall in 2006. The taxpayer is now funding higher rent or mortgage interest claims for many of the MPs as a result.

MPs who have pocketed the windfall include the Labour MPs Tony Wright (Great Yarmouth), Joan Humble and David Wright. David Lidington, a shadow foreign minister, agreed to repay the money.

Mr Morley’s decision to wait until the next general election to step down means he will qualify for a pay-off equivalent to a year’s salary — presently £64,766.

He will qualify for the maximum “resettlement grant” as he has been an MP for more than 15 years and is aged between 55 and 64.

A Conservative MP who serves as a Crown Court judge has claimed £58,000 in taxpayer-funded expenses for a flat in which his children have stayed rent-free.

Humfrey Malins said that, when

Parliament was sitting, he spent two nights a week at the flat in Westminster that he designates as his second home, at an average cost to the taxpayer of £240 a day. His main home is in Dorking, just 45 minutes on the train from London Victoria or Waterloo – both close to Parliament.

Eleanor Laing, a shadow justice minister, has not paid £180,000 in capital gains tax after making a profit of £1?million on her taxpayer-funded property. She told the parliamentary authorities the flat was her “second home” but told the tax authorities it was her “principal residence”.

Mr Cameron’s call for police action was also backed last night by Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader.

He said: “I travel around the country all the time, people say to me the same thing, ‘If we did this at work we’d either be sent to the police or we’d be out on our ear’.

“And so I think people quite rightly want to see the police involved if there is real criminal fraud and real intent to defraud the taxpayer.”

Scotland Yard has announced that it has launched a preliminary inquiry, in conjunction with the Crown Prosecution Service, into complaints it has received about MPs.

Mr Morley and other MPs with “phantom” mortgages are expected to be the focus of police interest.

It is understood that Sir Paul Stephenson, the Scotland Yard Commissioner, wants detectives to announce as soon as possible whether a criminal investigation will be instigated.

Insiders indicated that a decision will be made within a fortnight regarding 10 MPs whose cases are under consideration.

Since The Daily Telegraph began its investigation into MPs’ expense claims 12 back-bench MPs have announced they will stand down at the next election and Michael Martin, the Speaker, has also said he will quit.

Dozens of MPs have also repaid questionable expense claims.

Bill Cash, a Conservative MP, said yesterday that he was prepared to repay more than £15,000 he claimed for rent payments to his daughter.

The main political parties are growing increasingly concerned over the impact of the expenses scandal on next week’s local and European elections.

Halifax Mortgages

The lender Halifax has this month indicated that homes are at their most affordable level since January 2003 – but only for people seeking their first mortgages. The National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA) said: “It could be expected that this figure would rise if mortgage finance was more readily available.”

According to the John Charcol Index, the broker’s monthly mortgage activity monitor, the increase in first time buyers coming to the market is continuing to rise. In April the broker saw 21% of their business come from first time buyers, a figure that in October 2008 stood at only 4.1%. The broker reported that many first time buyers have managed to raise 25% deposits in order to access a better, wider choice of mortgage deals. Mostly, it reports, this funding was aided by borrowers parents.

In response to this strategy from first time buyers, Lloyds TSB have introduced a new 95% mortgage to tempt first time buyers as they only need to raise a deposit of 5%. The ‘Lend a Hand’ mortgage offers a rate of 4.9%, the same as other mortgages available asking for a 75% deposit, and has an arrangement fee of £995. Applicants must however qualify for the loan, friends or relatives, parents for example, must hold 20% of the property’s value in a separate account. These savings will be placed into a special account within the bank earning a fixed interest rate of 3.5% for three and a half years.

Stephen Ludlow says: “With the current low rate of interest for savers, parents with investment funds may feel this is a win-win situation. First time buyer mortgages are key to getting the property market moving. Whilst the mortgage offer may not be viable for everyone it’s a start and hopefully other lenders will follow suit.”

This account has a legal charge to cover the bank should the borrower default on the mortgage and the house be repossessed. In this event the bank can only claim 75% of the value of the house, so the money in the savings account protects the bank from being left out of pocket. No money may be removed from this account for three years and the borrower has built up a 10% equity stake in the property. Once the loan-to-value ratio has fallen to less than 90% through repayments and increasing property prices, the borrower will then be able to operate their mortgage independently and the legal charge removed.

Lloyds bank comments:
“ the new mortgage offers parents a way of aiding their children on to the property ladder, whilst retaining the management of their savings.

ludlowthompson has a range of properties available for first time buyers, including our first time buyer ‘Property of the week’.

Number of Houses Sold Rise

The number of homes sold by estate agents reached an 18-month high last month as the property market continued to show signs of picking up, figures revealed today.
The average agent agreed ten sales during April, up from eight in March and a low of just five last August, according to the National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA).
The level of transactions has been steadily increasing since the beginning of the year, as potential buyers flood.

Peter Bolton King, chief executive of the NAEA, said the ‘consistent positive indicators ‘were now holding firm or improving since the beginning of the year’.
‘Six months ago people were talking about how British people’s attitude to owning property had changed in the recession,’ he said.

‘The NAEA always said that this was nonsense, and that demand for property remained strong, but confidence in the market had gone. These figures show that this confidence is returning.’
There are increasing signs that activity in the housing market has now passed its lowest point.
The Council of Mortgage Lenders last week reported a 29 per cent jump in mortgage lending to people buying a new home during March, while the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors said inquiries from potential buyers rose at their fastest pace for almost a decade in April.
Nationwide also said price falls had slowed to just 0.4 per cent in April, following a 0.9 per cent rise in March, although Britain’s biggest mortgage lender Halifax dented hopes of a recovery when it reported a 1.7 per cent fall for the same period.
Economists have cautioned that, while activity may be picking up again, any recovery is likely to be slow due to rising unemployment and the ongoing problems in the mortgage market.
Rightmove was also downbeat about the rise in asking prices, which pushed the average cost of a home up to £227,441, warning that the increase was more reminiscent of a boom market than the current one.
The group said the jump was the largest price increase recorded during May since 2003, when house prices were rising by 15 per cent a year.
It added that sellers may be pricing their homes at higher levels due to concerns about the extent to which their equity has been eroded, making it difficult for them to trade up the property ladder.
But it pointed out that more than 59,000 sellers slashed their asking price by more than 2 per cent during the past four weeks, with the average homeowner reducing it by 6.8 per cent, or nearly £19,000.
The group said the number of properties being put up for sale remained low, and this was likely to hold back any recovery.
In contrast to Globrix, it said just 61,000 new homes came on the market during the four weeks to May 9, compared with 135,000 in May last year.
It added that this was the lowest level of new homes advertised on its site during the month since 2003, when it advertised only about 35 per cent of properties, compared with 90 per cent now.
Miles Shipside, commercial director of Rightmove, said a key concern was that housing supply had now been compromised for several years to come.
‘Developers have shed much of their workforce so could struggle to increase capacity, and we are now seeing the lowest number of new sellers of second-hand homes for the month of May since 2003.’

Fixed Rate Mortgage Deals

Average fixed-rate mortgage deals have increased over the last two months, even though the Bank of England kept interest rates at an historic low of 0.5 per cent this week and pumped a further £50 billion into the system.

The research came as three large mortgage companies, Britannia and Yorkshire Building Society, announced that they were putting up their rates for new customers from next week.

Royal Bank of Scotland, which has received more than £50 billion of taxpayers’ money, is putting up its two year deal, for those with a 20 per cent deposit, from 5.09 per cent to 5.79 per cent.

According to figures from the personal finance publisher, MoneyFacts, the average two-year fixed rate mortgage, still the most popular deal, was 4.87 per cent at the start of March, just before the Bank cut bank rate from 1 per cent to 0.5 per cent.

After that cut rates started to tick down and fell to 4.60 per cent in April, but since then have started to creep back up and yesterday were ate 4.62 per cent. They are likely to climb higher once the latest increases are taken into account.

Ray Boulger, a mortgage expert with broker John Charcol said that the profits lenders were making from home loans were now “the highest for a very long time”, with banks and building societies putting up their rates to protect their profits ahead of the expected surge in repossessions later this year.

“Before the credit crunch many mortgages were loss leaders for lenders but now the boot is on the other foot. The gross [profit] margins are the highest for a very long time,” he said.

The hardest hit are first time buyers. Those who have just a 10 per cent deposit – the case for most people trying to get on the housing ladder – have seen rates drop from 6.38 per cent to 5.97 per cent before climbing back up to 6.13 per cent.

The concern is that fragile signs of a potential recovery in the housing market could be squashed if first time buyers are shut out altogether from buying a property.

In recent weeks, the Land Registry has suggested the precipitous fall in house prices is slowing down, while the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors has reported that the number of potential house buyers has increased for the five consecutive months.

Nicholas Leeming, an estate agent and founder of website propertyfinder.com, said: “We are definitely seeing a pick up in activity, but it is being constrained by the availability of finance for buyers, especially those with small deposits.”

Melanie Bien, director at mortgage broker Savills, said: “It is hugely disappointing that rates are climbing back up. It is going to a while before first time buyers are able to afford anything.”

House Prices Rising

House prices could begin rising again by the end of this year, ending a slump that will have wiped more than £50,000 off the average property value.

Experts from Lloyds group, which owns 30 per cent of the mortgage market, and the brokers, John Charcol, believe the clouds covering the property market will begin to lift by the autumn.

There is already some evidence of a pick-up in the number of buyers and sales going through estate agents.

Separately, both the Bank of England and Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) are seeing a rise in the number of mortgage approvals for home purchase.
To date, the levels involved are still well down on a year ago – around 50 per cent – and they have not been enough to halt the fall in house prices.
However, while prices are expected to show further falls over the summer, there are signs they will stabilise and even move upwards by Christmas.
The consensus is that the current bust will see house prices fall by around 25 per cent – more than than £50,000 – from the peak of the summer of 2007 before any recovery.
According to the Nationwide, the fall has already been 18.4 per cent and it believes there is another 6 per cent to go.

The Lloyds group now owns the Halifax, a casualty of the credit crunch, which puts the fall at 22.4 per cent with around 6per cent to go.
A home loan famine in the UK has been instrumental in smothering the mortgage market over the past 18 months. Banks and building societies have made savage cuts in the number of mortgages available and the size of loans available, so freezing out buyers.

However, there have been signs in the last week of a shift in policy. Both the Woolwich, which is part of Barclays, and Lloyds have cut their fixed rates and relaxed their lending controls.

Commercial director of mortgages at Lloyds, Stephen Noakes, believes prices still have some way to fall over the next few months.

However, he said: ‘For the first time, people are thinking that house prices will increase over the next 12 months.’
Mr Noakes said the decision by Lloyds to cut the cost of its mortgages is part of a wider policy to breathe life into the market.

‘We are seeing some encouraging signs, particularly if you look at the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors figures. These show the number of people looking, and enquiring about property purchase is the highest since March 2003,’ he said.

‘Stimulating the mortgage market by encouraging house purchasing is an important focus for us.’

The Bank of England base rate has been slashed to 0.5 per cent and is predicted to stay at around that figure for the rest of this year.

Mr Noakes claims that mortgage rates are now around as low as they will go. He argued that people with standard variable rate home loans may now be wise to switch to a fixed rate.

Lloyds is part-owned by the UK taxpayer. As part of its financial arrangements with the Government, which has effectively provided an insurance policy for billions of pounds of toxic assets, it has pledged to pour an extra £3billion into the mortgage market.

Ray Boulger, of John Charcol, said: ‘While we shouldn’t overlook the consequences of further redundancies and sharp rises in interest rates round the corner, there’s been a marked change of mood.’

He believes house prices will fall 8 per cent by the autumn, but will then rise by 3 per cent over the final three months of the year.
‘Estate agents have been reporting increased interest from both first time buyers and movers since the beginning of the year and some of that interest is now translating into sales.

‘The good news on the mortgage front is that over the last few weeks lenders have been increasing the availability of mortgages up to 80 per cent and 85 per cent Loan to Value.

‘I expect the market to stabilise by the third quarter of this year and house prices to show a net fall of only 5 per cent in 2009.’

He stressed there would be no return of a boom, saying: ‘House prices are unlikely to recover quickly… the prospect of increases in interest rates, plus lenders’ less generous affordability calculations, will inhibit house prices increasing too quickly.’

UK house prices

UK house prices
Published: May 1 2009 09:42 | Last updated: May 1 2009 22:24

Spring sunshine, easy money and the lure of a “bargain” can be a dangerously seductive mix for aspiring homebuyers. Servicing an interest-only mortgage for three and a half times salary, at current rates of about 4 per cent, eats up just 14 per cent of household income compared with a long-term average of about 25 per cent. For those who believe the market may be close to bottoming out, this is enticing stuff. Buyer inquiries at estate agents are surging.

The trouble, as Capital Economics notes, is that the normally tight relationship between inquiries and new mortgage approvals has broken down over the past year, reflecting the entrenched stand-off between more risk-averse buyers and sellers holding out valiantly for 2007 valuations. Even after March’s 4 per cent rise, monthly mortgage approvals for new house purchase are still running at less than half the level traditionally deemed consistent with stable house prices.

EDITOR’S CHOICE
Manufacturing pay settlements plummet – Apr-30In depth: UK house prices – Dec-18Abbey profits leap despite rise in bad debt – Apr-29Unemployment data fuel hopes on recovery – Apr-30Hopes of UK housing recovery set back – Apr-27In depth: European house prices – Jul-21The weight of money in futures markets and spread betting sites suggests that talk of an upturn is premature. Punters have become less pessimistic lately but still expect a further 22 per cent fall in the Halifax index over the next two years, on top of the 20 per cent decline from the summer 2007 peak that has already occurred. This is broadly in line with the current 25 per cent divergence of the ratio of house prices to earnings from its long-run average of about 3.7.

With UK insolvencies and personal bankruptcies soaring, it is unlikely that rising earnings will soften the house price adjustment. Average nominal earnings growth will be about 2 per cent this year, meaning that the pain will be felt largely through falls in nominal house prices. Citi, for example, reckons nominal UK house prices will fall by a further 12.5 per cent before bottoming out in late 2010. Sellers should take what they can, now.

House prices fall back to 2006 level

House prices fall back to 2006 level
By Norma Cohen, Economics Correspondent

Published: May 8 2009 09:41 | Last updated: May 8 2009 09:41

UK house prices in April fell for the fourteenth month in a row, leaving the average home valued at no more than it was three years ago, according to the latest FT House Price Index.

House prices in England and Wales in April fell by 1.1 per cent from the month before, and confirm the trend – if not the precise level of decline – seen in the widely-watched mortgage lender indices compiled by Nationwide and Halifax.

Peter Williams, chairman of Acadametrics, which compiles the Index on behalf of the FT, said there was little to indicate that the bottom of the housing market had been reached.

“The evidence from across the market remains mixed and there were few who were confidently predicting the bottom of the market,” Mr Williams said. Although recent surveys of consumer confidence show an improving trend, and the number of transactions has risen recently, overall turnover remains very depressed.

The latest data show the weakness in house prices is widely spread, with all regions in England and Wales sharing the pain – whether on a monthly or annual basis.

Wales, which had much sharper declines in housing values last year than the rest of the country, was the only area to show a drop of less than 10 per cent for the year through April.

In fact, Acadametrics noted, Wales was one of the first regions to experience negative annual growth in house prices, raising the possibility that it may be the first to actually hit bottom. “This is not so much ‘green shoots’ recovery, but a reluctance by sellers to reduce prices any further,” Mr Williams said.

Indeed, the fall in the number of transactions overall is striking. In the first quarter of 2009, sales were down by 54 per cent from the first quarter of 2008, and within some towns, the decline in the number of sales has been dramatic. For example, transactions were down by 72 per cent in Thurrock, by 67 per cent in Luton and in Slough.

The region with the highest year-on-year decline is the southeast, one of the wealthiest regions, where prices were off 15.4 per cent since April 2008.

All counties and unitary districts have recorded falling prices over the past three months on an annualised basis, albeit at varying rates. The most severe declines were in south Gloucestershire – where prices were down 19.3 per cent, and in Brighton and Hove, where they were down 19.2 per cent.

The smallest declines over three months on an annualised basis were seen in Rutland where prices fell by a modest 1.9 per cent and in Pembrokeshire where they were off by 3.2 per cent.

Within London, which is showing one of the largest declines in price terms of any region in the nation, 32 out of 33 boroughs saw declines. The exception was the City of London which has a very small number of privately owned homes and frequently records volatile changes in house prices

The Association of Residential Letting Agents

All private landlords would have to be registered before letting residential property under government plans to curb abuses in the growing rental market, The Times has learnt.

Easy access to buy-to-let mortgages over the past decade has meant that the number of private landlords has risen to about one million in England and Wales, and ministers are worried that a growing number of unscrupulous landlords are exploiting tenants.

Anyone letting a residential property would have to pay about £50 to register with a national body. This would include developers, buy-to-let investors and the growing ranks of “accidental landlords” who cannot sell their homes and have been forced to let them out instead.

Registered landlords would have to comply with certain standards and those who fail to carry out repairs or who intimidate tenants could be struck off. If that happened, all their tenants would have to move out, although this would not happen overnight, Whitehall sources suggested.

The reforms are to be outlined in a Green Paper within ten days.

The Government intends for the system to be operated with a “light touch” to improve standards and root out rogue landlords, but the bureaucracy could drive out small buy-to-let investors.

Simon Gordon, of the National Landlords Association, said: “We can see the thinking behind this but we need to see the details and be reassured that this is not simply a mechanism for tougher regulations.”

In Scotland, private landlords are already required to register to let properties. The scheme was brought in after a series of scandals about multiple occupancy. In the first year only 15 per cent of landlords registered, but tougher legislation has since been introduced. Landlords who fail to register can face criminal proceedings and have a notice served on their properties stating that tenants do not have to pay rent.

Although details of how the scheme would work in England and Wales are still being negotiated, one option is that each landlord would be given a licence number that would appear on all documents related to the letting. This could make it easier for the Inland Revenue to identify tax evaders.

The administrative costs are expected to be covered by the licence fee.

The system would be monitored by an independent body to adjudicate complaints made by tenants. If these complaints were upheld the landlord could lose his or her letting licence. Under one option being considered, the Government might set up a “social letting agent” to place affected tenants in more suitable privately rented accommodation.

Landlords would be able to appeal against the body’s decision, but if they lost it could be years before they are allowed to rent out property again.About 2.6 million properties are now let out on the private rental market and ministers are worried about a growing number of rogue landlords.

According to a report by Julie Rugg, who is senior research Fellow at the Centre for Housing Policy at the University of York, up to 50 per cent of all privately rented accommodation are thought to be below the Government’s decent homes standard, with some landlords failing to comply with gas and fire regulations and allowing properties to fall into disrepair. Common problems include broken doors and furniture, rising damp, leaking roofs and sinks, peeling paintwork and inches of grime. Tenants’ complaints are often ignored and can result in intimidation or even eviction.

Margaret Beckett, the housing minister, will propose a statutory regulator for letting agents. Many agents have no professional credentials and can exploit vulnerable tenants by offering them shoddy accommodation.

The Association of Residential Letting Agents is to propose a voluntary licensing system today, but this is likely to be overtaken by Mrs Beckett’s proposals for mandatory regulation
The measures, which need primary legislation and will first go out to consultation, are in response to the Rugg report, which called for regulation. “Some landlords simply do not consider letting to be an activity that requires regulation, and other landlords — a very small proportion — wilfully act illegally,” it said. The Government is not expected to back Ms Rugg’s call for tax relief for substantial landlord repairs, such as new roofs, windows and floors, or changes to stamp duty to help developeres buying several properties.

The regulation of private landlords coincides with a government plan to boost the private rental market by underwriting a proportion of the rent.The Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) has invited large investors, including insurance firms and overseas companies, to support a fund to build thousands more homes for rental.

The fund, which would need hundreds of millions of pounds, would help stalled developments and kickstart the construction industry. Ministers are negotiating an incentive for big investors. The current proposal is for the HCA to underwrite any rent in unfilled properties or apartments for the first two or three years.

Housing associations are also being encouraged to invest in rental accommodation. Local authorities are desperate to find places for the 4.5 million people waiting for council homes

Bruce

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