Thanks to a highly efficient partner of ours based in Liverpool, we have now found a tenant buyer for our 4/5 bed house that we bought recently using our staged payment technique. This is a perfect exit strategy for us as the buyer needs to complete within 3 years, which ties in perfectly with when we are due to make our 2nd payment to the lovely couple we bought the house from.

What a result – bumper cashflow per month from here on in for the next 3 years, no maintenance or voids to worry about. Now all we need to do is to find another tenant buyer for our 3 bed “doer upper” in Manchester – all enquiries welcome!

By Sean O’Grady, Economics Editor

Friday, 5 March 2010

The housing market seems set to undergo its own “double-dip” recession, with Halifax announcing yesterday that there was a 1.5 per cent fall in house prices between January and February, and with the slow economic recovery now on course to depress sentiment for the rest of the year.

The Halifax number follows the 1 per cent drop in values registered by the Nationwide in January, and will be especially disappointing for home owners because it cannot be seen as simply a reflection of the temporary strength of the market in December being corrected the following month.

Mortgage advances and prices rose strongly in the last weeks of 2009 as first-time buyers rushed to take advantage of the stamp-duty holiday before it ended on New Year’s Day. Thus, December “borrowed” some of the buoyancy that might normally have shown through at the start of this year, leaving January looking anaemic.

Analysts believe that the price correction now is more fundamental and a result of a rise in the supply of properties coming on to the market. An artificial shortage of supply last year – because of the thin market and owners’ unwillingness to crystallise losses – seems to have been responsible for much of the house price boomlet then.

The easing of mortgage rates after the cut in Bank Rate to a 315-year low of 0.5 per cent last March, and the Bank of England’s £200bn injection of money into the economy, also helped to underpin real-estate values in 2009; few expect a similar stimulus to arrive this year.

The Halifax said that the fall in house prices was the first the bank had noted since June last year, leaving the average house worth £166,587 – still 8 per cent above its April 2009 nadir. It follows a gradual slowing in the rate of price increases seen in the last months of last year, notwithstanding the December spike in activity.

Many observers believe that the squeeze on household budgets due this year – as tax rises come into effect, unemployment creeps higher and interest rates start to return to more normal levels – will bear down heavily on the housing market. There is also little sign that the banks and building societies will be able to repair the £200bn hole that will be left when official support measures, such as the Bank of England’s Special Liquidity Scheme, are removed by 2012.

“The housing market recovery was already losing steam in late 2009, consistent with our views that it remains overvalued,” said Ed Stansfield, the chief property economist at Capital Economics. “Meanwhile, recent news from the rest of the economy, and the labour market in particular, has been mixed. And, although marginal, the short-term supply and demand imbalance in the market does appear to have eased in the past two to three months.

“The house-price recovery has run far ahead of the economic fundamentals. As such, the Halifax price fall may ultimately be an early sign that last year’s house-price recovery is beginning to unwind.”

Others closer to the property scene were more optimistic. “The underlying trend remains more positive than recent headline numbers would suggest,” said Simon Rubinsohn, chief economist at the Royal Institution for Chartered Surveyors.”Indeed, the monthly level of sales should rebound in the coming months and may well end the year nearer to 70,000 rather the 60,000 area recorded at the back end of last year.”

However, Mr Rubinsohn warned the market would become “gradually more challenging”, echoing the fears of other housing market professionals.

Back to boring: Bank of England keeps rates and QE on hold

The Bank of England “went back to boring” yesterday, analysts said, with no change in Bank Rate, which has now stood at 0.5 per cent for a year, or any resumption of quantitative easing (QE), the injection of money directly into the economy.

Downbeat news from the housing market has balanced more optimistic noises on jobs and consumer confidence, to leave economic news broadly where it was when the Bank issued its Inflation Report last month. There is also the suspicion that the Bank will wish to avoid making any changes in policy during this politically sensitive period, although the Governor, Mervyn King, said last month that he was ready to resume QE if it became necessary.

The CBI said the Bank should remain “ready to continue” with QE, should the UK economy take a turn for the worse. Capital Economics, the think-tank, said it believed the country would still be mired in recession had the programme not been followed, attributing a boost of 2 to 3 per cent of GDP to QE.

However, Colin Ellis, an economist at Daiwa, said: “Mervyn King got his wish today – monetary policy is officially boring again. Barring major shocks, and given the Inflation Report schedule, the next key policy meeting could now be August.”

More dramatic was the announcement by the European Central Bank president, Jean-Claude Trichet, that the ECB is “phasing out” some of the emergency liquidity support measures introduced over the last two years. While the benchmark interest rate remains unchanged at 1 per cent, a record low, other changes were made. The ECB has tightened the terms of its regular three-month market operations and returned to the pre-crisis practice of offering the funds at a variable rate as it winds down support.

Mr Trichet urged observers not to read too much into the changes: “There should be no interpretation in terms of monetary policy stance of what we are doing in this gradual and timely unwinding.”

Based in Yorkshire, it’s a 4 bedroom end of terrace in a good condition with fabulous letting potential.

Click here for more details and for some pictures and the financial details.

EveryCloud will provide the Case Management and Staged Payment framework to ensure this deal is completed smoothly and efficiently.

• Do you think this could help you do more deals?

If the answer of any of the above points is yes, then read on.

What is this all about?

At EveryCloud we’re delighted to share with you a simple strategy that we have been successfully using over the last year to buy more houses and make more vendors want to do business with us.

As we all know, the trick in increasing conversions is to have as many tools in your kitbag as possible, in order to have the best possible chance of finding a solution to a vendor’s problem that they can work with.

With the current restraints on lending, we all understand that discounts today need to be at least 28%.

Naturally most vendors want to achieve the highest price for their property, so in many cases this means that they are either not able, or not willing to take such a large discount on their property.

We wanted a way to provide a solution for these vendors, so we came up with our own Staged Payment Process.

Download your free report here.

The Benefit Of Learning About Property Investing

Before you make a decision to do all of the learning and work about property investing on your own, or to use a property syndicate, it is important for you to learn all that you can about both options. Look at a few benefits of learning about investing yourself.

• You can better understand why properties are valuable and why others are not if you take the time to learn all about property investing.
• You will have the ability to invest based on your own judgment. You fully understand the information and are able to make the right decision.
• You can better relate to the market place and guide your own investments wisely.

There are benefits associated with learning all about property investing. While this is true, consider your other option. If you invest in a property syndicate instead, you could benefit in other ways.

The Benefits Of Investing in a Property Syndicate

If you invest in a property syndicate, they use their expertise and years of experience to help you to make the right decisions about where to invest and how to. Here are a few of the benefits.

1. You can sit back and not have to invest your time in locating profitable properties. Their expertise can do it for you.
2. You do not have to worry about making the right decisions. You can be confident in your property investment methods.
3. A property syndicate can handle most of the work for you. You can even learn the process, if you would like to, through the syndicate. You are learning while being profitable.
4. When you work with a property syndicate, you further expand your ability and you can be confident your first investment will be profitable.
5. A property investment can be managed for you, no matter where you are located. This means that you could invest in an area that is more profitable than the one you are in right now.

As you can see, it does make sense to invest in a property syndicate. If you are not sure if this is the right move for your needs, take the time to invest in a property syndicate until you learn the ropes of property investing. This gives you a bit of both worlds and can be the best option for anyone that is new to property investing and wants to succeed the first time out.

If you would like to know more about the EveryCloud property Syndicate which is launching this year, please visit our web site at www.everycloud.org or call us on 0800 158 3775.

Here at the Every Cloud office we’re very excited about the forthcoming launch of our Property Syndicate. We’re looking for a limited number of investors to commit before the closing date on 15th November 2009. We’re offering a fully mananaged service where we source and find well discounted properties which we will manage on behalf of our Syndicate Memeber. Each investor wil have instant equity to at least double their inial stake from Day One.

We would aim to refinance the property within two years, and thereafter the inevstor retains a 70% stake in the property and receives a monthly income after all costs to do with the property have been covered off. Now doesn’t that sound like an appealig offer?

if this is something that you would like to take part in email us on info@everycloud.org or call us on 0800 158 3775 and ask for more information. We look forward to helping you enjoy the benefits of investment property.

Katie & Martin
Every Cloud