Blog

As the new managing director of Roomservice by CORT I am taking over from Roger Hollis as the author of the Roomservice by CORT blog.

As Christmas rushes towards us at breakneck speed, thoughts automatically start turning towards the new year ahead and the opportunities it will bring. Most people like to have little watersheds to divide one part of their life from another – a new start, if you will – and these don’t come any more definite than at the start of a new year. The possibilities seem endless.

It’s been a pretty interesting week for those of us that take an interest in the UK’s housing market and the challenges it faces. The big news, of course, was the announcement by the Government of a series of initiatives ostensibly designed to promote more house building and assist first-time buyers.

A report by the Intergenerational Foundation – a think tank established to ‘promote fairness between generations’ and based on the belief that each generation should ‘pay its own way’ – has revealed that the UK has somewhere in the region of 25 million bedrooms currently unoccupied.

Back in June, I wrote about the inadequacies of buy-to-let investment and how the model was causing distortions in the residential property market, distortions that were exacerbating the problems of tenure security, accommodation quality and the crowding out of first-time buyers.

Dispatches – Channel 4’s flagship current affairs documentary series – has a long and distinguished history of exposing exploitation and corruption across a number of spheres of British society. But even regular viewers will have been shocked by the programme’s Monday night investigation into sub-standard rental properties.

Is it just me, or is there a growing backlash against buy-to-let investment? For so long the darling of the broadsheets’ money sections, buy-to-let properties seem to be increasingly viewed as a tool of private gain but also of social loss. A number of articles and publications have been indicative of the changing opinions towards buy-to-let as an investment class.

One of the more enjoyable aspects of my job is the chance to go along to property industry events, catch-up on the latest news with old contacts and see how the sector is adapting to the challenges it faces. Property is lucky to be generally populated by intelligent, sociable people who make conferences and events a pleasure to go to.

And so it was last Tuesday that Roomservice by CORT attended the Lettings LIVE 2011 event at The Lancaster Hotel in London and the associated Letting Agent of the Year Awards in the evening.

It’s no secret that the idea of a more balanced property market – ie: one where the split between owner-occupied and rented properties is closer than the 70-30 seen in the UK at the moment – has been something of a cause célèbre of mine for a while now. A quick trawl through my previous blogs very quickly shows the advantages that such balance can bring, advantages that many other countries are already benefitting from.

Grainger’s confirmation this week that it has been appointed to asset manage the distressed residential properties currently on Lloyds books has given everyone operating in the sector plenty of food for thought.