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Places to visit in Coventry

Looking to move to a buy to let property in Coventry but want to make sure the area is busy enough to keep you occupied on your days off? Even if you are only visiting the city, there are plenty of places to visit as well as things to do. Ensuring you will never be bored as long as you have some free time to spare. Take a look at these great attractions suitable for any ages.

Coventry Transport Museum

Based in Coventry City Centre the Coventry Transport Museum is a great place to visit for all the family. Whether you choose to go with a partner or in a group admission is free, so you can enjoy the history with no concerns. Open every day of the week except for specific bank holidays the museum gives you a chance to look over the last 150 years of the motor industry. Covering both conventional cars and motorcycles the museum does an amazing job of documenting the changes within the motoring industry over time. Noting and displaying the advancements as well as the pitfalls it encountered through a large number of exhibitions that are still being added to. The Transport Museum offers a way to tell the story of motoring within the area around you as an enjoyable day out.

St Mary’s Guildhall

Only a few streets away from the Coventry Transport Museum St Mary’s Guildhall is based within the cathedral quarter of the city. With a fascinating history to discover a visit will take you on a trip through the last 700 years with a range of things to explore. Playing host to the public, weddings, private events and more, St Mary’s is a gorgeous place to spend some time. The free experience allows you to explore the building that was once used as the Mayor’s Headquarters, with additional links to names such as Shakespeare. Take a look around the building at the furniture and artworks that tell the story of its time and don’t miss its famous great hall. Which features a stunning display of stained glass that covers an entire wall. Once you have had enough exploring you can even visit the cafe on your way out or as a quick break to take in the scenery.

Ryton Organic Gardens

A key example of organic gardening at its finest, the Ryton Organic Gardens are based not far from the Midland Air Museum. Just five miles from Coventry itself. It offers a great outdoor experience that explores organic gardening. Learn about the processes and benefits of this kind of gardening. As a completely chemical free environment, the garden truly is completely natural. Take note of the vegetables growing throughout the garden, all suited to the season of which they grow in. Or spend some time relaxing in their sensory garden and learning the ins and outs of the organic gardening process. A day out here offers beautiful gardens and wide open spaces, all crafted to suit the plants growing within it. Perfect for a sunny day out with the family.

Still not sure if there is enough in the city to keep you occupied? Speak to your Landlord for more information on the area, they may even be able to give some personal advice on the subject. If these attractions only make you feel more sure about your move to Coventry then take a look at some rental property listings to get you on your way.

 

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What is landlord liability insurance?

Claim the cost by landlord liability insurance

Landlord Liability Insurance is something that every buy to let property owner should have. Insurance of this kind protects landlords from any claims that may come from their tenants or visitors to the property.

It does so by providing the cost of any compensation or legal fees that may be incurred so the property owner does not have to worry. Depending on how much insurance has been taken out, it may only pay for part of the money owed, as it will only pay out up to the limit the landlord set for the policy.

Landlord Liability Insurance is often a standard feature of most building insurance policies, but extra budget can usually be added onto these to give you extra cover if the property owner feels it is necessary.

agents-are-using-pens-pointing-to-insurance-contract
agents-are-using-pens-pointing-to-insurance-contract

Be secure having liability Insurance

The protection provided from having Liability Insurance is vast. The insurance can pay towards a wide array of claims including someone being injured on the property, damage to possessions at fault of the property and illness caused by property conditions.

So whether somebody trips over some uneven flooring or gets ill from an unnoticed problem such as mould, the insurance policy will pay towards any fees from a claim. Fees that are commonly covered are compensation and legal fees from the investigation and outcome of the claim.

For claims that involve injury or illness, the insurance will also cover any medical bills if necessary and any loss of earnings the claimant acquired due to their injury.

Liability insurance covering accidental circumstance

For a landlord to ensure that they are always prepared for a claim, and never left out of pocket it is wise to ensure that Liability Insurance is taken out.

Accidents and damage can happen at any time, being prepared for such a situation reduces stress and time involved in sorting out a claim as an individual property owner.

Ensuring that the claimant has the compensation they need and the landlord has everything dealt with for them. Leaving them to then get on with repairing any damage that may have caused the situation at hand, as any unkempt feature small or large a landlord can be held accountable for.

Don’t set your insurance amount

There is no set amount of insurance that any buy to let property owner should take out. The ideal amount depends on the property and just how covered the landlord wishes to be.

A decent amount is always needed if the insurance is going to be relied upon to pay all fees in the case of a claim, as the maximum an insurance policy of this type will pay out is the maximum amount the policyholder sets.

Large amounts of insurance are available as standard, with the option to increase the amount if it is required. Having landlord liability insurance means that property owners are covered for anything at any time, as accidents happen when they are least expected.

If you are renting out a property, speak with your letting agents in Coventry to be sure that you are fully covered for any eventuality.

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Types of tenancy agreements

Sign up tenancy agreements!

If you are renting a buy to let property within Coventry, it helps to know about the kinds of tenancy agreements you can set up.

There are multiple different kinds of tenancy agreements that landlords can hold with their tenants. Each depend on both the living situation and the kind of tenant that has applied for the property.

The inside front cover tenancy agreements
The inside front cover tenancy agreements

Assured shorthold tenancy

An AST agreement is the most common form of tenancy agreement. This covers scenarios where a buy to let property is being rented out that the landlord will not also inhabit. The tenancy can be for an individual or multiple people such as students, but when renting individual rooms an ‘AST – Room Only’ agreement is usually more suitable.

Properties covered under this tenancy can include both houses and flats and most agreements are fixed term. Meaning the tenant has a set amount of time secured at the property.

The deposit made on accommodation with this kind of tenancy must be put into a protection scheme by the landlord, and the agreement becomes a rolling monthly payment unless another deal is signed after the fixed term has ended.

 

Non-assured tenancy

This kind of tenancy is used much less than Assured Shorthold Tenancy. This is because it only applies to living situations where the rent is under £250 per year, or that the property is not the tenants main living accommodation.

They can also be used for agreements where the landlord is living in the same property but they and the tenant do not share facilities. A tenancy of this kind does not require the landlord to put a protection scheme on the tenant’s deposit, and they are able to end the tenancy as they wish.

However, as long as all contractual terms are followed, the tenant does have the right to inhabit the property until the end of their agreed stay. Notice for the end of tenancy must be given by the landlord with good notice.

 

Excluded tenancy

In the event that the tenant is living within the same space as the landlord and sharing facilities such as a bathroom, kitchen and living space then an Excluded Tenancy agreement is used.

This covers circumstances where the tenant is using a room within the landlords home. This kind of tenancy does not come with the same kind of protection or rights as other agreements, such as a AST tenancy.

Eviction for the tenant can be done without notice or a formal court order as the agreement falls outside of eviction protection guidelines. This is as long as all terms of the tenancy are met. A deposit on this kind of property does not have to be protected by the landlord.

Month to month rolling tenancy

For many renting agreements, the tenant is not an individual but in fact a business or organisation. This kind of agreement allows a company to use a property for business use.

Under this kind of agreement all people using the property must be involved with the company of the tenancy. Eviction notice and deposit protection are different to residential tenancies in that the end to the tenancy must be announced through different means, but notice must still be given.

The agreements are usually monthly rolling tenancies, but the deposit on the property does not have to be protected by the landlord.

 

Month to month rolling tenure

For any further information, be sure to speak to reputable letting agents in Coventry to get the correct advice.

Guaranteed shorthold tenure understanding is the foremost common frame of occupancy assention. Feel free to contact us!

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Renting tips for new tenants

Are you renting property for the first time or have done it before? We know everybody could use a hand when comes to choosing somewhere new to live, whether your choosing you first rental property or your fourth. But unfortunately the stresses of moving don’t end the moment you secure your new home. So to make those first few months easier we have a few tips to save yourself some avoidable stress. Ensuring you are happy and comfortable in your new Coventry home

Be aware of your agreement

Depending on the agreement between you and your landlord what you can and can’t do whilst renting a property from them vary. Different tenancy agreements affect the rights you have while inhabiting a property. It is crucial to be aware of what kind of agreement you are involved in so you can understand what you are covered or reliable for. This is especially true in the case of shared accommodation.

Enquire as soon as possible

Get to know the property at a deeper level. Ask for all of the extra information at the first chance you get. Information such as the friendliness of your new neighbours, were the fuse box and power meters are as well as the location of the mains water stopcock. Asking any questions you need helps you feel more comfortable in the property, so you don’t have to worry about small things like when to take the bins out to be collected. If you do not have direct contact with your landlord, you can always ask their letting agents in Coventry for advice if they have one.

Take a look around

Check the local area of the property, become familiar with the place that will become your home. Collecting your bearings of the local area makes that last minute dash to the shops much easier if you realise you’re missing something at home. Find the local bus stops and train stations in case you need to take advantage of public transport in the near future. Whatever you need to do to feel like you really know the part of Coventry you will be living in.

Make it a home – with permission

When you are comfortable with the technicalities of your lease and house, and have explored the world around your building it’s time to make the house a home. Check with your landlord about your permissions to decorate the rooms as many buy to let properties require that rooms are not altered or if they are, that they be put back to their original state once your tenancy ends. Check you can paint the walls, re-carpet and even hang pictures on the walls. It’s better to be sure before you start.

Now with all the stress out of the way, you are free to relax in the place you now call home.

 

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Finding The Ideal Rental Property | Lets Complete

Interested in property rental in Coventry but have no idea where to start?

Don’t go into renting blindly and end up living in a property you are not entirely happy with. Recognise and remember what it is you are definitely looking for within a rental property, as well as select certain features you are happy to compromise on. If you’re still not sure what to start with, we’ve put together a list of common features that make or break a renting agreement between tenants and landlords in Coventry.

Location

Is the property in the area you want? Letss Complete offer a huge range of properties within Coventry so you can find your new home within the town you love. Proximity to key places is also worth considering, for example if you study or have children, will you need easy access to local schools or universities? Checking the distance between these places and you new home can help you make a decision about whether the property is right for you.

Parking Space

Do you require somewhere to keep your car overnight? Not all buy to let properties come with parking space available at the residence. You may need to be prepared to leave your car in nearby streets or parking facilities so checking this availability is a must.

Garden

In need of some outdoor space? If you need some room for your pet to run around or simply enjoy a bit of gardening, a property without a garden may not suit your lifestyle. It is best to stick to looking at rental houses or ground floor flats if this is a feature you require.

Space

It may seem obvious, but having enough space for your lifestyle is important when choosing your place of residence. Take into account the amount of rooms you need, whether they are for family members or even office space if you work from home. The amount of space you require depends entirely on how you plan to use the home.

Furnishings

A majority of renters are looking for unfurnished properties, but are you? Knowing if you need a place with all of the basic features included or if you would rather add them yourself narrows down your property search dramatically. Allowing you to only see homes that fit into one category.

So while you are looking for a property in your local area, use the best Letting Agents in Coventry to ensure you are being provided with properties that are checked and suit your needs. Renting within Coventry is our speciality, so to find a property fast take a look at our property listings.

 

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UK house price growth continues to slow, Nationwide says

UK house prices rose by 0.3% in January as the slowdown in activity that began towards the end of 2014 continued to stun price growth, the country’s biggest building society said.

After a rush of sales in the first part of 2014, mortgage approvals started to drop off in the autumn and ended the year down by around a fifth, and reports from surveyors suggest there are fewer would-be buyers looking for homes.

In the first snapshot of the market in 2015, Nationwide said the monthly rate of growth was slightly higher than December’s figure of 0.2%, but the annual rate of price inflation had fallen for a fifth month running, this time to 6.8% from 7.2%, its lowest level for 14 months. The society said the average price of a UK home now stands at £188,446 – 2.4% above its pre-crisis peak.

Official Housing Price Figures 

Separate figures from Land Registry showed that over the course of 2014, prices across England and Wales rose by 7% to an average of £177,766. It said December had seen a 0.6% uplift in prices, although this masked big variations around the regions. In London, monthly growth was three times that figure, while in the north-west of England prices were down by 1.6% month on month. Across the year, there was growth in all regions, although that in London and the south-east and east of England was more than double that elsewhere.

The Land Registry data showed that London house prices ended the year up by 16.3%, at an average of £464,936. I nine boroughs prices were up by more than a fifth over the year, and in every part of the capital rises were in double digits.

The biggest leap in prices was in the north-east borough of Waltham Forest, which includes Walthamstow, which saw prices increase by 25.1% to an average of £368,000. Kensington & Chelsea recorded the lowest level of growth within London, at 11.5% over the year, but the average price was still a lofty £1.3m.

What are these figures based on? 

Nationwide’s seasonally adjusted figures are based on mortgages it has approved during the month, with prices adjusted to reflect the typical house, while Land Registry’s are based on completed sales as they are registered, and include cash purchases but not newbuild homes. The sales recorded by the Land Registry are likely to have been agreed before the major stamp duty changes announced in December’s autumn statement, but Nationwide’s show how the market has fared since. They suggest that the extra cash and activity expected to be prompted by the changes are yet to make a big difference to prices.

“The further moderation in the pace of price growth is unsurprising, given the slowdown in housing market activity in recent months,” said Nationwide’s chief economist, Robert Gardner, who added that the reasons for the slowdown were unclear.

“Unemployment has continued to decline and wage growth has started to outstrip increases in the cost of living for the first time since the financial crisis. Surveys suggest that consumer confidence remains elevated – a view corroborated by healthy gains in retail sales over recent months.

“Although house price growth continues to outpace income growth by a significant margin, affordability does not appear stretched at a national level.”

 

graph indicating growth in real estate prices market
White miniature house models on graph indicating growth in real estate prices market

According to Gardner

Gardner said what happened to prices next would depend on the supply of homes on the market. Surveyors have reported that sellers are still not rushing forward, while building remains a third below pre-crisis levels and homes are being created at about half the rate needed to support the growth in household numbers.

Howard Archer, chief UK economist at IHS Global Insight, said house prices were being “reined in by an appreciable moderation in housing market activity”, citing figures from the British Bankers Association showing that mortgage approvals for house purchases fell to a 20-month low in December.

However, he added: “We suspect that the weakening of housing market activity may be close to bottoming out and we see it picking up to a limited extent in 2015 from current levels.

“Consequently, we expect house prices to rise by a solid but unspectacular 5% in 2015. This compares with the peak double-digit annual house price increases seen earlier in 2014.”

Matthew Pointon, property economist at Capital Economics, said there were signs that buyers were starting to return to the market. “Our central expectation is for house price growth to exceed earnings growth once again in 2015,” he said. “However, that is dependent on banks responding to the rise in demand by increasing their lending volumes. If that part of the puzzle is missing, house prices are likely to struggle over the next year or so.”

For any queries or renting advice in Coventry, feel free to contact us

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Is Britain becoming a nation of ‘homillionaires’?

Name: Homillionaires.

Age: All sorts.

Appearance: Rather pleased with themselves.

How come? Are these people who became rich by delivering homilies? In almost every case, no. They are rich, however.

Why? Because they own homes worth £1m or more.

Growing “homillionaire”

House prices! A subject too often ignored by British newspapers. Um, yes, maybe. Anyway, some skivvy at the Sunday Times has done a lot of Googling and found out that there are about 400,000 “homillionaire households” in the UK.

Flag of Great Britain waving against clear blue sky
Flag of Great Britain waving against clear blue sky

Does that mean they are counting a £1m house owned jointly by one couple as one “homillionaire household”? I think it does mean that, yes.

Two semihomillionaires?

So, really, they are two semihomillionaires? I suppose they are. Although a £2m house owned jointly would also be one “homillionaire household” but might contain two homillionaires.

I see. And the number of property sales worth more than £1m that go through each year has tripled to 18,000 in the past decade.

Although some of the people buying those will already have been homillionaires and thus won’t have added to the country’s total? Yes. In fact, the paper thinks that most homillionaires have earned the status simply by staying in a house that has gained value. Hackney in east London, for instance, has gone completely homillionoopla, with the number of properties in the borough that sell each year for more than £1m rising more than eight-fold since 2006-7.

So gritty Hackney is now a homillionairea? You could say that. But don’t. And, in fact, those kinds of prices are not uncommon now. Apparently there are 10,613 streets where properties have an average value of more than a £1m. Although, obviously, there are more homillionaire households in London than in the rest of the UK combined.

What about mortgages? How many homillionaires haven’t paid for their houses yet? I don’t know. Probably a lot of them. Although some will be millionaires anyway, if you take into account their other assets. After all, London is home to more dollar millionaires (not including property wealth) than any other city in the world.

So how many homillionaires are there in Britain? I don’t know.

Do say: “Statistics are complicated, aren’t they?”

Don’t say: “Only when they’re accurate.”

For more feel free to contact us!

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Where are the top ten university cities for yields?

Edinburg is the best for university cities in the UK

According to recent research, Edinburgh tops the best rental yields for university Cities in the UK with 6.11%, beating London and the South East.

Historic Building in Edinburgh University
Historic Buildings in Edinburgh

London, home to many of the best universities in the world, offers an average yield only slightly above the average at 3.97%.

While four Scottish Cities appear in the top five, Coventry comes a close second with impressive yields of 6.03%, well above the national average gross yield of 3.92%. In third place is Aberdeen (5.66%) followed by Dundee (5.11%) and Glasgow (5.07%). However, Cities in the North are not giving landlords such profitable yields. Middlesbrough and Lancaster are named as the two university cities with the lowest average rental yields in the UK at 1.47% and 1.87% respectively.

Prices comparison in top ten university cities

Jane Morris, Managing Director of PropertyLetByUs.com comments:  “While Scottish university cities are giving great yields, landlords in Coventry are enjoying a highly profitable return on their investment, with yields of more than 2.11% above the average and 2.06% above London yields.

Venture is increasing day by day university

There has been much investment in the City and the Cathedral quarter links old and new Coventry, which has been revived with a range of pubs, cafés and restaurants. Spoon Street houses original and reconstructed medieval buildings, as well as a major club complex, which stands close to another new area for bars and restaurants.

It’s a thriving University City and there is much to offer under and post graduates and demand for rental accommodation is soaring.  Over the last 12 months, rents have risen by 14% and the number of tenants looking for property has increased by 24%.  It’s a great City for investors, with growing numbers of students and professionals looking for quality accommodation.

 

by Warren Lewis 24/11/2015

Source : http://www.propertyreporter.co.uk/landlords/where-are-the-top-ten-university-cities-for-yields.html?utm_source=Email+Campaign&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=21136-131301-Campaign+-+24%2F11%2F2015+SHAW 

The University of Oxford

The College of Oxford is the most seasoned college within the English-speaking world and the world’s moment most seasoned surviving college. Whereas its correct founding date is obscure, there’s prove that educating took put as distant back as 1096. Located in and around Oxford’s medieval city middle, the college comprises 44 colleges and lobbies, and over 100 libraries, making it the biggest library framework within the UK. Students number around 22,000 in add up to, fair over half of whom are students whereas over 40 per cent are universal, speaking to 140 nations between them.