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February 26th 2008, London - ruralZED™, a consortium of architects and specialist manufacturers at the cutting edge of the eco house-building industry, today launched the UK’s first affordable, carbon neutral house at the annual EcoBuild exhibition. The ruralZED™ housing system is set to revolutionise the house-building industry over the coming years and has been awarded on-site Code 6 status, the highest level in the Code for Sustainable Housing, eight years ahead of the government’s targets for carbon

425,000 council tenants have exercised their right to buy their council home over the last nine years, spending a collective £15.7billion, according to research by Connells Survey & Valuation. They have benefited from discounts totalling £10.3billion. In the last year, 16,896 became home owners spending £1.15billion. The numbers are much smaller today than in the past as new rules have restricted eligibility and reduced the discounts that tenants receive. The peak year was 2003/4 when almost 70,000 fam

The National Landlords Association (NLA) has revealed it received a record number of calls from landlords seeking advice during 2007. The NLA Advice Line, offering free advice during business hours to member landlords, received an average of 2,600 calls per month last year on a wide variety of topics. Throughout the year this amounted to over 31,000 individual enquiries.* The average call took just under 13 minutes and, in April 2007 when tenancy deposit protection became mandatory, the NLA Advice Line wa

Hurford Salvi Carr’s expert lettings division is pleased to offer a stunning New York loft style apartment - the first-ever commercial warehouse to be converted into residential apartments in the UK. Converted in the late 1970s, Charterhouse Square in Clerkenwell kicked off the trend for open-plan loft apartments that swept London and New York in the 1980s. Favoured by artists for their high ceilings and studio-like room sizes, loft apartments have retained their appeal in today’s market as the average sq

Average mortgage costs to income for first-time-buyers are now higher than they were in the 1990s at the peak of the last housing boom, while increasing numbers of households are moving into private rented housing, according to the newly published UK Housing Review. First-time buyers were devoting nearly 35 per cent of their income to mortgage costs by the third quarter of 2007, compared with the previous high of nearly 34 per cent in 1990¹. The sharp rise in house prices and mortgage costs over the las

This my first address to members as the CEO and it seems appropriate to review what FPRA currently does – and why – and what we should do in the future. So: what does FPRA do now? I suggest we empower members. We enable you to know and do things you that you would otherwise probably unable to do. Specifically: • FPRA enables members to keep abreast of current and proposed legislation – largely through the Newsletter. • FPRA enables members to have a voice in the corridors of power –primarily though our l

With the property market more competitive than ever, surprising research conducted by Home Stagers, the UK’s leading property staging company has revealed that spending just £100 on improving the presentation of your property can be more effective than reducing the asking price by £1,000. Home Stagers specialises in the art of ‘property staging’, a widely recognised property marketing tool which combines up to date design trends, room function definition and lifestyle creation to realise the full potentia

The UK’s renters are gambling nearly £8billion of personal possessions by not protecting themselves against bad weather or crime, according to Zurich Insurance. Almost a million private renters (37 per cent of those surveyed) have confessed they have no home contents insurance, despite the fact that a third (33 per cent) of private renters surveyed said that they estimate their possessions to be worth more than £10,000 in value, with some individual items worth over £1,500. Worryingly, a fifth (22 per c

Watch out for the unexpected when you move into a rented flat: according to a new survey by The Deposit Protection Service (The DPS), furniture, cats and even sex toys are among the most common items left behind by departing tenants. The research revealed the bizarre bric-a-brac that people leave behind, only to be discovered by amazed landlords as they clean up. In fact, it found that more newly vacant homes contained titillating toys than bags of rubbish – the more traditional remnants of rented proper

Rising fears of a full blown UK recession are forcing flat owners to sell their properties at below market prices. They are taking these desperate measures because debt problems mean they can’t afford to wait for a turnaround in the property market... National Homebuyers, the UK’s largest home purchase company has launched a £250 million rescue fund to assist families struggling to meet their mortgage commitments. “This safety net is available for those most at risk mortgage holders,” says Julian King of

NOTB speaks with Tony Pidgley, MD of The Berkeley Group. (See the full interview in News on the Block magazine with this supplement)... Q What are your views of the government’s plan for 20 eco towns and its environmental issues in general? A Anything that improves a consumer’s way of life is right. Encouraging a green environment is a good thing and we welcome it. However, it is vital that the government keeps focused on the twin issue of place making, and community creation. It’s all very well house bu

County Estate Management (CEM) was the prize-winner in the International Green Apple Awards 2007 for Environmental Best practice. CEM was given the National Gold Award in recognition of its Green Vision: Making Homes and People Greener project. The trophy was presented by botanist and TV personality Professor David Bellamy, OBE at the House of Commons on 9 November. The trophies are awarded annually in recognition of organisations carrying out projects that benefit the environment. The judges said: “CEM h