My second ‘Notable Property Person‘ is Kate Faulkner, a well known property person, particularly for her books for the consumer organisation, Which and her association with Channel 4. Here are her answers to our questions:

1. Please introduce yourself. Say a bit about yourself and your company

I live and breathe property both at work and home and I bring a refreshing change to the property market by offering practical, down to earth advice that really helps people carry out their property projects successfully. I write daily on property, and help people successfully carry out their own property projects via my own website: www.designsonproperty.co.uk and blog: Facts Not Headlines. I have written six property books, including four for Which? (Buy, Sell, Move House; Renting and Letting; Develop your Property and the Property Investment Handbook) and articles for magazines and newspapers as well as appearing on TV, and radio.

My property experience is part personal, having bought, sold, renovated, rented and invested in property and business. I have also worked in relocation, launched the National Self Build and Renovation Centre in Swindon, set up a property portal, carried out part exchanges on behalf of developers and worked in lettings and carried out contracts for property investment companies and specialist property market research for social housing.

My business www.designsonproperty.co.uk is a portal for anyone to find out how to carry out property projects and access the very best property services from legals (such as Tessa!) to property tax or even an electrician.

2. How did you first become involved in property?

My brother, sister and parents all bought in the summer of 1989 and then my brother and sister both went into negative equity and mum and dad’s house dropped in value. I decided I didn’t want to be in that position, so started to research hard to find properties at a discount in areas that would grow in value. After 10 years of working with Unilever and the likes of Sainsbury I decided to transfer my business skills to work in property full time, set up a property portal and a business growth consultancy for property companies.

3. What do you think is your greatest achievement so far?

It’s hard not to say getting the National Self Build and Renovation Centre fitted out and launched. It’s certainly the biggest thing I’ve ever been involved with being built as it’s 67,000 square meters. I am very proud of the Centre and the fantastic team I worked to secure the monies to fund it.

4. Do you or your company have any exciting plans for the future?

Yes we do! We are about to launch two new services. The first is a comprehensive, independent ‘Buy to Let Pack’ for investors who are about to or want to run the best BTL business. The second service provides people with a choice of the best services we can find from mortgage advisors to tax and EPC providers.

5. What do you think are the greatest problems facing the private rented sector today?

• Not all properties will grow in value over the next 5-10 years.
• Lack of understanding by mortgage lenders of who are the ‘safe bets’ to support during the credit crunch.
• Too much, and some ridiculous, legislation by the government eg ‘trip advisor’ style website for tenants to rate landlords
• Property investment clubs taking people’s money upfront with the promise of making people millionaires within months on ‘no money down’
  or properties supposedly at 25% below market value.

6. What do you think are the greatest opportunities?

The market is set to double in the future, so demand will be huge. However you need to buy the right property in the right place to take advantage of this.

7. We have a general election coming up – what would you like to see in the winning parties manifesto as regards the private rented sector?

• No more regulation until the government can implement what it’s already introduced and the current legislation actually impacts on rogue landlords
• 100% clarity on the legality (or not!) of no money down deals
• Independent ruling on additional licencing
• Ruling that all BTL landlords must have independent financial advice and specialist property tax advice
• Ruling that mortgage advisors must be specially trained in BTL
• Tax breaks for landlords that are signed up to the local authority landlord accreditation scheme

8. Do you use social media (blogs, twitter, LinkedIn etc)? What place do you think it has in the future of the property industry?

I do, but we are very careful not to let it take over our lives. Our Blog and Twitter is used to distribute our own daily articles and I like LinkedIn from a professional perspective. I haven’t quite got my head around the role of Facebook, but I’d better be quick as apparently more people used it than Google in the States! I think Q&A forums for landlords and tenants are great, but not ones where you can be too personal and ones that aren’t run by professionals. It would be great if it they could be used to better educate tenants (and some landlords) on how to make sure tenants use good letting agents and landlords rather than rent from rogues.

9. What is the most important lesson you have learned during your time in property?

That there is no ‘one property market’ there are thousands, so property price reports and media headlines on them should be ignored. Also no one property project is the same. Property is complicated stuff and you need expert help to do it well.

10. What advice would you have to someone thinking of entering the property industry today?

Get to know the ‘good guys’ who think it’s good to abide by the law and see property as a long term investment, not a ‘think yourself rich’ scheme. There are so many jobs in the property industry from relocation to self build, agency work, surveying, part exchange, new build, refurb etc you can have variety for the rest of your life. I love the property industry and have tremendous respect for most of the people in it, I just wish the media would start reporting the ‘good news’ stories about property professionals rather than treating them like second class citizens.

If anyone wants to email me a question about any of the above, we run a free Q&A service, just email: enquiries@designsonproperty.co.uk

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Thank you Kate.  There are some very interesting points there.  What do readers think?  If you have any thoughts, please do leave a comment.

Kate Faulkner’s Books: For those who are interested in buying Kate’s books, here are some Amazon links:

• Buy, Sell and Move House (“Which?” Essential Guides)
• Renting and Letting (“Which?” Essential Guides)
• Develop Your Property: A Complete Guide to Managing, Building and Funding Home Extensions (“Which?” Essential Guides)
• The Property Investor’s Handbook (“Which?” Essential Guides)

The report starts with a bit of self congratulatory backslapping, for example reporting that the turnaround time for new benefit applications has gone down by 45 days for the worst areas, that official error has been halved, and that complaints to the Local Government Ombudsman have gone down by 75%.

As is to be expected in the current financial climate, a major element in any reform today  will be reduction in expenditure.  As was reported in my post yesterday, one element of this was to be the withdrawal of the right for tenants to keep up to £15 for any excess of Local Housing Allowance (LHA) over the actual rent charged.  However this change is not now going to take place until 2011.

Overall the Government want to simplify the system which they say is too complex.  One long term  ambition is to integrate housing benefit into the rest of the benefits system, although they accept that this will take some time.

They also want to encourage people more to go into work (always assuming that there is a job for them to go to).  There is already an in-work benefits scheme but take-up of this is currently low, with about half of working people who might be entitled not claiming it.  A new transition into work scheme is therefore being considered.

They are also considering awarding benefit for a fixed period of time, to reduce the complexities of the current system, where all changes in income have to be reported.

They report that rent levels generally are increasing, which is costing the system. The main reason for this is scarcity of housing, and more housebuilding is needed.  However they also want to re-assess the way LHA rates are set, as they consider that these are sometimes set too high.  The paper gives some suggestions on how this could be done.  There are also proposals to change the fairer size criteria.

One of the most interesting aspects of the paper is the proposal to use housing benefit to bringing about improvements to the condition of properties and improve their energy efficiency.  For example they are considering making the payment of benefit conditional upon properties meeting specific standards.

Many landlords have complained about the rule which provides that in most cases benefit is paid direct to the tenant and not the landlord.  It looks as if this could be relaxed, but be made conditional upon the property being in good condition.  Perhaps it is best to quote the paper itself here:

6.9 However, some stakeholders have raised concerns about the operation of direct payment of Local Housing Allowance to customers and we know that, in some cases, safeguard procedures are not being operated well enough. This is why we are working with local authorities to improve the guidance which helps them make decisions and to improve the quality and consistency of the decisions themselves.

6.10 But we would also like to consider returning an element of choice to customers which would enable them to decide to have their benefit paid directly to the landlord. We could consider requiring landlords to improve the quality or energy efficiency of their property in exchange for receiving direct payments.

6.11 The standards could include the Energy Performance Certificate Ratings, the Housing Health and Safety Rating Systems, operating in England and Wales, or the Repairing Standard—a standard for the repair of private rented accommodation in Scotland.

This is only a brief summary of the report as it affects the private sector, and does not cover everything.  If you are interested you should look at the report itself.  It is some 40 pages long and can be found here.

The paper is also a consultation exercise and has at the end a list of 15 questions the department would particularly like to have feedback on.  The consultation period lasts until 22 February 2010.  Anyone affected by the proposals set out in the paper should be sure and get their responses sent in by that date.  Even if there is a change of government, it is likely that something is going to be done, so your answers will hopefully not be wasted.

Information about where to send feedback is given at the end of the report.

If you have any strong views on the matters set out in the report, I would also be interested to hear them and please leave your comments.  For example what do you think about the suggestion to make payment of benefit conditional upon property standards and energy efficiency?