Supermarket Sweep
I’m a confirmed fan of the supermarket Morrison’s.
My local branch in Peckham South East London sells Ox Cheeks, when even my local, trendy butchers don’t.
I can also get marrow bones for the dog, beef bones for making stock and to cater for the multi cultural community of SE15 you can buy everything from African Fufu powder to Japanese Mirin and even Irish red lemonade.
None of the other local supermarkets accommodates local culinary needs in the same way.
Of course the opening of a Morrison’s is never seen as a flag waver for the local economy in the way that ribbon cutting ceremony of a Waitrose is but who is Waitrose culture actually for?
I would imagine that the only champagne corks getting popped (£9.99 for litre) are in the local estate agencies when the boards announcing “New Waitrose store opening soon” go up on the site of the newly bulldozed housing block.
A fact not missed by the latest Oxford University report by David Adler, covered here by Generation Rent called
“The other Waitrose effect”.
The report spells out that the opening of a Waitrose is linked to rising evictions of private tenants.
The Waitrose effect
Apparently, back in 2013 estate agents, Savills noted that the Waitrose effect adds a premium to house prices.
Good news for sellers but according to Mr Adler’s other 2016 report titled “Causes and Consequences of Evictions in Britain” – bad news for PRS tenants who either get evicted because the seller wants to maximise price or because the increased value of the area drives a rent hike.
Best of both worlds
Now I know regular readers will presume I’m going to be adding my two penneth to the vile calumny of this terrible social crime but you would be wrong – because don’t forget, at the moment I am also a house seller myself as well as a tenant.
I’m wondering whether I should call Waitrose and try to persuade them that the run down area of South East London where our house is should be an ideal investment opportunity for them.
The local drug dealers are quite wealthy and I’m sure that the hookers in the brothel behind the car wash forecourt aren’t short of a bob or two, judging by the amount of cars parked out front getting a full wash and wax while their owners are inside getting the same.
And before anyone comments on how I know about this, it’s because whilst in Lewisham’s rogue landlord enforcement team I helped shut the place down twice, so stop sniggering.
Using some imagination here…..
Maybe I could just nip out at night, find some empty hoardings and stick up a home-made poster announcing the opening of a Waitrose, then pop into Foxtons the next day posing as a portfolio landlord and say I’m interested in buying properties locally, then stick another £25k on the asking price of our house.
Rent increases on the horizon
Waitrose aside Landlord Today informs us this week that a third of landlords intend to jack up the rents anyway, in response – not to the ready availability of a Lobster Thermidor TV Dinner or Frozen Edamame Beans – but to the increased tax liabilities and the scrapping of interest relief on mortgages.
So whatever way you look at it, tenants are screwed.
The article understandably, given its market, warns that the latest report shows that ‘Government meddling’ as they call it, is in danger of damaging the PRS, with 83% of landlords reportedly not planning to increase their property portfolio over the next 12 months.
Perhaps heartening news to Generation Rent whose members might be able to afford to buy if landlords sell up.
Every cloud and all that……
And while we are talking about supermarkets as litmus tests for the financial state of the nation, the Evening Standard told us that Lidl have actually taken over from Waitrose to become the country’s seventh biggest supermarket chain.
So what does the ‘Lidl effect” tell us?
If the opening of a Waitrose pushes up the house prices and rents surely the opening of Lidl’s does the opposite.
I recall a Frankie Boyle routine from back when the recession started in which he said
“The people who shopped in Waitrose are now shopping in Sainsbury. The people who shopped in Sainsbury are now shopping in Tesco. The people who shopped in Tesco are now shopping in Lidl and the people who shopped in Lidl are now rooting around in bins”
Whilst Frankie Boyle’s prediction was an ironic point a few years back the Guardian reported this week on how working people are now resorting to food banks with one anonymous solicitor quoted as saying:
“We budget our meals, shop at Lidl and tend to eat a lot of lentils.”
So the Lidl effect not only damages the economy it’s also a danger to the environment, with hordes of hard up solicitors eating lentils and pushing up the methane gas damage in the atmosphere.
It seems that Frankie Boyle wasn’t so far wrong.
Back with Landlord Today….
I think I am starting to get this report/survey business after reading their article
“Landlords urged to adopt a more professional approach”
A piece I read with interest, given that the kinds of landlords I work with can’t even spell “Professional”.
English Housing Survey
Responding to the latest English Housing Survey’s findings that 1.4 million PRS properties pose a health and safety risk to occupants West London Estate Agents Horton and Garton have shown admirable concern and responsibility by throwing down the gauntlet and offering to personally sort this out.
How?
By providing up to date advice on ever changing legislation.
Oh so it’s an advert for Horton and Garton’s services….not a news piece! DOH.
This is something I see regularly when surfing around for the week’s housing news. Create a report, based on a survey and turn it into a news item that is really just an advert.
You see this down Brick Lane all the time. Every restaurant seems to have won some curry award or other, no doubt created by the restaurant owner as a badge they give themselves.
Talk about fake news eh Donald?
What made me smile this week
My favourite one liner from the Edinburgh Fringe festival from comedian Andy Field
“I like to imagine that the guy who invented the umbrella was going to call it the ‘Brella’ but he hesitated”
See ya in a fortnight.
RLA, landlord today etc.. have zero understanding of the even the most basic economics e.g. no you can’t just keep raising rents, rents are set by the market i.e what people can afford and what they are prepared to pay. Housing costs aren’t just supply and demand either there are lots of other factors to consider as well e.g. access to cheap credit
“e.g. no you can’t just keep raising rents, rents are set by the market”
Do you have a link to where the RLA or Landlord Today have said that?
“landlords I work with can’t even spell “Professional”
Is it really that bad? Surely there must be spurious complaints or cases you investigate where the tenants been wrong?
We’re not all slum lords are we.
They report you describe as an Oxford University report was in fact a Generation Rent report (as their article clearly states). As such the bias of the author needs to be considered, just as it does for the Landlord Today report.
Landlord Today wrote “Cover4LetProperty found that 32.5% of landlords are planning to increase their rent in the next 12 months in order to keep up with increased tax liabilities and costs.”
myNewsDesk wrote apparently about the same research “almost a third (32.5%) of landlords who are planning to increase their rent in the next 12 months are doing so in order to keep up with increased tax liabilities and costs as a result legislation changes.”
Which is correct? Is it a third of all landlords or just a third of those planning to increase rents? I haven’t been able to find the original online.