Hello and a warm welcome to our July newsletter.

Things are buzzing at Lenwell Towers following our hat-trick of success at this year’s Sunday Times Lettings Agent of the Year Awards. You can read about our three award wins below.

Lucinda Newell takes a look at how today’s market compares with previous times and concludes that the future looks positive.

We also highlight the new enhanced property search facilities on our award winning website.

As I write, England have limped out of the World Cup Finals in South Africa but have just beaten Australia in the One Day Cricket Series. Wimbledon has drawn to a close but the Tour de France is underway!

The weather is beautiful so enjoy the Summer!
Happy Reading!



Rob Wellstead
Managing Director

Tuesday 15th June saw the annual Sunday Times lettings awards take place at the prestigious Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre located opposite Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament in central London.

It was against this backdrop and in front of over 300 of the lettings industry’s leading business leaders that Lenwell managed to scored a fantastic hat-trick of success, winning Gold for both Best Customer Service and Best Technology & Online and Silver as Best Small Lettings Agency.

In selecting Lenwell as winners of the Gold award for Customer Service, the judges said:

“Lenwell Property Services proved that they are passionate about promising and delivering exemplary customer care. Their systems and processes are impressive and it is apparent that each has been designed to make the customer experience fantastic.

Their confidence in their service standards is backed up by their achievement of quality standard ISO90000 with the British Standards Institute: as part of this they are audited twice annually and can act on feedback to maintain their excellent standards.”

In awarding Gold for Technology & Online the judges said:

“Lenwell Property Services demonstrated an enthusiastic and passionate approach to their website and online offering and an excellent understanding of how these mediums can be utilised for the advantage of clients and the business. They also take a systematic and considered approach to social media and blogging.

Recent introductions include a new way to handle post and an intelligent telephone system that automatically directs callers to the most appropriate department.

It is clear that the use of technology by Lenwell enhances an already excellent service offering: they are fully aware of how to embrace the best in new technology to build on their customer service standards and strong relationships with tenants, landlords and new clients.”

In winning Silver in the best Small Lettings Agency category the judges said:

“They take an innovative approach to efficient systems and processes in order to maximise the time staff can spend on frontline and face to face activities.

Lenwell has continued to profit and grow over the past year, a fact clearly demonstrated by their expansion via acquisitions of other local agencies. An excellent agency.”

On collecting the handful of awards, Managing Director Rob Wellstead said:

“I am naturally delighted that Lenwell have achieved such fantastic recognition through winning these three major industry awards. Awards that are a testament to the vision, investment and sheer hard work that our team applies day in and day out to ensuring that our clients and customers achieve the best results and are given the very best advice, service and support.

These awards allow us to benchmark ourselves against the very best agents and services in the industry and this makes our success even more satisfying. There is however no room for complacency and we shall continue to strive for even greater levels of excellence in the weeks and months ahead.”

In keeping with our recent national awards success in the Best Technology and Online category, we are delighted to announce that we have recently upgraded the property search facilities on our website at www.lenwell.com

Prospective tenants can now search for a property by both location and monthly rental price range and our selection of properties appear with the added benefit of both Google mapping and Street View. This allows the viewer to identify the exact location of the property and also see the street scene and exterior of the property. Naturally we include details of the accommodation and multiple internal photographs as well. These additional facilities ensure that prospective tenants can make an informed choice about which properties to view. This benefits both landlords and tenants through reduced levels of wasted appointments and has significantly improved our conversion rate from viewing to agreed tenancy.

The Lucinda Newell Column

To be seen pottering along the highways and byways of Luton in her Mini Clubman, her trusted Scottie Malcolm at her side, our super sleuthing property rental expert Ms Lucinda Newell is on the case on your behalf! 

I sat glued to my television watching Mr Osborne deliver his Budget speech and, like everyone else, was wondering what was going to be announced and what effect it might have on me as an individual and as a landlord. It also made me wonder about how things are now in comparison with where they have been during my lengthy time as a private landlord.

It was Prime Minister Macmillan in 1957 that used the phrase “You’ve never had it so good” Certainly the country today has seen better economic times and the “medicine” delivered in the Budget will be painful for many. However I believe there is actually much cause for optimism in the private rented sector which, in recent years has been growing as demand from tenants has increased.

The Rugg report showed that in 2006, 73% of the private rented sector had private landlords, either individuals or couples, compared with just 61% in 1994. This trend away from institutional landlords and towards private individuals has undoubtedly increased due to the availability of buy-to-let mortgages and also as a trend away from other investments and pension options.

Approximately 14% of our housing stock is now in the private rented sector which is up from just 9% in 1981 but is still way below the figures of around 30% that existed when Mr Macmillan made his famous speech. In the intervening years a drive towards home ownership saw levels of owner occupancy increase as private renting fell. That trend is now reversing and looks set to continue.

One reason that I believe that the private rental sector is set to grow further was highlighted when I was talking to my nephew the other day and he shocked me with the fact that the average age of a first time buyer is now approaching forty. I was horrified of the thought of children not fleeing the family nest until middle age but, of course, they do, but they take a rental option instead of home ownership. This is leading to higher demands from young people, both students and young professionals, for good quality rental property and a cultural shift away from owner occupation as the automatically preferred tenure of choice.

When I think about my own small rented portfolio, I can see that rental levels have stayed in line with earnings over the lifetime of me being a landlord. This is important to anyone taking a long term view of their rental portfolio.

Talking of the longer term view, our population is set to increase to around 70 million people by 2029 and there will be more pensioners than children as part of that growing population. In order to release funds to live on in retirement we may see a greater number of older people selling their homes and moving into private rented accommodation.

And so, whilst Mr Osborne’s Budget did nothing to improve or promote the private rental sector it did little to detract from it. Yes, Capital Gains Tax will be higher and Housing Benefit has been to cut to a maximum of £400 a week but overall things remain pretty steady with underlying demand set to remain strong and well presented, well managed property still attracting good rents and good quality tenants.

In may not be 1957 and a lot has changed since then but Mr Macmillan’s words may not be too far from the truth in the years ahead either.

Budget fears over Capital Gains Tax largely unfounded

Before the emergency budget on Tuesday 22nd June there had been much speculation that the Government would raise rates of Capital Gains Tax (CGT) in line with income tax and potentially create a huge disincentive for buy to let and other landlords. There was also a concern that any increase in CGT that had a delayed implementation may result in a significant number of properties being placed on the market for sale by investors seeking to dispose of their assets ahead of an increased tax rate.

In reality, whilst the Budget did introduce higher rates of CGT, these were not as punitive as had been trailled and they also came into effect from midnight on the 22nd June, giving investors no opportunity to try and avoid the higher rates anyway.

We do not anticipate that the changes in CGT will have any significant effect on the private rental sector.

The Treasury’s Budget 2010 document says:

As set out in the Coalition Agreement, to partly fund the increase to the personal allowance, increase fairness and reduce tax avoidance the Government will reform capital gains tax to align it more closely with income tax rates.

Effective from 23 June 2010, capital gains tax will rise from 18 to 28 per cent for those with total income and taxable gains above the higher rate threshold. This strikes the right balance between fairness and international competitiveness. A substantial part of the revenue from this measure comes from higher income tax receipts as the incentive to convert income into capital gains is reduced.

Basic rate taxpayers will continue to pay an 18 per cent rate on their gains. The 10 per cent capital gains tax rate for entrepreneurial business activities will be extended from the first £2 million to the first £5 million of qualifying gains made over a lifetime. The Government confirms that the annual exempt amount for capital gains tax will continue to rise in line with inflation and will remain at £10,100 for 2010-11.
 

And finally

The new coalition Government has been very quick to seek to reduce the levels of unnecessary red tape that had built up under the last Government and which affect all of our lives and, in particular, make running consumer facing businesses such as ours, a minefield of paperwork and regulation. We naturally applaud this approach.

Slightly disappointingly, the Government has however announced that they do not intend to regulate the lettings industry further and we feel that there is a missed opportunity in this decision. Lenwell is proud of its professional standing in the world of lettings and property management and we have ISO 9000 accreditation and are members of the Association of Residential Lettings Agents, the National Association of Estate Agents, the Property Ombudsman Service and The Dispute Service. This ensures that our clients and customers can be certain of being dealt with professionally and have the peace of mind of knowing that independent redress is available in the unlikely event of a dispute arising which we cannot resolve.

Self regulation is fine but at Lenwell we would have liked to see the Government insist on certain minimum requirements and operating codes for anyone practising in the lettings industry.

Sincerely

The Editor
editor@lenwell.com