London Has Highest Landlord Costs In UK But This Is Offset By Higher Rent

London has been identified as the most expensive part of Britain to be a landlord, followed by the South East while the North East of England is the cheapest. The average cost for a landlord in London, excluding any mortgage and tax and including void periods, is £6,535 a year, or 32% of rental income, according to the research from lender Kent Reliance. This compares to the average cost nationwide of £3,632 per year for landlords but this is still a chunk of income, amounting to 34% of rent coming in as landlords get higher rents in London which is offsetting some of the higher costs. Read more on Property Wire.

How The ONS Knocked £100,000 Off The Average UK House Price

Eagle-eyed house price watchers may have spotted something fishy about the official house price figures for April. The average UK house price was almost £100,000 lower than last month - dropping from £292,000 in March to just £209,000 in April. It turns out the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has merely changed the way it calculates the average house prices. Essentially, it's changed how it does the maths. Chief among the new measures was the decision to give "extreme valued property" - ie. ultra-expensive homes - less weighting in the measure. Read more on the City AM website.

What Happens If You Force Councils To Sell Low Rent Homes?

The proposal to extend the Right to Buy to housing associations has been widely. But the way the policy is funded is probably the most destructive part of the housing measures introduced in the Housing Bill and the Comprehensive Spending Review.  The proposal is to fund RtB discounts by forcing local councils to sell their more valuable council homes. Most directly affected will be the expensive areas where councils will be forced to sell the most homes. But lots of less expensive areas will also be indirectly affected by the subsequent influx of lower income households displaced by the shortages of affordable homes. The government has not said exactly which areas will be forced to sell most homes, but using publically available data Shelter have made a nationwide estimate of the number of homes that every council will be forced to sell. Download the analysis and figures from the Shelter website.