Archive for November, 2009
Tuesday, November 24th, 2009
House sellers in the Central Region are now able to benefit from the creation of a new Solicitors Property Centre, designed specifically to help house sellers in the Central region.
Central Solicitors are banding together to create Central SPC – which will offer all the services locally which the traditional SPC’s offer. The website section of the new project has launched and already over four hundred properties are for sale on www.centralspc.co.uk. A property newspaper will follow in January – linked to the massively successful GSPC property paper.
An SPC is effectively a solicitors’ cooperative where pooled resources allow solicitors to offer enhanced marketing services for their clients’ properties.
“I’m very excited about the development” says Caesar and Howie Managing Partner David Borrowman. “ESPC and GSPC have been extremely successful in Edinburgh and Glasgow – and we think this new grouping can do the same out here. Solicitors pooling our resources and buying power means top quality schedules, very cheap newspaper advertising and massive internet coverage for sellers properties over no less than fifteen different property websites linked to our site. On top of that we have a fantastic out of hour’s telephone service for buyers and sellers alike – and that can only help clients selling houses. All property sales work from valuation, home report production, estate agency, through to the final conveyancing can be carried out by each of our members – so it is a genuine one stop service for clients buying or selling property”.
The new service has been launched under the guidance of GSPC – whose Chief Executive Bill Scouller said “we are delighted to be now helping solicitors in central with their new project. It is a great service now but the good news is we are working constantly to improve what solicitors can offer and I’ll soon be announcing yet more innovations for clients using Central SPC. I expect Central SPC to become the main selling force in its market area very quickly indeed – they have a great product which gives an edge to people wanting to sell their house”.
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Wednesday, November 18th, 2009
Caesar and Howie attended the Retirement Show at the SECC this year. This was a first for the firm. We shared a stall with our very good friends from the Glasgow Old People’s Welfare Association – to whom we are very grateful for their co-operation. The show pulled in a huge attendance of retired folk from all over Scotland. Our plan was to try to get over to as many folk as we could the benefits of planning for the future and putting in place these three key legal documents for families, Wills, Powers of Attorney, and Advance Health Care Directives. We also wanted to get over the benefits of Equity Release which we see becoming increasingly popular with our clients.
Terry Ann O’Donnell from Caesar and Howie ran the stall for two days. “The level of interest in what we are trying to say to people was just fantastic” said Terry. “Actually I was run off my feet and we completely ran out of leaflets twice and had to rush in new stocks. What struck me is that so many people just haven’t planned for the future because they just haven’t thought about things. Once you explain to them the benefits of taking, really the modest legal steps you need to protect families, they are keen to get on with getting them put in place. It is pretty frightening, mind you, to find out how few people know about Powers of Attorney for example. A lot of folk also had not really thought about the benefits of Equity Release, giving some extra cash in their later years. But hopefully, we managed over the two days to get the message over to lots of visitors at the show.”
Caesar and Howie attended the Retirement Show at the SECC this year. This was a first for the firm. We shared a stall with our very good friends from the Glasgow Old People’s Welfare Association – to whom we are very grateful for their co-operation. The show pulled in a huge attendance of retired folk from all over Scotland. Our plan was to try to get over to as many folk as we could the benefits of planning for the future and putting in place these three key legal documents for families, Wills, Powers of Attorney, and Advance Health Care Directives. We also wanted to get over the benefits of Equity Release which we see becoming increasingly popular with our clients.
Terry Ann O’Donnell from Caesar and Howie ran the stall for two days. “The level of interest in what we are trying to say to people was just fantastic” said Terry. “Actually I was run off my feet and we completely ran out of leaflets twice and had to rush in new stocks. What struck me is that so many people just haven’t planned for the future because they just haven’t thought about things. Once you explain to them the benefits of taking, really the modest legal steps you need to protect families, they are keen to get on with getting them put in place. It is pretty frightening, mind you, to find out how few people know about Powers of Attorney for example. A lot of folk also had not really thought about the benefits of Equity Release, giving some extra cash in their later years. But hopefully, we managed over the two days to get the message over to lots of visitors at the show.”
Tags: Equity Release
Posted in Equity Release, Wills and Executries | No Comments »
Monday, November 16th, 2009
The latest figures from The Safe Home Income Plan Group, effectively the Equity Release Trade Body, show that equity release lending is increasing.
The total amount borrowed under these planes increased by no less than 19% in the third quarter of 2009 from the year previously.
However the total borrowings figure being well up, actually disguises a slight drop of 2.5% in the actual number of plans taken out. What has put the figures up has been an increase of nearly 4% in the amount borrowed. On the other hand with some providers coming out of the market the figures do show the resilience of this sector of the mortgage market. Figures show in the last twelve months the wider mortgage market dropped by 63% whilst Equity Release only shrank by a comparatively modest 22%.
Partner Carmen MacIver, head of Caesar and Howie’s dedicated equity release team commented “the end of house price falls I think is going to give this market a further boost. The products are getting better and better known in Scotland and our enquiry levels just go up and up. I think the Scottish public did not get to grips with the benefits of Equity Release till after those in the South. But I think this has changed and with so many people enjoying a better retiral life style because of equity release I can only see Caesar and Howie’s services as equity release solicitors become more and more in demand”.
Tags: Equity Release
Posted in Conveyancing, Estate Agency | 1 Comment »
Friday, November 13th, 2009
Figures from various sources confirm that the Scottish House market is changing a little, with prices stabilising and even starting to increase slowly again.
The Registers of Scotland – where every Scottish house transaction is recorded – state that prices have gone up in the third quarter (July to September) by 6.1% from the second quarter. That leaves the average price of a residential property in Scotland at £154,453. The national average figures of course disguise significant regional variations, and in six local authority regions prices were still shown to be falling. The biggest rise was in Perth and Kinross at 15% and the biggest loss was in Renfrewshire with a loss of 3.7%.
The picture therefore remains very mixed but at least after two years of bad news clearly there are some signs of a market returning to health. Solicitors and estate agents, however report that trading volumes are still down and this is confirmed by the Registers who state that five thousand less house transactions took place in the third quarter this year compared with 2008.
Kirsty Jack, Property Manager at Caesar and Howie and who works closely with the Kupdom Project states “There are clearly some positive signs but our sales volumes remain at about half the level of two years ago. I would say however that there are many people who would wish to buy but who still cannot get mortgage finance. The house buying culture is still strong in Scotland and as the financial world slowly returns to normal I predict a slow improvement in prices and sales volumes over the next few years. People buying a house now, I think will look back in a few years and think they have got a bargain”.
Tags: Buy a house in Scotland, House Prices, housing market
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