Helping Innovate Property (HIP) – Blog, Housing Market News and Articles

The Bank of England has reduced interest rates to 0.5% in order to put a halt to the housing crash, in the latest reduction we have witnessed over recent months.

With interest rates being cut at such a speed over the past few months it begs the question ‘Will we see interest rates reach zero perecent?‘

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The Property Information Questionnaire (PIQ) will be shortly rolled out after the draft version was produced and the related consultation was completed and added to the legislation.

There does not seem to have been vast modification to the document and legislation since we published the last article regarding the Property Information Questionnaire in August. However, the planned implementation of the PIQ was intended for the the 1st January 2009 however this has been delayed to 6th April 2009 to allow the industry to prepare for the addition to the Home Information Pack Legislation.

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Due to a number of requests, we have added the ability to subscribe to our blog via email and receive updates when we post a new article. As part of this addition we are running a fun,  promotional feature.

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For those technically minded we have recently upgraded our blog to wordpress 2.7 from 2.5.1. Whilst we were happy with the general performance of 2.5.1 I did had concerns we would be left behind with new additions to 2.7. and was very curious to see the expanded additions in the interface.

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This week has seen news released about developments of Home Information Packs and has given rise to speculation about Home Condition Reports (HCR) making a suprise return. The main topics and news within Magaret Beckett’s statement; industry professionals and associated organisation had some expectation of though we were all unsure of the exact timing until recently.

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Home Inspector (HI) and Domestic Energy Assessor (DEA) training has had claims attached to it of large potential earnings for those qualifying and practicing in this field.

In response to a high levels of comments left on the article (at time of writing nearly a 100 comments) ‘Should I train as a Domestic Energy Assessor (DEA) ?’ we felt it would be beneficial to specifically explore the Home Inspector (HI) qualification and its potential further.

The Home Inspector qualification was designed to fulfill the Home Condition Report (HCR) requirement within the Home Information Pack. Initially, it was planned that the HCR would be a mandatory component within the HIP though was in fact made an optional document. Professionals within the industry and none more so than those that qualified as a Home Inspector near its’ inception will tell you that there has been very little to no demand for the HCR due to it being made voluntary.

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HIP-Consultant.co.uk’s UK Property blog is a relatively new addition to our website which is now nearly close to a year in existence. Our focus on quality and dedication in providing the information our readers are looking for seems to be gaining recognition and an increased Alexa traffic ranking.

The Alexa ranking system looks at traffic and visitors to websites accross the world’s internet and ranks them accordingly. Recently, our website has broken into the international top 500,000 based upon a monthly average, with the one week average showing substantially greater than this at about the 180,000 mark. At the time of writing we are ranked within the top 15,000 of websites within the UK.

Therefore, the monthly Alexa traffic ranking is consistently gaining week on week with the number of visitors. See HIP-Consultant.co.uk’s Alexa traffic statisitics here.

We are very pleased and proud of the progression we have made in this area to date. We would like to take this opportunity to thank all those that have:

• contributed by writing articles for us
• visited our site and read our articles
• left comments and thoughts on the subject matter
• sent emails of thanks to our team
• gave feedback on our site
• mentioned our ‘blog’ and linked to us from their site

We have developed a solid base to build upon and momentum for the future and look forward to publishing the exciting new features and articles we have planned.

If you would like to become involved with our blog and future articles please visit HIP-Consultant.co.uk welcomes guest writers for further information.

It is possible to stay up to date with our latest articles by subscribing to our RSS Feed through the orange icon in the top right or by following HIP-Consultant.co.uk’s RSS Feed here.

It is fair to say that the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) and the National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA) have never been the greatest admirers of Home Information Pack legislation. It is envisaged that this week they will combine efforts when putting their views forward to the Government to attack HIPS once again.

The latest stance is one of focussed criticism towards the searches within the Home Information Pack whilst seemingly and suprisingly asking for some aspects to remain and apparently agreeing that the planned Property Information Questionnaire (P.I.Q.) would be useful.

RICS’ director of external affairs, Gillian Charlesworth, said: “These legal documents (searches) must be taken out of the packs and left to buyers and their advisers to obtain at the appropriate time during the transaction.” RICS wants HIPs to be replaced with a voluntary report as per the Carsberg report.
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The Property Information Questionnaire (PIQ) has been announced as one of the next steps in progressing the Home Information Pack which will add further information and benefits to the existing HIP.

The Communities and Local Government has issued a consultation document as part of the new planned ‘mandatory’ documents. The consultation contains the following parts:

• the leasehold requirements in the Home Information Pack (HIP) (Part 1) – we will discuss in a later post which will follow
• the inclusion of the Property Information Questionnaire (PIQ) in the HIP (Part 2).

We will be considering and formulating our views on the questions within the paper over the coming weeks. HIP-Consultant.co.uk are interested in your views and welcome comments based on this consultation.

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This week has been eventful for sure in the continued life of Home Information Packs. HIPS are now 1 year old and news headlines continue to be made from the debate on Home Information Packs (HIPS). Recently, significant reports of non-compliance of the legislation have come to light and been acknowledged by leading figures involved within the industry.

Yesterday, it was widely reported by many news agencies including the BBC that some agents, I must stress only ‘some’ agents; are flouting the law and are proceeding to market properties without the legally required Home information Packs.

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Home Information Packs (HIPS) are now a year old this week. The past year certainly has been controversial at times for HIP packs as the legislation has been rolled out; which lets be honest was to be expected. Home information packs have been reported upon as often is the case in the UK press with a negative slant. The legislation has unfortunately become a ‘political football’ with the debate showing little signs in slowing.

Home information Packs were designed to provide information to the home buyer, speed up transaction times and reduce the number of failed completions. Home information Packs or as they will be known Home Reports are due to be implemented in Scotland from December this year.

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