Michelle Niziol

As I have mentioned before in my blog, with not enough new-build properties being built in Bicester and the surrounding area to keep up with demand for homes to live in, it’s good to know more Bicester home owners are putting their properties on to the market than a year ago.

At the start of 2007 there were 256 properties for sale in Bicester but by March 2008, when the credit crunch was really beginning to bite, that number had risen to 530 properties on the market at a time when demand was at an all-time low, thus creating an imbalance in the Bicester property market. Read More

Beast from the East, Russia, Facebook, Brexit, Trump, house prices up, house prices down, the press is full of column inches on Brit’s favourite subjects of politics, scandal, weather and not forgetting the property market. Talking to my fellow property professionals from around the UK in a recent meeting, the one thing that is immediately apparent is the UK property market is vastly different depending on your location. There are lots of small property markets all performing in different ways.

That made me think, does the same rule apply in an individual town, is there just one Bicester Property Market or many? Read More

The degree to which young Bicester people are locked out of the Bicester housing market has been revealed in new statistics.

I was chatting to one of my landlord’s last week about how the homeownership rates in the early-middle aged adults in Bicester had affected the demand for rental property in in recent years. I knew that it was affecting the Bicester rental market, but to what degree I wasn’t quite sure. So I promised the Landlord some facts to back up my thoughts. I like a challenge and I thought I’d share what I found.

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Buying and selling a home in Bicester isn’t the easiest or cheapest thing you will ever do. Estate agent fees, solicitor’s fees, survey fees, mortgage fees, removal costs, the costs quickly mount up. Last week, a local landlord asked me whether the council tax band made a difference to a property’s appeal, whether it be to sell or rent and also raised an interesting question about whether an extension or home improvements made a difference to the amount of council tax you pay?

When buying or renting you should always be clear on what the council tax band will be for your new property. But what exactly are council tax bands, and how do they affect landlords/tenants/homeowners?

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A little bit of good news this week on the Bicester Property Market as recently released data shows that the number of first time buyers taking out their first mortgage in 2017 increased more than in any other year since the global financial crisis in 2009. The data shows there were 205 first time buyers in Bicester, the largest number since 2006. Read More

As our families grow bigger the need for more space, be that bedrooms or reception rooms, has grown with it. Also, as our older generation lives longer and nursing home bills continue to rise quicker than a rocket on the 5^th of November  (the average nursing home bill in the area being £954.58 per week) many families are bringing two households into one larger one.

So, should you move somewhere larger, or extend your Bicester property to make it large enough for you and your family? Read More

According to the National House Building Council (NHBC), more than 26,142 new homes were registered to be built in the South East last year, on par with 2016 levels of 26,147 dwellings. Great news when you consider it is one of the highest number of new builds in the region since the pre-recession levels of the Credit Crunch and the uncertainty of Brexit and the General Election.

So, when a landlord recently asked me why the brand-new property she was considering buying was a lot more expensive compared to a second-hand/existing property of similar type, accommodation, location and structure I thought this would make a fascinating topic to do some homework on…..homework I want to share with the homeowners and landlords of Bicester. Read More

That got your attention … didn’t it!

But before we start, what is Generation X, let alone Generation Z, Millennials, Baby Boomers  … these are phrases banded around about the different life stages (or subcomponents) of our society. But when terminologies like this are used as often and habitually as these phrases (i.e. Gen X this, Millennial that etc.), it appears particularly vital we have some practical idea of what these terms actually mean. The fact is that everyone uses these phrases, but often, like myself, they are not exactly sure where the lines are drawn …until now…

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Yes, I said ‘rentirement’, not retirement … rentirement and it relates to the 254 (and growing!) Bicester people, who don’t own their own Bicester home but rent their home, privately from a buy to let landlord and who are currently in their 50’s and early to mid-60’s.

The truth is that these Bicester people are prospectively soon to retire with little more than their state pension of £155.95 per week, probably with a small private pension of a couple of hundred pounds a month, meaning the average Bicester retiree can expect to retire on about £200 a week once they retire at 67.

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