Phil HendyCaving

Review of the property market

House prices continue to surge with a shortage of homes to buy. Sally Killen looks at the housing market.

THEcontinued strength in the housing market has been well publicised with house prices having risen at the highest rate since August 2007 and the average house price in the UK hitting £256,000 in March, according to official figures, which is £24,000 higher than in the same month in 2020.

It seems that a perfect storm of factors have come into play in strengthening the market. Brexit uncertainty had led to supressed demand since 2016 which was unleashed with a deal having been done at a time when the lockdown forced many to reassess their lifestyles and where they wanted to live. The stamp duty holiday has helped fan demand encouraging buyers to seek a property.

During the spring, all agents have seen a desperate shortage of properties coming to the market and both the sales and letting markets have been brutal for buyers or prospective tenants with properties quickly snapped up with many being sold or let before actually coming to the market.

As supply picks up, however, and demand settles then values may stabilise but it is certainly a good time to sell. Those seeking to buy certainly need to ensure that they are in a strong proceedable position in order to be in with a chance of buying their dream home.

Many ask whether the housing market will become overheated and crash but, in spite of the press promoting this as a possibility, most pundits are of the opinion that this is unlikely as the provision of new houses remains constrained, mortgage availability is improving and the economy recovers.

At Killens, we have potential buyers desperate to buy and if you are considering selling, contact us for a free appraisal of your home. We offer a bespoke, proactive and personal service utilising all the tools of marketing and we will be delighted to assist.

This three-bedroom cottage at East Harptree is on the market with Killens for £425,000

Another fine mess?

JUST when we thought it was safe to go back in the pub, thanks to our stellar vaccination programme, up pops another variant. B.1.617.2 is one of the India variants that has taken a foothold in the UK, first detected in February but now By DrPHIL HAMMOND spreading so rapidly in some parts of the country that it may overtake the Kent variant as our dominant strain.

Does this matter now we have vaccines? We will shortly find out. Ideally, we would have waited until all adults had been offered two doses of vaccines before opening up our borders and despite a sudden ramping up of vaccines in the most affected areas, there may not yet be enough protection to stop more hospital admissions and deaths from Covid. Or we may be pleasantly surprised. Why did we end up in another high risk situation? The government’s decision to put Pakistan and Bangladesh on the “red list” for border control from April 2nd (effective April 9th), but not India until April 23rd, makes no rational sense at all. Of the three countries at the time, India had by far the biggest outbreak. Up to 20,000 people arrived in the UK from India during the delay and were left to their own devices to quarantine (which we know isn’t very effective).

It was always likely a new “variant of concern” was behind the Indian outbreak, but waiting for it to be identified instead of taking pre-emptive action based on the infection numbers was a big error.

The majority of UK citizens appear to be far more cautious than the government on border controls. In a recent IpsosMori poll of 2,007 adults aged 18-75, 79% supported stopping people from entering the country from countries with higher levels of Covid-19 infections; 70% supported quarantining in hotels for those returning from all foreign holidays; 67% supported stopping people from entering the country from any other country; 58% supported stopping people from holidaying abroad in 2021.

In contrast, our government advocates a weak and inconsistent “traffic light system” for international travel that is frankly not up to the task. After a country is put on the red list, people are given a grace period of four to seven days to rush back to the UK with the virus, much like jumping the lights on amber-red.

Highly risky, and you don’t always get away with it. Not only is B.1.617.2 now all over the UK, we are likely to be exporting it elsewhere. When will we ever learn?

Plop the Raindrop

CAN you imagine life inside a cucumber? Have you seen how fast they grow? And how do they know what to grab on to? I’ve spent time inside them and it’s a mystery to me.

As far as I know they don’t have eyes like you have, so I guess they just wave around like a mad octopus until they touch something and hold on. Vines do the same kind of thing, if they’re growing by a wall.

Spiders send out a long string of silk and just see where the wind takes them. That’s understandable. But how do plants know how to do it? Perhaps they are more intelligent than we know. After all they have been around a very long time and can feed themselves without going to supermarkets.

Cucumbers are pretty boring, but it’s surprising how many water droplets like me can squeeze into one. We’ll probably end up inside a slice on a cucumber sandwich and then get eaten and find ourselves stuck inside a human bean at some posh summer event.

You wouldn’t believe how many of us are inside your body right now!

Cucumbers can be knobbly, but vines grow lovely shiny grapes, which are often squashed into wine, which can be fun at the time. But then I might get trapped inside a barrel and then a bottle for years and years and years. I think my current record is spending 50 years trapped in a whisky bottle, which was a pretty sobering experience. There are far worse places to get stuck. Water melons can be very messy. But once again, eventually, I’ll get swallowed by a human bean. I can’t believe just how much you lot eat and drink. Or where it all goes afterwards. I could write a very comprehensive guide to all the different ways that animals on earth have a poo. It was much more exciting for me before human beans and toilets were invented.

I might get left on the floor of a rain forest, having escaped from a lizard, listening to the squawk of exotic birds or the croak of a poisonous frog. Or get dropped in the sea by a flying dinosaur.

You have to bear in mind that I was around for millions of years before you came along with your fancy ways and smelly old drains. It’s quite insulting for a creature of my standing to get flushed down the loo.

On the whole, the Earth seemed to manage pretty well without human beans. But since you arrived, the rest of the planet has had to learn to adapt to survive. I’d always assumed that one day ants would rule the earth, since there are so many of them.

Unfortunately, an awful lot of things didn’t make it. How I miss my friendly mammoth.

This isn’t anything new. Over the years I’ve witnessed lots of mass extinctions, not just the dinosaurs but lots of different species. The difference is that those creatures had no control over it.

You do. And you can still do something about it. Think of me if you have a cucumber sandwich.