According to the latest survey from housing data company Hometrack, house prices have risen on average by 0.5%.  A resurgence in the London market, with demand higher than supply is attributed to the rise, with prices there increasing by 1.1%.
Cities in the north of the country saw slower price growth, with Manchester, Liverpool and Newcastle all reporting growth of just 0.1%.

The Isle of Wight and Derbyshire were the only two areas in the country to witness a fall in prices – by 0.1%.
The national average house price now stands at £162,500.

Simon

The Isle of Wight Festival tickets are being sent out today.

Be warned the ferries are packed, if you intend to bring a vehicle over to the Island you need to book the ferry today! We have all the direct links to the ferry companies on our “Links Page”.

The current line up is

Friday 9th June
The Prodigy, Placebo, Goldfrapp, The Rakes, Morning Runner

Saturday 10th June
Foo Fighters, Primal Scream, Editors, Dirty Pretty Things, The Kooks, The Proclaimers, The Upper Room, 747s, The On Offs

Sunday 11th June
Coldplay, Richard Ashcroft, Lou Reed, Maximo Park, Kubb, Procol Harum, Skyline Heroes

Click here for a direct link to the festival site

Today (Friday 24 March 2006) we have had an article about Isle of Wight Homes in the Isle of Wight County Press – if you want to read about us - its on page 26 of the property section. The article is basically all about us being the first company to do so many things, such as integrating google earth into our site, first & only to have an average of 17 quality pictures per property, first to have a slide show, first to have an RSS feed for all our “New Arrivals”  …….  Etc etc & we are really nice too!

We know we have had a lot of readers of this blog, but few comments. One reader told us that maybe, where the Island is a small place, people may not want to be identified – please feel free to just leave an initial!

Regards

Simon

And have a good weekend.

Did you see last nights "Whistleblower" program on BBC 1 ?

Really dreadful what some agents get away with - where they lied & cheated I am amazed they can sleep at night. The programme did say the staff are under a lot of pressure to meet targets etc, but as it was fundamentally dishonest it is amazing that they can carry on in this way.

You can be rest assured that where 75% of us here at Isle of Wight Homes, are ex Barclays Bank staff we are not only honest, but also treat every bit of information as confidential. The whole ethos of the company is to deal with people as we like to be dealt with & to inform everyone involved at each & every stage of the sale process. All the staff here are paid on a salary – no targets are set. In this way we share all the cases, everyone knows what is going on & it is much more efficient.
We are also a member firm of the National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA) – you will find that a lot of the larger agencies ignore this body & aren’t members – you can’t get disciplined by the NAEA if you are not in it!

If you didn’t see it click here for a direct link to the BBC page    

If you have had some bad experiences please feel free to add them by clicking on the “Add Comment”  button below.

Regards

Simon

I would like to show a webcam for each town on the Island.
I have only got Bembridge & Sandown webcams on the front of the site, as these are the only ones I can find on the Isle of Wight!
(There is one at Cowes yacht basin but that doesn’t seem to work).

If you get to hear of any others please do let me know, so I can get their permission so show them.
It would be really handy if we could have one at web cam at Ventnor. Over the winter months I have along list of houses I have to re-visit to take photographs when the weather is better. Often when it is cloudy here, it is brilliant sunshine in Ventnor – when I could be retaking photo’s.

On a related subject “Eric” phoned up - the chap (who installed the excellent Sandown webcam) he has the contract to install all the web cams for the company along the south coast. He lives at Sandown and said he would be able to set up exactly the same system for anyone, to be fully integrated within ones website – his own site is www.firmansolutions.com . As it happened we sold him a house some years ago – it’s a small world!

Simon

Just in case you have never seen this site before we are the Isle of Wight’s first & favourite estate agency selling homes throughout the Island.
The main Island towns are Newport, Ryde, Sandown, Shanklin, Ventnor, Cowes, East Cowes, Yarmouth, Totland, Freshwater, Wootton (Wootton Bridge) Bembridge, Brading, Niton, Wroxall and Seaview. There are also numerous villages across the Island, popular ones include Brighstone, St Helen’s Carisbrooke, Shorwell, Godshill, Shalfleet, Atherfield, Chale & Chale Green,  & many, many more (I hadn’t realized there were so many until I started listing!).

Our main aim is to show honest pictures of the house / bungalow / flat.

Saving time for the buyer & seller alike.

I won’t drone on any more, but I thought I ought to state what we are about.

This is not a place to knock other agents. However we visited one home in Seaview & then a house in Wroxall on the Isle of Wight, yesterday, & both owners came up with the same complaints against the same agent - & it was all about commission bands.

I will tell it as we were told it, as a warning - (but you should know as a comparison we charge 1.25% + VAT & have no tie contract)

Both owners went with the agent they originally bought from, who have many offices throughout the Island.
Both were shown a matrix of charges, they were told “We should charge you this” tapping the top of the matrix showing the different band of charges as a lump sum + VAT, “but we will offer you this special rate” tapping the lower section.
They signed up for the sole agency contract.
It now transpires that this "special rate" was approximately 2.3% + VAT & 2.1% + VAT respectively!

After a while the asking price was reduced, but the agent wouldn’t reduce the commission band rate. They both thought - what was the incentive to sell their home at the best possible price, when they could get paid the same commission for selling it cheaply!

They also wanted their homes advertised in the other branches on the Island, but they wouldn’t, as they would have to split the commission with their other offices.

So be careful out there!
Simon