RICS Residential Lettings Survey October (3rd quarter) 2009

SURVEYORS in the North are increasingly optimistic that residential rents will start to rise in the New Year as the number of rental properties coming onto the market has fallen, while the North is the only region alongside London to report an increase in rents, according to the latest RICS (Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors) Lettings Survey published on 2 December 2009.

The recent pick up in the housing market seems to have led to a drop off in the number of rental properties, particularly houses, being made available and as a result surveyor optimism in the North has increased. 31 percent of surveyors are currently expecting rents to rise in the next three months, up from 4 percent last quarter.

Significantly, the North’s surveyors are reporting price rises over the past three months with 13 percent of respondents claiming an increase in rents, up from 9 percent.

The drop off in supply is the main driver for the more positive sentiment, with new instructions reaching their lowest levels in the survey’s history (1998) on a national level. Similarly in the North, the number of surveyors reporting the number of new instructions to rent has fallen, from a net balance of -11 per cent to a figure of -21 percent.

This is in stark contrast to levels seen late last year when the housing market was still suffering from falling prices and many would-be sellers were turning to the lettings market when their houses failed to sell.

Demand for rental property is also rising, up from 10 percent to 15 percent of the region’s surveyors reporting an increase in people looking to rent. Nationally, demand is still rising as 16 percent more surveyors saw activity over the past three months pick up; in particular demand for houses was particularly strong with 22 percent more surveyors reporting rising rather than falling numbers of people looking to rent. Tenant demand was strongest in London, but increased in most other parts of the country bar the east.

Jennifer Welch, RICS operations director for the North West, said:- “The North West is generally finding that the decent properties coming on to the market are renting readily and quickly. In turn, this means that we are seeing some rents increasing. The rental market in the region has seen an increase in activity, although houses remain the firm favourites with potential tenants, rather than flats. The demand for good, solid houses across the region has therefore increased, leading to rises in rents fairly broadly across the region.”

From a national perspective, RICS spokesperson Jeremy Leaf said:- “It seems the current upward trend in the housing market is having a more significant effect on the lettings market, with many of the accidental landlords returning to the sales market to take advantage of the recent price increases. As a result, the recent oversupply is reversing, with new instructions at the lowest levels we have seen. This of course is impacting on prices and tenants no longer have as strong a bargaining power as they did.”

£10m funding boost to eliminate elephantiasis globally

THE Centre for Neglected Tropical Diseases (CNTD) at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine has been awarded £10 million by the UK Department for International Development (DFID) to support endemic countries in tackling lymphatic filariasis (LF) – a crippling disease more commonly known as elephantiasis.

The funding builds on earlier successful collaborations against lymphatic filariasis and will support programmes to reduce the prevalence of LF and other related neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) and make progress towards eventual elimination of LF. The award is part of a £50 million grant announced by the International Development Secretary, Douglas Alexander, to “wipe out deadly tropical diseases”.

Elephantiasis is a parasitic infection that causes acute and chronic illness, disability and disfigurement in 81 countries in Asia-Pacific, Asia and the Americas. More than a billion people around the globe – 18% of the world’s population – are at risk of contracting the disease. Forty million have clinical symptoms which are painful, seriously disfiguring and debilitating. LF prevents people from working and contributes to a vicious cycle of ill health and poverty.

The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that LF infection can be prevented by treating entire endemic communities once a year with two co-administered anti-parasitic drugs for a minimum of five years. The impact of the drugs on other NTDs also brings other health benefits such as improved physical development among children and improved maternal and newborn health. The DFID grant will enable CNTD to support 12 countries to administer these drugs to more than one quarter of a billion people at risk of LF in these countries over the next five years.

Professor Moses Bockarie, Director of CNTD, said:- “We have a real opportunity here to relegate LF to the history books. Since the LF elimination programme started a decade ago it has prevented more than seven million newborns from acquiring the disease, which would have resulted in more than two million clinical cases.”

The grant, alongside ongoing joint financial support from GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), will also support the activities of the Global Alliance to Eliminate Lymphatic Filariasis (GAELF), a partnership of public and private sectors working towards LF elimination, and whose Secretariat is hosted at CNTD. GAELF is coordinating efforts with WHO and other disease control programmes and NTD partnerships.

“Tackling multiple infections as a group has allowed us to focus more on the rapid expansion of treatments to millions of people. Such an integrated, population-based approach also saves time, resources and reduces the burden to locally manage them,” said Lorenzo Savioli, WHO Director of the Department of Control of Neglected Tropical Diseases.

DFID support complements substantial financial inputs for NTDs from the Gates Foundation and USAID, drug donations by GSK and Merck, and technical input by WHO.

”The remarkable progress in fighting LF demonstrates what we can do in the field of NTDs. Working together, we have a real possibility to eliminate a devastating disease and alleviate human suffering.” said Andrew Witty, Chief Executive Officer of GSK.