PREDICTING THE CHANGES AHEAD

On Buy to Let, where many pundits have been predicting big trouble in 2008, Nationwide is remarkably relaxed: "The rapid growth of recent years will moderate, but the pessimistic sentiment about the sector's prospects should not be exaggerated."

Further Nationwide figures aren't far out of line with the 2008 predictions from leading London and country house agency Savills: it, too, predicts a 4% rise in Scotland, alongside a 3% rise in UK mainstream property prices in 2008, 5% in prime Central London and 4.5% in prime country houses.

Says Savills: "Accessibility to mortgage finance, particularly in the light of the credit squeeze, is going to have a significant impact on the market."

Savills believes that in prime markets, supply and demand will be more balanced, and will perform better than mainstream markets. Overseas buyers, for instance, will continue to invest in Central London.

However, some market observers think the Nationwide is taking an overly-pessimistic approach.

Says Stuart Law, chief executive at Assinvestmentetz, a property investment company: "Nationwide, like most building societies, tends to significantly underestimate house price inflation at the beginning of each year.

"Next year appears to be no different. In contrast, I expect prices to increase by 5% in 2008."

Robert Bryant-Pearson, chief executive of Allied Surveyors, says that "significant falls" will be reserved to certain sectors of the market.

"Many large country properties may see a fall in demand and therefore a decrease in value.

"Poorer housing such as ex-local authority stock is a sector where we expect there to be a higher proportion of repossessions, and therefore some significant decreases in value may be experienced here too."

However, Bryant-Pearson thinks family accommodation in good locations - close to transport links and key catchment areas - will "buck the trend", because it will continue to attract strong demand.

At Landlord Mortgages, managing director Lee Grandin says: "We are entering a volatile market. There is no doubt some sub prime borrowers coming off discounted rates, and novice investors with the wrong stock in the wrong place, will be squeezed out during 2008, and their property is likely to be snapped up by professionals, holding at least five investment properties and typically about twenty.

"Any landlord in business before 2004 is sitting on quite a bit of equity, and many of them will be ready to move fast when they see an opportunity. As rents hold firm or rise, lower prices will be a real opportunity for astute investors."

:: INFORMATION: Landlord Mortgages (0800 917 3324).

:: FRAUDSTERS TARGET KEY HOME OWNERSHIP DOCUMENTS

Lawyers who warned that fraudsters could misuse details of land and property holdings placed online under the Land Registration Act 2003 appear to have been vindicated.

An intriguing report in the current edition of the magazine Property Week says a tenant in the Hitchin and Harpenden constituency of Tory MP Peter Lilley fraudulently transferred the property to his own name by downloading deeds from the Land Registry Online website and copying the signature.

The fraudster arranged a £140,000 mortgage on the property and disappeared.

Property Week says the Land Registry had accepted responsibility on 70 separate frauds in the last three years, paying compensation of around £25m.

It has also decided that documents like mortgage deeds and leases will no longer be made available on its website.

But Property Week fears frauds remain a possibility "because the public can still obtain such documents simply by writing in or by collecting them in person from a local Land Registry office."

Justice minister Michael Willis will provide details of a Land Registry crackdown on fraudsters at a later date.

:: LICENSING SCHEME ADDS HASSLE FOR LANDLORDS

If your student son or daughter is struggling to find suitable digs for the new academic year, they might have fallen foul of a new tier of Government red tape.

A survey from Heritable Bank, the specialist buy-to-let lender, says Government attempts to tighten rules on lettings in Houses of Multiple Occupation (HMOs) - particularly popular in university towns and cities - triggered a bewildering complexity of new rules and a wide variety in costs.

Heritable, part of the Icelandic bank Landbanki since 2000, surveyed HMO regulations introduced in England in July 2006 in 60 local authorities, and found licence fees range dramatically from £80 per year in Hillingdon, Middlesex to a whopping £1,100 per year in Newcastle.

The average basic licence fee for a standard three storey, five unit HMO is £563, which means UK landlords are shelling out £56m in licence fees to town halls in 2007/8, the equivalent of £2,500 per landlord based on Government estimates on the number of properties affected by the new rules.

Council licences range from one to five years. Brighton & Hove doubled the fee - from £317 to £640 after the first year, while Cambridge (£570), Cardiff (£400) Darlington (£300) all left it unchanged. Leeds, with thousands of student lettings, reduced fees after year one.

The survey also found that local authorities have adopted 11 different approaches to structuring fees, with some councils charging for additional services such as the requirement for a 'fit and proper person' to approve a licence or assistance in making an application.

When the licensing system was first introduced in England in July, there were fears many landlords would dump HMOs to avoid added paperwork and regulation. Many properties of this type have already turned up in auction rooms.

However, Heritable Bank says many landlords turn a Nelsonian blind eye to the new scheme: some 23% of landlords questioned still say they know nothing about it, while 43% of respondents who would normally consider investing in an HMO said they had actively avoided doing so.

So rapidly have student numbers expanded that the supply of student property is lagging far behind demand.

Research by IPD/Cordea Savills claimed that even though there was £15bn worth of property assets in the student accommodation sector, only 25% of potential accommodation needs were being met. Shortages are particularly acute in London and the South-West.

It is likely some buy-to-let investors are dumping HMOs - often older properties regularly needing repairs - to invest instead in purpose-built accommodation on the campus, which promise high occupancy levels and minimal voids.

Malcolm Harrison, spokesman for the Association of Residential Letting Agents (ARLA), says: "When HMOs were first mooted, landlords strongly supported a system imposing the same regulations and costs across the country.

"What they did not want was each local authority imposing its own guidelines and charges, because professional landlords might have properties in three or four different local authority areas.

"The system we have got is a recipe for town hall empire building. Our survey indicated a 6% fall in the number of HMOs in the first quarter of the new scheme."

:: INFORMATION: Heritable Bank (020 7518 4224 and www.heritable.co.uk.); ARLA notes on HMO licensing are on www.arla.co.uk

:: BOLD BIDDERS CAN GRAB AUCTION BARGAINS

The prospect of bagging a detached cottage - sleeping two or possibly three - within a few yards of the beach in Kingsbridge, South Devon for around £75,000 is set to boost interest in the Westcountry Property Auction in Plymouth on December 5/6.

Auctioneer Graham Barton says realistic valuations are already 10% below the peaks of Summer 2007. Sales, he says, are being secured at about 10% above guide prices, against 15-20% at the start of 2007.

It's another sign of the credit crunch that Barton, like other auctioneers at this time, is delighted if it shifts 70% of his brochure. That, too, is about 10% down in the last year.

The Plymouth sale includes five repossessions. "Normally, it is one, or two at the most", says Barton.

One "repo" is a three-bedroom semi in Weymouth, Dorset, with views of Portland Harbour (£160,000-plus) and in need of refurbishment.

Another is a two-bedroom mid-terraced cottage in Liskeard, Cornwall (£80,000-90,000), where a refurbishment has already provided uPVC double glazing and gas central heating.

Says Graham Barton: "Despite fears of an economic slowdown, a lot of latent demand for property still remains.

"Builders and developers must keep the work going, because it's what they do for a living."

The Plymouth sale also includes a two-bedroom ground floor apartment in Dartmouth, South Devon (£135,000-plus); a modern end terrace three-bedroom house (£115,000) in Kingsbridge, South Devon, where the tenant pays nearly £5,000 a year for a life-time tenancy until the end of his days; and a detached, two storey building (£40,000-plus) in Babbacombe, Torquay, with planning permission for conversion to a one-bedroom home.

There's also a spectacular half acre site overlooking the sea at Wembury Point, near Plymstock and easily commutable to Plymouth, where a buyer at £435,000-plus is expected to replace an existing home with something grander.

Near the beach at Branscombe, Devon, swamped by new BMW motorbikes when the MS Napoli ran aground in 2006, a two-bedroom cottage (£175,000-plus) in the heart of Waverley Branscombe village could be a retirement home or weekend bolthole after a fairly simple extension.

At Countrywide Auctions, principal auctioneer Mark Tanton says the market is "subdued" - with its latest round of sales nationwide selling just under 60% of lots offered.

Says Tanton: "There are two markets in the auction room. One embraces private buyers seeking homes to occupy. With more than one bidder, good prices are achieved.

"The other market is professional buyers/investors seeking bargains. They have seen prices level off and don't want to lose money."

But the latest sales in Kent, Sussex and the South Coast from Clive Emson raised £13m from a catalogue of 140 lots, with an average success rate of about 70%. The former Red Lion pub in Snodland, Kent, offered by Kent County Council and guided at £150,000-160,000, fetched £212,000.

:: INFORMATION: Westcountry Property Auctions (Fulfords/Stratton Creber) on Dec 5/6 in Plymouth (09041 630 006); Clive Emson (01622 630 033); Countrywide Property Auctions (01245 344 133).