Not everyone loves going to work during the week. Some people in fact hate their jobs. However, where you work, the actual office space in which you work could have a major impact on your working life and your attitudes to work.
If you work in a beautiful office space that is situated in a bustling city, with a great climate, you’ll be more inclined to enjoy your job than if you worked in a drab office on an industrial estate somewhere in Slough; much like that of David Brent in The Office.
Here are some of the coolest places to have offices in the world and the best locations for prime office space.
• London
• Dubai
• Dublin
• Paris
• Vienna
• Geneva
• Madrid
• New York
• Mountain View, California
• Las Vegas
Some of the office space locations are self explanatory, such as London, Madrid and Paris for example. They’re in capital cities, the shops are plentiful, the architecture is beautiful and standard of living is exceptionally high.
Mountain View, California is the home of Google and its famed office space layouts, with beanbag chairs, luxury break rooms and gourmet canteens and thus one of the coolest offices anywhere. Dubai is a relatively new office space location but one of the best locations in the world for entertainment and weather.
Job hunting? World at your finger-tips? Give one of these locations a try to boost your potential career satisfaction.
Australian real estate agent Open2View have launched a QR code property service.
QR Codes were first introduced in Japan in 1994, where the QR stands for “Quick Response” and the creator intended the code to allow its contents to be decoded at a high speed. They are now used in both commercial and convenience-oriented applications aimed at mobile phone users (known as mobile tagging). The codes store addresses and URLs and can appear in a range of multimedia such as magazines, signs, buses, business cards and more. Several online applications exist where you can create your own QR codes, such as Kaywa’s QR Code Generator.
Check out the video below to see how Open2View are using QR codes in Real Estate:
If you’re not on Twitter, the micro blogging service, then this could be a reason to jump on board.
Why I hear you ask, well an £800,000 house featured on the TV show Grand Designs is being given away for free.
The premise is that the ultra modern house will be given away if a web site linked to the Twitter profile fills up with enough paid for adverts to meet the asking price.
You may recall the Million Dollar website created by a student who made a fortune when advertisers bought squares on a giant grid, well homeowner Tim Bawtree hopes this will be the next big thing.
All YOU have to do is follow @Pixahome to have a chance of winning.
The house appeared on the TV show in 2007 and Tim has not been able to sell it without a loss since.
A Twitter page is free to sign up for, just visit http://twitter.com
Imagine the scene: you’ve just woken from a peaceful sleep to hear the washing of the waves on the shore. You move to the door, and when you open it to find the beach and the sea spread out in front of you. You’re in a beach house on the coast, and you’re looking at one of the most beautiful scenes you’ve ever seen.
Where are you? You could be in any number of places in the world, such as Florida for example. There are many beach houses for sale in Florida with views of the sea that would leave most people lost for words.
Equally you could look down under as there are also houses for sale in Australia that can be found right on the beachfront, perfect for those early morning ‘barbies’.
Of course you don’t have to go as far afield as Florida or Australia as there are beachfront properties to be found in Europe as well. You can find property for sale in France that has views of the sea, especially in the South of France in the heart of wine country.
If France isn’t to your liking you might like to search for property for sale in Spain in one of the country’s many beachfront towns. Spain is rich with culture as well as sun. If it’s ancient history and buildings that interest you then looking for property for sale in Cyprus could be just what you’re after.
So, Big Brother is back on our screens, sigh? A Playboy model, a bisexual Russian boxer and an Oxford University graduate are amongst the 16 hopefuls.
To be honest, I don’t think I will be watching it much, but the house they are living in definitely deserves a mention. The show’s producers have cut down on some of the luxury furnishings of previous years - there’s no hot tub! for the time being anyway! A big thumbs up from me though, I love the design of the new Big Brother house.
Knight Frank’s Global House Price Index for 2009’s Q1 is now live on their website. You can view the full list of property prices on their website.
Key Highlights:
- Global housing markets continue to struggle against a backcloth of economic stagnation or decline and rising unemployment
- Isreal was the top performer over the 12 month period ending Q1 2009 recording growth of 10.9%, followed by the Czech Republic at 9.9%. The worst performers were Dubai and Singapore who recorded falls in average prices of 32% and 23% respectively
- On a quarterly basis, the most dramatic fall in prices were recorded by Dubai (-40%) and Singapore (-16.2%). The best performing markets were Jersey with a 5.6% uplift in values and Finland (+4)
- Of the sources used in this index, 14 (equating to 30% of the total index) had not reported Q1 data at the time of writing this report
- The shorter term economic outlook suggests that the world’s housing markets are likely to continue to suffer for the remainder of 2009
Summary:
Nick Barnes, head of residential research at Knight Frank UK, has emphasised that the world’s housing market remains under intense pressure with little evidence of improvement. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) have forecast GDP growth to drop by 4.3% throughout 2009 with unemployment doubling for the first time since the 1990s in 2010. Buyer demand therefore remains low and sellers’ opportunities are greatly reduced affecting the volume and value of transactions.
How they rank:
Isreal was the top performer over the 12 month period ending Q1 2009 recording growth of 10.9%, followed by the Czech Republic at 9.9%. The better performing property markets tend to be smaller and with fewer structural imbalances. The worst performers were Dubai and Singapore who recorded a fall in average prices over the period with 32% and 23% falls respectively. A further five countries also returned double digit declines.
On a quarterly basis, 48% of the countries from whom we received Q1 data reported a drop in prices compared to 88% in the Global House Price Index of the last quarter of 2008. On an annual basis, 48% of countries also showed a fall in values compared to 77% in Q4. The latest data suggests some easing in the plight of markets but, given that 14 countries did not return results, no solid conclusions can be made. It does however seems the residential markets are likely to continue suffering for some time.
Recent reports have raised starting news for elderly home owners. According to a report conducted by Property Finder, pensioners have seen an average f £52,000 wiped off the values of their homes. The soul cause of this being the handed out by the credit crunch.
The report found that even though pensioners make up less than a sixth of the population, theydo in fact own a third of the country’s property by value. The slump in the hosing market has therefore contributed to the financial insecurity felt by pensioners across the UK .
Many elderly homeowners constantly rely on their homes to fund their retirement and choice of care homes when the time becomes necessary. However with the seamlessly constant fall in house prices, many pensioners may now face the possibility of poverty in heir old age rather than prosperity.
Hosing analysts have gauged house prices to have fallen by 21 per cent form their peak times, further yet, many city analysts have predicted the slump in prices could increase up to a miserable 55 per cent.
Much focus needs to be placed on securing futures of pensioners and safe guarding the values of their house, which they depend on for their future
Q. Tell us briefly about Zoopla.co.uk and how it got started. Zoopla.co.uk is the UK’s most comprehensive source of residential property market information and we provide users with data and tools to help them make better-informed property decisions. Our aim is to transform the market by empowering consumers with a single destination to serve all their property needs and to help property professionals reach a broader audience at a lower cost.
We launched the business because we felt that the property market could benefit far more from the web’s ability to deliver transparency and efficiency. By providing FREE value estimates for EVERY UK home, sold house prices and local information as well as hundreds of thousands of properties for sale and to rent, Zoopla.co.uk is fast-becoming the ultimate destination for users to both search for property and to do their market research.
Q. What makes Zoopla.co.uk different? Zoopla.co.uk is unique in that we combine traditional property search (homes for sale and to rent) with all the information that users need to research the market. Unlike other property websites that focus only on the 4% of homes currently for sale/to rent, we provide users with information and tools on ALL 26 million UK homes. We are the UK’s fastest growing property website and most active property community, with over a million user contributions to our website in the past 12 months alone. We also offer unique features, like TemptMe!™ and AskMe!™, which allow consumers to gain an insight into the market and discover information they won’t find anywhere else.
We also have developed a unique proposition for property professionals whereby we only charge estate agents for leads we deliver to them, aligning our interests with theirs. Due to the nature of our user base, broader appeal of the services we offer and scale of our audience, we are well placed to provide agents with both buyer leads and much sought-after vendor leads at a fraction of the cost of some of their other marketing channels, helping them save significant marketing costs and eliminate risk in these difficult times.
Q. What are the main technical challenges of Zoopla.co.uk? The main technical challenges relate to the volume of data we are processing daily and the high level of sophistication within our valuation algorithm. Our value estimates are calculated using a proprietary algorithm that we have developed by analysing millions of data points relating to property sales and home characteristics throughout the UK. The algorithm works by comparing relationships between home prices, economic trends and property attributes in micro geographic areas. Our estimates are constantly refined, using the most recent data available and a variety of statistical methodologies, in order to provide the most current information on any home.
We use Amazon’s EC2 Cloud Server technology to help us achieve this affordably – see recent case study
Q. What is your opinion on the current financial crisis? What are the main patterns you’ve seen change on Zoopla.co.uk? The current climate makes our services all the more relevant for both consumers and property professionals. From the consumer perspective, the thirst for data around house prices is stronger than ever – driven more recently by fear than by the exuberance of the prior few years – so in this respect we are seeing users return to the website more frequently to look at the values of their homes and others. Estate agents are also faced with tough decisions in the current market particularly around how and where they can save costs and our pay-for-performance model is being extremely well-received by agents who no longer wish to pay fixed fees to advertise properties that may or may not generate any enquiries for them.
Q. What type of community are you trying to develop at Zoopla.co.uk?
Zoopla.co.uk is all about leveraging community content to drive market transparency and efficiency. We encourage users to share information about homes and neighbourhoods on Zoopla.co.uk by uploading photos, asking questions and sharing knowledge with other users, making offers on dream homes not on the market, letting other users know the ‘dream price’ that you might be willing to consider for your home and more…
The continued improvement in the accuracy of our valuation algorithm also relies on user- generated content as we can combine data from our users together with data in the public domain to have the most complete picture of individual properties and neighbourhoods.
Q. What are your main influences and sites you enjoy using?
We are following developments in the property space in the US closely, particularly sites like Zillow and Trulia. Google is a clear influence on our monetisation model and we are firm believers in making information free and easily accessible to consumers and charging professionals for targeted leads that allow them to generate business. And of course the social aspect of Twitter is really interesting and we already have around 1000 followers.
Q. Are there any chances for Zoopla.co.uk to reach out to programmers who may wish to use the data for their own applications? Yes, we are currently developing an open API and expect to have it ready within the next 2-3 months and are really excited about the launch of this and seeing the creative ideas that developers will come up with for our data and tools.
Q. What are Zoopla’s goals for 2009? Our main goals are to continue to grow our user base and enrich the data we provide as we continue to develop the UK’s ultimate property market resource. We also aim to become the marketing partner of choice for the majority of UK estate agents and our goal is to continue to deliver maximum value to them and minimum cost and risk. .
Editor: Guest post from 1st-for-french-property.co.uk
France is still one of the most popular locations for a french property whether it be a re-location, holiday home or investment property. The euro currency may be strong but the French lifestyle, landscapes, weather and gastronomy remain a strong pull for foreigners and the love affair with France continues in 2009.
So two big considerations are “Where to look” and “What type of property”? France is a very big country where weather and landscapes vary enormously. Are you looking for a new property or renovation?
What to consider & Where to look For many people investing in a rental property in France, the south is a preferable option with its endless sunny days and long, sandy beaches attracting tourists from across the globe. Areas which are recommended are Languedoc-Roussillon, Normandy and Brittany which have hotspots where visitors head to all year round regardless of season.
Conversions Converting an old derelict barn into the perfect home is one of the most interesting challenges, and is guaranteed to test the limits of perseverance. On the other hand, French barns for renovation are plentiful, the lifestyle in France is more appealing, and with proper planning will provide a home for all the family not obtainable in the UK for the same price.
Buying the right property will make the renovation go so much more smoothly. Rebuilding a barn can be a difficult and time consuming process and if it has started to deteriorate from exposure to the elements then expect the cost of renovation to up considerably.
Farms
Many people dream of living on a French farm surrounded by land on which they can work, relax or graze animals.
And despite the strong emphasis which the French put on the importance of agriculture, there are still hundreds of French farms for sale, many of which are in disrepair and need work.
Ministers are said to be keen to try to recruit young farmers to take up some of these buildings including those from the UK and beyond.
France is divided up into regions and then each region is subdivided into departments. If you know where you want to buy then choose the department of interest. 1st for French Property has a list of all departments and describes each area to help narrow your search. List of departments and property by department: French Departments. Bonne Voyage!
We previously wrote about the impending Olympics and their effect on the house price market in south east London. Aside from this grand event and its effects on Shoreditch, other areas in and around London have recently sparked conversation regarding major development work and how they may affect house prices in those areas -
London’s new Crossrail:
The city’s long awaited £10 billion Crossrail link has been given the go-ahead. It will act as an extension to the existing DLR, providing faster and more efficient transport between areas in the all four North, South, East and West London.
Alongside several rail improvement plans between 2010 and 2013, the biggest winners in the property market will be locations where large infrastructure projects converge, or where transport links are limited at present. Knight Frank’s 2009 London residential review found that West Drayton, Hayes, Southall, Hanwell and several universities and business parks would be strongly affected. Stratford, already in demand from the Olympics will also continue to benefit from the completion of the Crossrail.
Westfield’s shopping centre:
In the past, flats and houses in Shepherds Bush’s have lagged behind such upmarket neighbours as Notting Hill and Chiswick. But Westfield, the newly built mega-mall of London has already begun extending long-term improvements to the neighbourhood. The developers have helped finance the refurbishment of Shepherds Bush Central Line Tube station, a new Hammersmith & City Line station (Wood Lane), a new over ground station and a face lift of Shepherds Bush green, a rundown common space. By providing some of the best transport links in London, moving there will become even more valuable in the current climate, where punctuality at the office is essential.
The recession/construction dilemma:
Peter Rogers, chief executive of the London Development Agency has stated prices will rocket unless construction continues at a steady rate throughout the economic downturn because of pent-up demand.
50,000 affordable homes were promised by London’s Mayor Boris Johnson last year, but construction has been abandoned. The LDA are pushing for private ownership through equity release schemes while trying to promote development. These 2 factors are important in kick-starting the construction industry so that demand won’t exceed supply when the economy stabilises.
Thoughts?
There are many in the current climate that would be happy to hear of rising property values, as many homeowners are desperate for the market to recover so that they could re-coup their investments. However, this news will undoubtedly cause worry to a lot of prospective first-time buyers, who may be keen to capitalise on low lending rates and cheaper properties. So which camp do you belong to? Have these projects affected prices in your area? Chime in below and let us know your thoughts.
