Demand for Rental Properties creates Bidding Wars
The only thing worse than being gazumped on a home you want to buy is being gazumped on a home you need to rent. Bidding wars may be commonplace in Britain’s frenzied sales market, but they are becoming the norm in lettings too.
The post-pandemic landscape has changed. Landlords are selling to make the most of record house prices or they have pivoted to letting their properties on a short-term basis on platforms such as Airbnb to escape taxes, regulations and make money out of the staycation boom. The result? Fewer properties available to let long-term and tenants are having to outbid each other on the monthly rent to find a place to live.
Social media is full of tales of rental heartbreak. Tracey Pearce(@elementalturtle) wrote on Twitter how she lost out on an £1,800-a-month house for which she had bid £2,000 a month after it went to a tenant who made an even higher offer. She wrote: “We were facing homelessness with four kids as our current landlord had sold our rental but the letting agent thought it was a game and got angry when I cried.”
Another Tweeter, B (@BeeSansMerci), wrote: “We put in an application on a house, landlord picked us, we were on our way to estate agents to sign and put down the deposit and in that time one of the rejected applicants offered an extra £50 a month and the estate agent gave it to them instead. Cried for days.”
There are stories of letting agents telling tenants not to bother applying unless their salary is 40 times the rent. Tenants say that letting agents have even led group viewings that ended with a bidding war in the garden.
Imogen Tew, 25, has rented in London for seven years, but she was first asked to make an offer for rent in June 2020 after the first national lockdown when she was looking to move in with her boyfriend. Tew was outbid on one property in Blackheath, southeast London, and another went to a tenant who could move in quickly, so she realised that she had to up her game.
A Level Results Day with a Difference for the Second Year Running
Today was A Level Results Day and for the second year running, exams were not how grades were decided, instead it was through the process of “Replacement Grades” that dictated the outcome for all A Level students across the UK.
Statistics showed that top grades for A-level results for England, Wales and Northern Ireland reached a record high - with 44.8% getting A* or A grades, and in Scotland the grades were slightly higher than the pre-pandemic levels. And whilst the method of “testing” may have been distinctly different pre-Covid, students have been put through their paces with constant testing. Simon Lebus, interim chairman of the exams watchdog, Ofqual, said: "We've always said outcomes from this year were likely to be different," said but he assured students they had been "fairly treated" and grades, based on teachers' judgements, could be trusted.
Whatever the challenges are for students moving from A Levels to University, it is obvious that there is no possible way to compare the last 2 years to any other.
The cohort of students will never have sat an exam in the traditional way and may have spent a great deal of time navigating their studies via Teams and Zoom; they will have developed a skill set that may be quite alien to those who studied A Levels pre-Covid. Being self sufficient and making sure that they were able to meet set deadlines without a teacher breathing down their necks. And whilst their parents, guardians and carers may have been working from home, they too would have to adapt from the transition from school to home and back again, ensuring that they understood the requirements of Covid Protocols.
Young People, Work & Skills.
In a world of social disparities, where education has been severely disrupted by COVID-19 and the spectre of climate change looms, young people could be forgiven for being pessimistic about their futures. However, our new poll shows high levels of optimism about the chance of having the career they want. Young people know the challenges, but are confident they can overcome them.
Conducted through UNICEF’s U-report platform – a messaging tool that empowers young people to speak out on issues that matter to them – the poll found that 63% of the almost 11,000 youth across 136 countries who took the survey believe it is likely they will have the career they want in the future.
So why are many young people so positive? And what would the almost two in five young people who are pessimistic like to see to help them achieve their potential? On World Youth Skills Day, we spoke with a small group of youth to help understand what is driving this optimism and what challenges they are worried about. Here is what we learned from them.
Building resilience and adaptability through the pandemic
I wish life was a game which came with instructions, but unfortunately we don’t have that roadmap that can tell us exactly what we should do to get to where we want to be.
—Praise Majwafi, 22, South Africa
A topic we talked about was the impact of the pandemic on young people. Participants agreed that because the past year has been so challenging, it has taught them to manage through uncertainty.
“The pandemic has given us a crash-course in resilience and adaptability,” said 23-year old Sana Farooq, the co-founder of a social enterprise in Pakistan called The Red Code.
“Being flexible and adaptable is something we’ve all had to get used to,” added 22-year old Praise Majwafi, a social entrepreneur from South Africa.
The Motivation, Dedication and Determination of an Olympian
Tokyo 2020 - Came and then quickly disappeared. Tokyo 2.0 arrived, materialised and here we are into week two.
Whilst the word elite conjures up many thoughts and misconceptions, to be awarded the honour of being an Elite Athlete, you must work tremendously hard to get to that position. Many GB athletes secured their spot 2 years ago and the pandemic meant their training regime was tipped upside down. Of course, team GB provides the best support available, however, focus an athlete has starts and ends with the individual. So how do you stay motivated? What keeps the moment going? Remember that even elite athletes were in lockdown, and they would have faced uncertainty about their imminent future.
Determination and the sheer conviction that you have achieved a possible once in a lifetime opportunity and giving up is not an option because this is your life-long work. During the first lockdown we saw so many examples of team GB athletes training in their gardens, homes, garages, because their bodies are finely tuned machines and like the most precious of machines, needed to be maintained and taken care of. They couldn’t just stop.