Christmas Lights on Oxford Circus

It’s that time of year again. As soon as halloween is out of the way Christmas rears it’s glittery head and suddenly everywhere is inundated with festive decorations. This time of year brings up extra considerations that we don’t have to contend with through the rest of the year, such as more pedestrians and traffic on the streets slowing down our progress. That doesn’t stop us from doing removals, especially in the city and on the high street; we just find a way to work around it.

We are currently working on a project with Save the Children to set up a stock collection system as part of the removal service. We are hoping to extend this to all reputable removal companies across the country via a new web service.

The Charity relies on stock for their shops. They estimate that one sack is worth

Our exciting project, a storybook about moving home to colour in, is really coming together. We have produced a beautiful, heart-warming story about moving home, for children to colour in. We’re hoping to publish the book and sell it through Amazon and the Save the Children shops amongst others.

All the profits will be donated to Save the Children, and it certainly is a first for a removal company. This is just one of our many exciting projects we have coming up. This is all part of our bid to change the face of the removals industry and raise the perceptions and profile.

Tradtionally the month of August, and especially the Bank Holiday weekend have alwasy been the busiest time of the year for people moving house. Moving in and around London can often prove difficult especially if the job is in the vicinity of the Nottinghill Carnival. Families and couples will take advantage of the long weekend to get moved and sorted before going back to work and school.

This weekend is proving to be particularly busy with Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday all fully booked and the last minute enquiries keep coming in.

Another side of our business that we don’t often boast about. On my most removals, there is always items to get rid of as the family moving home, takes the opportunity to have a good clear out.

Andrew collects everything up and once a month does a charity boot fair. Mainly because it’s his hobby and he actually enjoys car boot sales but also because it’s a crying shame to take these items to the tip. These days its all about recyling and not land fill.

Our boot fairs are a great success and the Amber Moves van is eagerly awaited for by the regulars! On average we manage to raise between

When last did you come across a removal company running a regular competition with a fab prize? As part of our strategy to give back to our clients, we hope every newsletter reader will enter our simple competition, with a chance of winning of course!

Don’t forget to enter our on-line competition. The prize is

The headlines in The Times, 31 July say “Unthinkable, but true, house prices rise yet again”.

How quickly the tide turns only 4-5 months ago, they were saying the market would take at least a year to recover. This was the worst recession in history, negative equity would exceed the peeks reached in the early 90′s and so on.

Let’s focus on the positive though, and enjoy the upsurge. This is mainly because there will alwasy be a shortage of properties which will drive prices up. We will soon be approaching Autumn which is a quieter time for home sales but equally there is such a backlog of people who put their moves on hold over the last 18 months, hopefully one will counteract the other.

The bonus of course, is that we are a London-based removal company, so are best place to enjoy any economic upsurge. Further North demand is less robust.

As part of our plan to revolutionise the moving industry we are putting together a survey, asking anyone who has moved, or is planning a move, their thoughts and experiences on the moving process.

Use this area of the blog to post your suggestions for our survey.

PFM, the Premises and Facilites magazine, has published the results of the 2009 Moving Trends Survey. The results of the survey were first presented in Brussels at the BAR conference. Despite tough economic conditions, the survey shows that right now there is a window of opportunity for the commercial relocation contractor. Many of the respondents said they were looking to relocate employees in fewer buildings as they consolidate their property portfolio. Over 50% are actively planning a move – and of these 73% will be relocating employees in the next 6 months.

We were very excited to launch the inaugural issue of Amber News, our quarterly newsletter. Filled with stories on moves we have done, projects we have coming up and a fantastic competition.

The newsletter has been mailed out to 1500 clients and will continue to go out to all our new contacts. The competition is an on-line one, to incentivise people to visit our website but we felt that a lovely, shiny piece of paper filled with news is far better read leisurely over a coffee than as an email. We will watch and monitor and welcome your feedback to see whether you prefer on-line or paper.

We are already working on the autumn issue so please get in touch with us if you would like to be featured in our newsletter.

This is just the beginning of our marketing campaigns and the re-branding of Amber Moves, so watch this space!

Yesterday we offered our service to help transport donations from the Grazia office to Westfields shopping centre. Amber Moves supports the campaign which is in aid of Save the Children and aims to tranform the face of charity shopping. The idea is don’t dump – donate! No more dropping off bin liners full of clothes that can’t be sold, but donate something of value that can be sold on. The concept incorporates neutral shopping – everytime you buy something new, clear out your wardrobe and donate something you no longer need.

A recent article in FM World reports:

Prime rents in London will fall by a quarter this year, faster than anywhere else in Western Europe, if the latest forecasts prove correct.

The Investment Property Forum’s European Consensus Forecast anticipates a fall of 26.6 per cent in West End rents and 22.7 per cent in the City of London. The IPF Consensus Forecast collates predictions from a number of different property analysts to provide aggregate forecasts for the current year and the next four years.

All 29 European centres covered are expected to decline in 2009, but only Moscow (-30.8 per cent) is expected to see a steeper decline than London. A number of other centres have forecast falls in single figures including Vienna (-7.0 per cent), Berlin (-7.9 per cent) and Amsterdam (-8.8 per cent).

The long-term picture is also bleak. All 29 centres are expected to decline again in 2010, with London continuing to show some of the sharpest falls. Prime City of London rents are expected to drop by 12.1 per cent and West End rents by 10.4 per cent. The report states:

Lets hope so, that way the housing market can get moving again. All the signs are there to show that there are definately green shoots in the market. Removal enquiries are on the up which I believe is a sign that everyone believes house prices have bottomed out and now the only way is up.

Clients who had planned to move last year have resurrected their sales and are now moving in the next month. Particularly in London there has always been a shortage of good size family homes, and supply and demand will always drive prices up.

Another factor brought about by the recession is the falling number of children attending private schools. Parents who are cutting back on school fees will now look to move to areas with good state schooling as an alternative.

Amber Moves, London’s premier removal company, are well placed and ready for the upturn. We’ve survived the recession and are in fact bigger and stronger as a result.

We look forward to moving homes across London throughout the summer and beyond.

As the quiet patch that is easter and half term draws to a close we have noticed a decided upturn in removal enquiries – especially for those moving house. We already have a number of large house moves booked in for May and the enquiries are coming in at the same rate they used to before the words “credit crunch” became commonplace.

This is very positive news for removals and may it be the start of the upturn. The general consensus seems to be that the housing market has reached rock bottom and the only way things can then move is up. Traditionally the summer has always been the busiest period for removals and with the backlog of people wanting to move, could it be we’re in for a bumper summer?

It is fair to say, we are London based, and London will always be best placed to recover first and there is certainly more money flowirng through the system. Housing in London will always be at a premium and it follows good removal companies will always have moving customers.

As always, even before the credit crunch, price is important and our rates reflect the state of the economy but we haven’t reduced our rates to a level where the job is done at a loss or breakeven, unlike some competitors, and we haven’t reduced the high level of service we offer including all the standards one would expect from a professional removal company. We still have all our insurances, an up to date fleet of removal vehicles, a crew of full time salaried employees and state of the art equipment.

Here’s hoping that these really are “green shoots” we are seeing in the removals industry and that the good companies that survived the recession are well placed to reap the rewards and get moving again.

At Amber Moves, we have noticed a trend in office moves and it seems more offices are moving into prime areas such as Canary Wharf, The City and the West End. A report by NB Real Estate and Oncor International have confirmed why this is such – the City of London is no longer in the top three of a league table showing the most expensive office locations in London.

The West End of London has seen the steepest fall in rents, with almost half wiped of its rental values. This is good news in all for London. London office rents had been viewed as pretty pricey but they are now much more competitive and the collapse in Sterling versus the Euro has helped the process along. As confidence comes back offices will need to make decisions on where to locate new operations and account for corporate team building facilities, meaning London’s cheaper real estate costs should now work in London businesses favour.

What does all this mean for Amber Moves? The time and investment we have put in to increasing our share of the corporate relocation market should pay off. Our membership of the British Institute of Facilities Managers also raises our standing within the industry and it is safe to assume, that there may be a bumper crop of London office moves to look forward to in the coming months.