PROPERTY NEWS July 15, 2010 BISHOPS AVE SITE SOLD FOR £30M One of London’s best development opportunities in Hampstead’s Bishops Avenue has sold for more than £30m. The 2.47 acre site has two planning consents in place – either for a house of 33,000 sq ft or for a block of 16 luxury apartments. This indicates the competition and rising [...]
LETTING July 15, 2010 CEO OF ONLINE LETTINGS AGENT UPAD.CO.UK Q.I have three properties which I let to tenants on Local Housing Allowance. How do I find out if the new rates of housing benefit will cover their rent? If they don’t, what do I do? A.The new rates announced by the chancellor in the Budget won’t come into [...]
The ascent of prime London’s new hotspot July 15, 2010 FITZROVIA, the area around the BT Tower, bordered by Oxford Street, Tottenham Court Road, Great Portland Street and Euston Road, should be Londoners’ idea of property heaven. The West End is on your doorstep, as is Regent’s Park. The ever-more exciting restaurant and bar scene of Goodge and Charlotte Streets, and the more established prettiness [...]
Don’t let your prime real estate abroad stand idle while you slave away at work July 15, 2010 WITH global growth likely to be sluggish in the coming years, it might seem like a poor time to invest in a holiday home. But with a clear strategy for renting out the place when you’re not in residence, it is easily possible to make back the cost of maintenance and to generate a little [...]
FOCUS ON: RENTING OUT YOUR HOLIDAY HOME July 15, 2010 SUNSET VILLA, MYKONOS, GREECE Price: €2.2m This clean, white villa in the town of Mykonos has five bedrooms, six bathrooms and a wide terrace overlooking its large swimming pool. It is available fully-furnished and boasts a beautiful sunset view over the Aegean sea. The popular town of Mykonos is easily accessible with its active nightlife. [...]
GOING FULL-TIME July 15, 2010 FOR most Brits with second homes abroad, renting out the place will only generate supplementary income while you slave away in the office. But for Tim Forster, a former navy officer, holiday tenants became his main source of income when he and his wife moved permanently to the village of Uzes in Provence in 2001 [...]
What to wear in the sea July 15, 2010 If you’re heading for the beach this summer, it doesn’t mean you have to look like a beach bum when you’re there. Those vast, baggy board shorts in garish patterns might be fine for a teenager but look perfectly ridiculous on grown men. If you’ve got the body for them, square-cut trunks are the way [...]
WATCHES WITH ELEGANCE, SIMPLICITY AND HISTORY July 15, 2010 IWC PORTUGUESE YACHT CLUB CHRONOGRAPH Perhaps now more than ever, clarity, simplicity and elegance are virtues in the world of watches. The chunky, look-at-me styles of the recent past have lost out to a cleaner, more sober aesthetic. Which is where IWC Schafhfausen comes in – if tastes have shifted, they’ve shifted to ground IWC [...]
Retro styles and honey tones for stylish specs July 15, 2010 RETRO is a big theme in fashionable glasses at the moment as well as in swimming trunks. Like so much else, it’s partly to do with the influence that Mad Men has had on men’s style, with thick rimmed, rounded glasses having a resurgence in both normal glasses and shades. One particular theme to emerge [...]
A thriller that’s a dream to behold July 15, 2010 Film INCEPTION Cert: 12A Timothy Barber AFTER a few years spent making Batman films, British director Christopher Nolan has returned with such an audacious mixing of sci-fi, film noir and heist movie elements that one easily puts aside the fact that its premise is utterly, completely nuts. Leonardo DiCaprio is a specialist at invading people’s [...]