West End landlords Shaftesbury and Capco eye £3.5bn merger May 7, 2022 Two major London property firms are in talks about a £3.5bn merger to create an extensive real estate empire in London's West End.
Post-pandemic rental yields climbing with SE17, NW3 and E7 leading: ‘Naive to think renters would reject London’ May 7, 2022 London rental yields are still on the rise after a temporary pandemic slump, with southern areas providing particularly strong opportunities for buy-to-let landlords. While much of the nation’s property market enjoyed a boom during the pandemic, London’s market was hit by a dip in demand as people prioritised green, open space over urban living. This, [...]
Thanks, Bank of England: Households will pay £858m more in interest after yesterday’s rate rise May 6, 2022 With the Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee confirming yesterday that its base rate will rise by 0.25 per cent to 1 per cent, UK households face an immediate increase in interest payments of around £858m. Analysis of Bank of England data shows UK households are currently paying £18.3bn annually in interest payments on floating rate [...]
House prices inch higher to £286,079 as steamroll slows May 6, 2022 House prices have inched higher to an average of £286,079, another new record high – though spiralling prices are beginning to slow. The average price of a home climbed 1.1 per cent since April, but has risen 10.8 per cent year-on-year. While prices appear to have slowed in their steamroll, costs have grown for the [...]
Barratt boss hits out at government’s ‘deeply unfair’ levy to fix cladding crisis May 5, 2022 The boss of one of the UK’s largest property developers has today hit out against the government for its “deeply unfair” levy on housebuilders to solve the cladding crisis. London-listed Barratt Developments has set aside £480m to fix the cladding on buildings it built above 11 metres, however it is expecting to pay another £400m [...]
Canadian investment group bets on London for sparkly European HQ May 5, 2022 Canadian investment group CDPQ has bet on London for its European headquarters, in a decade-long vote of confidence in the capital. CDPQ, also known as Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, passed up on a Parisian HQ – unlike those at crypto platform Binance. The glittering lights of Carnaby and Soho have caught the [...]
Derwent London throws £240m at Moorfields healthcare site May 5, 2022 Derwent London has thrown nearly £240m towards buying a hospital and research centre site, as the capital’s healthcare and pharmaceutical real estate space catches the eyes of investors. The commercial developer has bought the City Road Island site, the location of the Moorfields Eye Hospital and the UCL Institute of Ophthalmology, after the pandemic highlighted [...]
Today’s interest rate hike may hit mortgage holders hard, warns IFS director ahead of BoE announcement May 5, 2022 Paul Johnson, director of the Institute For Fiscal Studies, warned this morning of the impact on people’s mortgages of an expected interest rates hike by the Bank of England on Thursday. “We are still at historically staggeringly low levels of interest rates,” he told Radio 4’s Today programme. “So you look at it that way [...]
UK mortgage debt swells to £7bn as interest rates rise May 4, 2022 Mortgage debt swelled in March, according to Bank of England data, with net borrowing climbing from £4.6bn to £7bn in March as interest rates rise. House purchase mortgage approvals slipped to 70.7k in March from 71.0k in February, slightly ahead of consensus but moving towards their 2015 to 2019 average of 66.5k – which analysts [...]
7 in 10 first-time buyers forced to delay property purchase as cost of living crisis drains home seekers’ wallets May 4, 2022 A staggering 70 per cent of potential first-time buyers looking to buy in the next year or two have decided to delay their purchases as rising living costs hit their ability to save, according to a survey. Nearly nine in 10 said their ability to save for a deposit has been affected by the rising [...]