Housebuilder Berkeley Group boosts full-year profit guidance December 7, 2018 Housebuilder Berkeley Group has increased its pre-tax profit guidance for the current financial year by more than five per cent, it said today. This comes despite its results for the first half of the year showing its pre-tax profit fell by a quarter compared to the same period last year, dropping from £539.9m to £401.2m. [...]
Housebuilders lead the FTSE risers as no-deal Brexit risk fades December 5, 2018 Britain's largest housebuilders saw the value of their shares jump this afternoon as the prospect of a no-deal Brexit began to recede. Property heavyweights such as Berkeley Group, Persimmon and Redrow were among the top 10 FTSE risers today as a frantic 24 hours of political tussling in Westminster fuelled the possibility of a “softer” Brexit [...]
Six-bedroom Mayfair mansion snapped up for £39m December 3, 2018 A Grade-II listed mansion in Mayfair has been bought for £39m. According to documents filed with the land registry it was acquired by a British Virgin Islands-registered company for £38.8m at the start of November. Fees and stamp duty mean the total cost of the house will be closer to £45m. The six-bedroom house has a [...]
Asian investors put stamp on London skyline with massive trophy deals December 3, 2018 LONDON’S most valuable buildings are being dominated by Asian investors, who have grabbed half of all £1bn-plus property deals over the last five years, it has been revealed. Of the ten London properties which sold for more than £1bn since 2013, investors from Hong Kong snapped up three, including the Walkie Talkie and UBS’s Liverpool [...]
Scrap stamp duty for pensioners to free up homes for youngsters, says thinktank December 3, 2018 A UK thinktank has called for the government to scrap stamp duty for pensioners to encourage downsizing and free up homes for younger families. Policy Exchange’s new report reveals that 1.1m homes in England with two or more spare bedrooms are lived in by a single person aged over 65. The report says the lower stamp [...]
Orchard Street snaps up £55m building in Soho’s filmland December 3, 2018 Property investment firm Orchard Street has snapped up a £55m Soho building home to a British film production company. The office space in the property at 141 Wardour Street is fully let to Moving Picture Company, while retail space on the ground and basement floors is home to Princi, an Italian restaurant and bakery part-owned [...]
Zoopla founder Alex Chesterman drives away with £30m funding for used car startup December 2, 2018 Zoopla founder Alex Chesterman wants to cut out the awkward tyre-kicking from buying a used car with a new startup. Chesterman, who sold Zoopla for £2.2bn earlier this year, said Cazoo aimed to make buying a car “no different to buying any other product online today”. The entrepreneur, who will serve as Cazoo’s CEO, has [...]
Focus On Acton: This once ‘unloved’ part of west London is transforming thanks to the imminent arrival of Crossrail November 30, 2018 For some places in London, the housing market is a complicated beast; riding high in some streets, but not in others; a tale of two postcodes; a slow-burning demographic change subtly altering the character of an area; the promise of new transport links. In Acton, it’s more straight-forward; it was once an unloved pocket of [...]
The former Stasi headquarters in Berlin has turned into luxury flats – but will it ever really get over its murky past? November 30, 2018 After the headquarters of the East German Secret Police was stormed in 1990, the building it was housed in has understandably struggled to find a place in modern, vibrant Berlin. But now it’s been renamed 2052 Industrie Lofts and turned into luxurious apartments that boast some of the largest outside terraces in the German capital, [...]
Interiors: Don’t put up your tree this weekend without first checking out the best designer efforts in London’s luxury hotels November 30, 2018 As December gets under way, London has lit up and is ready to party with yuletide cocktails aplenty. For visiting family, I planned half a dozen pitstops around the capital to show off the best of our installations – venues that ramp up the festive atmosphere without being naff. It’s the Tipples ‘n’ Trees tour [...]