UK house price growth slumps to five-year low in October November 1, 2018 House prices grew at their slowest annual rate for five years in October, Nationwide data revealed today. House price growth slumped to 1.6 per cent last month, with prices flat month on month as the latest figures paint a miserable picture for housing activity across the UK. October’s 1.6 per cent growth rate fell from [...]
Online estate agent Emoov on the hunt for big ticket buyers October 31, 2018 Despite only completing a merger process in May, online estate agent Emoov has put itself up for sale amid signs of a squeeze on its pursestrings. Emoov merged with fellow online agencies Tepilo and Urban earlier this year, which resulted in former Daily Express owner Richard Desmond taking a significant minority stake in the new [...]
Central London house prices set for sharp upturn on Brexit deal October 31, 2018 Central London’s waning high-end property market could be set for a resurgence over the next five years, with a new report forecasting that prime house prices could rocket by more than 15 per cent if an expected bounce in confidence returns to the capital. Despite stamp duty changes and political volatility causing a slowdown in [...]
Hammond has taken the first tentative steps towards fixing the housing crisis October 31, 2018 How do you solve the housing crisis in a single Budget? You can’t, of course – not with Brexit looming and a Prime Minister demanding that you both signal the end of austerity and reduce the UK’s national debt at the same time. But housing policy is the one single issue that personally and radically [...]
Will Hammond’s Autumn Budget help the government hit its target of delivering 300,000 new homes a year? October 30, 2018 Buoyed with revised forecasts from the OBR, the chancellor certainly had more wiggle room on Budget day than many expected, but there are questions over how his Despatch Box announcements will impact on the delivery of much needed new housing. An extension (albeit a temporary one) of Help to Buy and the roll-out of backdated [...]
Help to Buy extended to 2023 for first time buyers: Industry reacts October 29, 2018 The fate of the government’s Help to Buy scheme was cleared up this afternoon after the chancellor said that he would be extending a revised version of the policy until 2023, but for first-time buyers only. From April 2021 the scope of Downing Street's flagship housing policy will be narrowed down, with only first-time buyers [...]
Property in the Budget: First-time buyers to benefit from shared ownership stamp duty relief as Help to Buy extended October 29, 2018 The Chancellor unveiled a raft of new property measures today, including a further £500m for the housing infrastructure fund and stamp duty relief for first-time buyers that is extended to shared ownership homes worth up to £500,000. The government will also extend a revised version of its Help to Buy scheme until 2023, but for first-time [...]
UK’s biggest care home provider Four Seasons Health Care to be sold October 29, 2018 Four Seasons Health Care has been put up for sale in a bid to pay off debt owed to US hedge fund controllers H/2 Capital Partners. H/2 effectively controls the UK’s largest care home company, which is still owned by private equity veteran Guy Hands’ Terra Firma. Four Seasons’ parent company Elli Investments notified the [...]
Interiors: London’s newest retail and design hub Coal Drops Yard is now open in a revamped King’s Cross October 29, 2018 Dressed in high-vis, I stood in the autumn sunshine in King’s Cross for my sneak peak of the newest district to open within its regeneration project – Coal Drops Yard, which opens today. While I waited for my tour, I was diverted by a hording plastered with covers of The Face from 1991 – magazines [...]
Opinion: When is the best time to extend the lease on my flat? October 29, 2018 This month commemorates the 10th anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers investment bank and the start of the worst crisis in the international financial system since the Great Depression. I bring this up because, after 10 years of austerity, you’d have thought that property prices in London would have taken a battering, but it [...]