Help solve the housing crisis by leaving your house to your grandchildren, urges housing minister October 10, 2016 Housing minister Gavin Barwell has said parents should leave their property and money to their grandchildren instead of their children. Speaking at a fringe meeting at the Conservative party conference, Barwell said his mother will be leaving her £700,000 Croydon home to her grandchildren rather than him and his brother. Barwell said such generosity from grandparents [...]
Knight Frank reports 20 per cent drop in exchanges since the EU referendum October 10, 2016 Estate agent Knight Frank said today it experienced a 20 per cent fall in the number of exchanges on its high-end UK houses since the EU referendum. In its results for the year, Knight Frank reported profit before tax fell by 4.7 per cent, from £160.1m last year to £152.6m this year. Turnover increased four per cent [...]
Knight Frank’s chairman calls for a reversal of changes to stamp duty tax October 10, 2016 Chairman of the estate agents Knight Frank has called on the UK government to reverse changes to stamp duty taxes. Former Chancellor George Osborne increased the rate of stamp duty of second homes, a change that came into effect at the beginning of April, leading many buy to let landlords to flee the property market. [...]
These are the 10 most and least affordable London boroughs for buyers on an average annual wage October 8, 2016 London may have fallen out of the UK's top three regions for house price growth, but gaining a foothold on the capital's property ladder is still out of the range of many first-time buyers – and is unlikely to change anytime soon. The average London house price is 14 times higher than the average annual wage [...]
Focus On Earl’s Court: Around 7,500 new homes and a brand new high street coming to west London by 2033 October 7, 2016 Best known for its (closed) Exhibition Centre, Earl’s Court is not the sort of place you’d expect to attract million-pound investment. But it’s currently undergoing its biggest upheaval in over a century and this west London outpost is set to be a very different place in a couple of decades. The last huge change in [...]
Opinion: the Chancellor’s housing plans need to cater to everyone’s needs, including downsizers October 7, 2016 Earlier this week, the government announced two major housing initiatives; a £3bn Home Building Fund to help smaller developers enter the market, and a £2bn Accelerated Construction Programme, which aims to get houses built quickly on public land. There was no mention of extending Help to Buy mortgage guarantees (due to end soon) or of [...]
CEO of Johns & Co has just launched a custom furnishing business for busy – and overseas – landlords October 7, 2016 In this bustling metropolis of ours, some of us are landlords, some of us are renters and some of us are both. It’s complicated. Now both can benefit from an innovative new scheme that allows tenants to have input in how their flat looks, and lets landlords divorce themselves from the aesthetic side of things [...]
New homes on sale in London: from riverside homes in Woolwich to an old furniture factory in Hackney October 7, 2016 Royal Arsenal Riverside, Woolwich From £422,500 The first homes with a view of the river are on sale at Berkeley Homes’ new scheme. The 20-storey building also overlook a new four-acre Waterside Park that connects Woolwich Town centre to the river path. In total, there are 266 studio to three bedroom flats on sale at [...]
House prices edged up in September as the market recovered from the initial Brexit hit October 7, 2016 House prices fell 0.1 per cent in the three months to September as compared to the previous quarter, according to Halifax – but they edged up month-on-month. There was a 0.1 per cent increase in property values between August and September, following two months of house prices falling. Year on year growth hit 5.8 per cent. Read more: [...]
Mare Street Studios in Hackney is about to be turned into a hipster paradise October 7, 2016 Workspace has been given the go-ahead to refurbish the Mare Street Studios in Hackney, promising to create a hipster paradise in the City Fringe. The 55,000 sq ft of office space will come with a co-working space, cycle storage, communal breakout areas, showers, meeting rooms and a cafe. Read more: The government's IT crowd is moving into [...]