Last minute ski bargains can be had if you shop around in Westendorf, Austria April 4, 2016 Eevery dedicated skier fantasises about buying a property in the mountains. With interest rates on euro mortgages at record lows and sterling strong against the euro, now may be the time to take the plunge. For many Brits, France is the obvious choice, given the cheap flights and easy access via the Eurostar. Some ski [...]
Watch out, London: Brexit could mean fewer new homes as investors eye up Paris and Berlin April 4, 2016 Houses, hotels and office blocks may start sprouting up across London at a slightly slower pace this summer, as a survey of top property investors revealed investment in real estate will take a temporary knock in the event of Brexit. KPMG asked 25 global property investors, with combined portfolios of more than $400bn (£281bn), about [...]
Area guide: Woolwich – why it’s tomorrow’s town April 1, 2016 It’s an unfortunate consequence of over-enthusiastic estate agents that an area described as “up-and-coming” is often, well, getting there but taking its sweet time about it. Woolwich was one such place for a long time, but 2016 is the year SE18 arrives on the property scene. “Woolwich has been touted as up-and-coming for the last [...]
How to blush your way to a brighter home using spring pastels April 1, 2016 The evenings are lighter, and it suddenly feels wrong to be putting on sombre-coloured winter coats and boots. The magnolia trees are in bloom, their distinctive petals a delicate blush of soft pink. And it’s this pretty pastel that stores have heralded as the interiors story of the season. The idea is to keep tones [...]
UK house price growth has accelerated – and it’s not all because of stamp duty changes, according to the Nationwide House Price index April 1, 2016 Would-be second home owners appear to have bolstered the UK's house price growth in March, with the annual rate accelerating to 5.7 per cent – up from 4.8 per cent the previous month. The price of a typical UK home rose by 0.8 per cent, at least in part as a result of buy-to-let investors [...]
Landlords make last minute dash to beat buy-to-let stamp duty hike deadline March 31, 2016 Landlords and agents were scrambling to complete last-minute purchases of second home and buy-to-let properties today ahead of stamp duty hike which comes into effect at midnight. George Osborne's clampdown on buy-to-let properties was announced in November's Autumn Statement as part of a raft measures designed to tackle the housing crisis and help more first-time buyers on the property [...]
London 2012 Olympics Aquatics Centre architect Dame Zaha Hadid dies aged 65 March 31, 2016 One of the UK's leading architects, Dame Zaha Hadid, has died aged 65. Today Zaha Hadid Architects said Hadid, who is best known for work including the London 2012 Aquatics Centre and the Serpentine Sackler Gallery, died suddenly while being treated in hospital in Miami in the early hours of the morning, after contracting bronchitis earlier this [...]
Why building your dream home is about to become easier March 31, 2016 Fans of Channel Four’s Grand Designs who dream of creating a home from scratch will be one step closer to doing so tomorrow when a new laws encouraging self-build and custom housebuilding come into force. From 1 April, councils in England will have to keep a register of everyone seeking land to build their own home or [...]
Property Entrepreneurs: How Pelican Media built an app to sell City apartments off-plan March 30, 2016 When the luxury apartments at Landmark Place in the City of London were launched in February, their details were presented on a series of iPad Pros. The new tablet had been launched just three months previously, but Tony Nicol could see the benefits of using the new hardware – and set his team racing to [...]
Soz, Osborne: Buy to let stamp duty changes aren’t putting many potential landlords off March 30, 2016 The best laid plans, and all that. It seems George Osborne's attempts to put potential landlords off sinking their cash into buy-to-let properties may not be having quite the desired effect – after new research suggested not many have given up on their plans to buy rental properties. The research, by the Nottingham Building Society, [...]