Build, Baby, Build: The rental market and the rise of the DFL (that’s down from London) June 19, 2024 A rental market that drains bank balances and instils constant dread of eviction is driving people away from London. The capital can’t survive unless it can sustain its young workers, says Morgan Jones I lived in London for the best part of a decade, and for most of that time assumed that I probably always [...]
Build, Baby, Build: Why stamp duty is Britain’s worst tax June 18, 2024 Stamp duty isn’t just unpopular, it’s gumming up the housing market and leaving people stuck in properties totally unsuitable for their needs. The next government must raise the threshold or ditch it altogether, says Emma Revell The housing crisis is, at its heart, about supply. For decades, we simply have not built enough homes to [...]
Build, Baby, Build: The private sector alone won’t fix the housing crisis June 18, 2024 The private sector has never delivered the 300,000 homes a year the government says we need; local authorities must be part of the solution, say Gideon Salutin and Niamh O Regan All the major parties are promising more homes at this election. Labour has promised 300,000 a year for England, while the Conservatives have pledged [...]
Build, Baby, Build: London doesn’t have to be so expensive June 18, 2024 London built the world’s first underground railway and the beautiful, beloved mansion blocks of Chelsea and Marylebone. We can do it again, says Sam Dumitriu Rents in London are now so high that a one bed in the capital will set you back more than a three bedroom will in any other region of England. [...]
Build, Baby, Build: You don’t solve a supply crisis by juicing demand June 18, 2024 Both parties are making big promises on housebuilding, but the policies being put forward are nothing new at best and actively harmful at worst, says Henry Hill This election is an important milestone in this country’s long-running housing crisis, because it is probably the first one in which both major parties have formally acknowledged that [...]
Rightmove: House prices remain stable despite soaring mortgage rates June 17, 2024 Confidence in the UK housing market has slipped ahead of a general election, despite signs of improvement in recent months.
Neither party is serious enough about housing June 17, 2024 All major parties have set lofty house building targets in their manifestos, but plans to actually achieve them are light on detail. The fact is, there’s no shortage of ideas about how to tackle the big challenges facing Britain, what’s lacking is the political will, says Sam Bidwell It’s election season and so, like Regency [...]
Yes in my backyard! It’s time to get London building June 17, 2024 In JG Ballard’s High-Rise, life in a pseudo-luxury tower block disintegrates into atavistic violence with residents of different floors battling for territory and against the rigid class divisions the building itself imposes on them. London hasn’t quite reached this stage, but like all dystopias the novel magnifies a basic truth – that the urban environment [...]
All the major parties have pledged to build more houses. Can they deliver? June 16, 2024 In 2019, the Conservatives promised to ramp up construction of new homes to 300,000 per year by the middle of the 2020s, but the government has failed to make good on its promise.
Confidence in UK property market starts to dip ahead of election June 13, 2024 Confidence in the UK housing market is starting to dip despite signs of improvements in recent months, according to the latest property surveyor report from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS).