Student digs giants Unite and Empiric to merge August 14, 2025 Student accommodation provider Unite Group has agreed to an over £700m deal to acquire competitor Empiric Student Property
Brits could be missing out on cheaper home insurance deals August 12, 2025 UK customers could be missing cheaper home insurance deals by failing to shop around for cheaper covers. One in four homeowners auto-renew their home insurance without looking for better quotes, potentially causing them to lose out on cheaper deals or extras, according to a survey from financial services comparison platform Go Compare. Of the 2,000 [...]
John Lewis: Losses triple at retail giant’s property start-up August 11, 2025 Losses tripled at the property start-up owned by retail giant John Lewis during its latest financial year despite its income shooting up, it has been revealed. BTR (Operating) Limited has posted a pre-tax loss of £406,000 for the 12 months to 25 January, 2025, new accounts filed with Companies House show. The latest figure comes [...]
Rent on newly-let homes falls for first time in five years after ‘relentless’ rise August 11, 2025 Average rents on newly-let homes have fallen for the first time in around five years, according to a property firm. Across Britain, the average rent on a newly-let property fell by 0.2 per cent year-on-year in July, marking the first annual decline since August 2020, during the height of the Covid pandemic, Hamptons said. Despite [...]
Housebuilders in focus amid Labour’s planning reforms push August 10, 2025 UK housebuilders will be in sharp focus as the sector grapples with construction woes, despite the Government ploughing ahead with plans to stimulate more building. Persimmon and Balfour Beatty will announce their half-year results on Wednesday, and Bellway will provide a trading update on Tuesday. York-based developer Persimmon said in May that forward sales – [...]
House builder blames ‘broken planning system’ and interest rates for loss August 7, 2025 In independent house builder has blamed the “broken planning system” and high interest rates putting off first time buyers for it falling into the red. Cheshire-based Eccleston Homes has reported a pre-tax loss of £1.2m for the 12 months to 31 October, 2024, down from the £2m profit it achieved in the prior year. New [...]
Generational wealth gap fuels spike in family feuds over wills August 5, 2025 Feuds over family inheritance are on the rise as the number of applications lodged to challenge probates has reached an all-time high in the final quarter of 2024
Professional landlords to replace ‘hobbyist’ investors August 5, 2025 The much-publicised decline of the small-scale private landlord is leaving huge scope for professional lenders to take their place, in a ‘net positive’ for the market, according to property experts. Private landlords are being squeezed from all directions: A combination of lower tax relief, higher mortgages and tighter regulation has continuously pushed yields down. Amateur [...]
Super-prime sales plunge again July 28, 2025 The continued rise in wealthy residents leaving Britain has caused super-prime property sales in London to plunge by over £100m this year, according to a fresh study that brings the woes afoot at the upper end of London real estate into even sharper relief. During the first half of this year, the total value of [...]
Rightmove demands stamp duty overhaul July 25, 2025 Rightmove has called on the government to overhaul stamp duty thresholds to help first-time buyers get on the property market. The UK’s largest property platform urged ministers to increase the thresholds at which the tax kicks in, to reflect house price rises that have occurred in recent years and “help mobility across many parts of [...]