London house prices: How Brexit uncertainty has hit house prices in every borough May 20, 2019 London is “acting as a drag” on the rest of the UK housing market, with prices across the capital falling in the last year, according to new figures from property giant Rightmove. Read more: UK house prices suffer fifth month of Brexit-hit growth While some regions in the UK such as the midlands and the [...]
How a relationship break-up spurred this founder to build ‘Ebay for travel’ to help flog unwanted holidays May 20, 2019 When you think of unwanted items, holidays don’t tend to spring to mind. But according to Simon Powell, founder of TransferTravel, billions of dollars are wasted globally on unwanted travel every year, while an estimated 220,000 hotel rooms are paid for and never used every day in the US alone, wasting $8.6bn annually. And with [...]
Hopping to the front: Jeff Koons breaks sale record for living artist with $91m Rabbit sculpture May 16, 2019 It has bunny ears, chubby legs and a carrot in its hand. This is the stainless steel rabbit which has just smashed records for the most expensive artwork to be sold by a living artist. Read more: Sotheby's annual wine sales hit $100m The 1986 “Rabbit” sculpture was sold by US pop artist Jeff Koons [...]
UK remortgaging rate jumps as owners cash in on low interest rates May 16, 2019 The number of people remortgaging their homes with additional borrowing spiked in March, according to data released today, as people took advantage of favourable interest rates. Read more: Experts warn of 'bumpy ride' for UK house prices Meanwhile the number of new loans to both movers and first time buyers fell in March year-on-year, figures from [...]
Number of homes put on market tumbles as survey nears three-year low May 9, 2019 More surveyors reported a drop rather than a rise in new houses being put up for sale last month than in any other poll since June 2016, according to the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (Rics). Read more: London Marathon property prices revealed ahead of this year's race Waning appetite from new buyers and uncertainty [...]
Stamp duty is making the housing crisis even worse May 8, 2019 There is no silver bullet to fixing the nation’s housing crisis, short of the obvious but politically challenging solution of building a lot more houses. Nonetheless, certain taxes and regulations make an already flawed market even more distorted and act as additional barriers to those seeking to buy and sell homes. And in the case [...]
UK house prices suffer fifth month of ‘subdued’ growth amid Brexit uncertainty May 1, 2019 UK house price growth remained flattened in April, as the annual price growth rate rose less than one per cent, the latest data showed today. Read more: London house prices plunge in blow to UK housing market UK house price growth remained quiet in April, as the annual price growth rate rose less than one [...]
House transactions rise in March April 24, 2019 Residential transactions edged up last month, according to new figures from HMRC. Read more: UK household earnings rise at sharpest rate in a decade House deals grew by 1.4 per cent between February and March, while transactions on an annual level climbed 6.8 per cent. What the experts said "These figures show a more resilient [...]
Want to tackle the scourge of fake reviews? The market can help with that April 24, 2019 The internet has led to a massive increase in the amount of information available. Often, this is a good thing. For example, shopping around to find the cheapest price for something has become far easier. But it can have its downsides. A report last week from the consumer magazine Which highlighted one such disadvantage. An [...]
A year of two halves? April 23, 2019 Alex Crooke, Fund Manager of the Bankers Investment Trust, explains how the team is preparing for a different investment landscape in the second half of 2019. It’s in our nature as fund managers to continually contemplate about the future, but the level and scope of uncertainty facing investors today is almost unprecedented. What’s disappointing is [...]