First-time home buyers are being priced out of UK cities – Countrywide October 12, 2015 Renters are looking further afield for their first property as housing affordability in cities begins to bite, research from the UK’s largest estate agency group reveals this morning. To get on the first rung of the housing ladder, 36 per cent of London renters end up buying outside the M25, up from 21 per cent [...]
London house prices: Luxury apartments in Gatti House on the Strand have broken street’s square footage record October 8, 2015 A new luxury development on the Strand has broken the record for the cost of square footage in the central London district. Grade II listed Gatti House was sold as four separate apartments, with the penthouse going for around £2,260 per sq ft, while the first floor was sold for £2,100 per sq ft. This is thought to be the [...]
London’s housing problem doesn’t need another government scheme: It’s time to slaughter sacred green belt cow – The City View October 7, 2015 During his time at 10 Downing Street, David Cameron has presided over a number of deeply complex attempts at helping Generation Rent climb the first rung of the housing ladder. NewBuy came first, guaranteeing 95 per cent mortgages for first-time buyers on new-build properties. That was followed by Help-to-Buys one and two: respectively, equity loans [...]
London house prices: You’ll need to earn £77k each year to afford one of David Cameron’s starter homes October 7, 2015 Housing groups have called out Prime Minister David Cameron's new plans to accelerate the building of discounted properties for first-time home buyers, saying the government's so-called starter homes will still be out-of-reach for most workers. In his speech at the Conservative party conference in Manchester today, Cameron announced the government’s proposed “starter homes” initiative, which will be part [...]
Now you can buy gold in kilo bars from Royal Mint – and these are the top 10 countries investing in bullion October 7, 2015 The Royal Mint is hoping to attract gold buyers with deeper pockets with the launch of a new kilo bullion bar. Since setting up shop online a year ago with a trading platform that allows retail investors to buy precious metals from as little as £20, sales of gold have increased by more than 50 [...]
Conservative party conference 2015: David Cameron to unveil affordable housing plan October 7, 2015 Prime Minister David Cameron will today claim the Conservatives are “the party of homeownership” as he unveils plans to accelerate the building of discounted properties for first-time home buyers. In his speech at the Conservative party conference in Manchester, Cameron will announce that the government’s proposed “starter homes” will be part of the wider [...]
Shared Ownership Week: So what is it anyway? October 5, 2015 Like the sound of Shared Ownership, but not sure how it works? Katie Bond, director of housing association Notting Hill Home Ownership (NHHO), is here to set the record straight for Shared Ownership Week (5-11 October). What is a Shared Ownership scheme and who is it meant to help? Shared Ownership is where you [...]
A place in the sun: Your guide to buying a home in Spain October 5, 2015 Many Londoners have a hankering to buy a second home abroad, and Spain ranks as one of the most popular places to own one. There are officially 750,000 British people living in Spain, and thousands more who own property but live in the UK. Spain’s economy was hit hard by the financial crisis, and [...]
Owning the digital space October 4, 2015 William Railton talks mobile and the future of outdoor ads, with BitPoster’s Aidan Neill FROM billboards to bus stops, the outdoor media market has been more reluctant than other areas of the marketing industry to embrace digitisation. The buying and selling of advertising space had been largely a manual process, with a lot of wasted [...]
High stamp duty on prime property may prove self-defeating for the government October 2, 2015 In the days that followed the Conservative Party victory in May, the widely-held assumption was that normal service would resume at the prime end of the London housing market with double-digit annual growth. It was a proposition that never looked likely for several reasons, the principal one being a rise in stamp duty last [...]