London house prices: There’s a bold solution to the housing crisis – if councils get out of the way August 6, 2015 Tessa Jowell is the latest mayoral candidate to pledge to build more homes to tackle London’s housing crisis, promising at least 50,000 new properties would be built each year under her watch. The government has also outlined plans for 200,000 new starter homes to be constructed, many also earmarked for the capital. But history tells [...]
Super Thursday: Interest rate rise by the Bank of England could end the buy-to-let boom August 6, 2015 It looks like momentum to raise interest rates could be building over at the Bank of England (BoE), however a legal advice service has warned this could spell disaster for the UK's booming buy-to-let market. Minutes due to be released later today are expected to show between two to three members of the nine-strong rate-setting [...]
August 2015 TfL Tube strike: Union RMT wants pay rises in line with house price growth August 5, 2015 Transport union RMT has given a rare level of detail into one of its demands over the Night Tube – namely that it is seeking pay rises of up to 25 per cent for the five years. The union has put together a detailed flyer “for the public” to explain why Tube workers are [...]
Greek stocks dive on reopen August 4, 2015 GREEK shares plunged 16 per cent yesterday as the Athens stock exchange opened for the first time in five weeks. The rout was led by bank shares. The country’s four biggest lenders – the National Bank of Greece, Alpha Bank, Eurobank and Piraeus Bank – registered near-30 per cent losses. “People want to get out [...]
Greek shares plummet as the Athens Stock Exchange reopens August 3, 2015 Greece's main stock index continued to haemorrhage today after the cash-strapped country's markets were opened for the first time in five weeks. By this afternoon the Athens Stock Exchange had recovered slightly from the earlier sell-off and was down 16.3 per cent at 667.46 points. It posted its worst ever one-day performance after only a few minutes of trading this [...]
London house prices: First-time home buyers face nightmare market as deposits soar and supply lags July 31, 2015 We all know how tough the housing market is for first-time buyers, and one of the main reasons is lack of supply. Much has been said about how the government is looking to tackle this problem by encouraging housebuilders to ramp up construction of new builds. But figures out this morning show that far from [...]
Countrywide share price slumps after UK housing market slowdown July 31, 2015 Shares in the UK’s biggest estate agency Countrywide tumbled four per cent yesterday after posting a sharp fall in profits, blaming a “difficult housing market” and the uncertainty in the run-up to the General Election. The company, which owns estate agencies including Hamptons, Blundells and John D Wood, said profit before tax decreased [...]
Maximum excitement on the football July 30, 2015 TV VIEWERS should be in for a treat on Sunday – it has been seven years since the last goalless draw in the Community Shield. That came when Manchester United and Portsmouth met in the 2008 curtain-raiser. The previous nil-nil before that? When Tottenham and Arsenal clashed in 1991 and were the last teams to [...]
As David Cameron vows to crack down on corrupt foreigners buying London properties, can PM lift the shroud of secrecy? July 30, 2015 Prime Minister David Cameron grabbed headlines this week when he said: “There is no place for dirty money in Britain.” Vowing to remove a “shroud of secrecy” surrounding luxury London properties owned by offshore holding companies, the Prime Minister said in a speech in Singapore that the UK “must not become a safe haven for [...]
OntheMarket will fizzle out before its first birthday because unlike Zoopla and RightMove it serves the middlemen, not home buyers and sellers July 29, 2015 Years ago, estate agents used to sell properties via traditional marketing campaigns, from listings in a shop window to double page adverts in the local newspaper. Times have certainly changed and these days nearly all property buyers head to Zoopla or Rightmove to find their next property. This week marks the six-month birthday for [...]