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 [...]
London house prices: Build-to-Rent could transform lives in the capital – it must be free from unhelpful requirements October 1, 2015 The UK does not have enough homes – especially in the capital. This is a concern persistently raised by our members and felt the country over. Indeed, there is a real fear that our thriving cities – and London is the key example – will start to suffer as access to housing, or lack of [...]
UK house prices: The property market is mired in uncertainty – brace for higher prices and polarised demand September 30, 2015 It is time for a big think about UK house prices. Does anybody know which way they will turn? Whether we’re looking at the short term or the long term, a tremendous amount of uncertainty abounds. Looking at the short-term outlook, latest figures from the Halifax show prices rising by 9 per cent year-on-year, [...]
Glencore share price history: A timeline of what went wrong from record drops to credit rating outlook fears September 28, 2015 The commodity price rout and concerns over a slowdown in the Chinese economy have helped send Glencore shares around 70 per cent lower this year – making it the worst performer on Britain's FTSE 100. And shares in the embattled commodities miner and trader continued their downwards trajectory today, after a particularly bearish note from [...]
The BMW 3 Series may be the staple of the 1980s but the new model proves it’s slicker than ever September 28, 2015 Back in the 1980s, the BMW 3 Series was the car of choice for up-and-coming types in the City. A 325i was as de rigueur as red braces and a Filofax; if your trades hadn’t quite earned you the hot six-cylinder one, you could have a 316i and take the badges off (a trick so [...]
Buy-to-let tax change: Why is business-friendly George Osborne punishing landlords and renting business? September 25, 2015 The majority of landlords put their faith in the Conservative Party in May believing the Tories had a better understanding of private renting than the other parties. So when the chancellor announced restrictions on the tax relief on buy to let mortgages, it came as a shock, with many feeling betrayed. The government claims the [...]