Bottom Line: London just needs to wait a bit for lift-off February 18, 2014 ON ONE level and after a superficial look at developments, it might seem as if London is in danger of missing out on the impending flood of new issues that are about to hit the financial markets. Yesterday’s flurry of statements revealed that ISS, the giant services group, is floating in Copenhagen; King.com has chosen [...]
London’s house prices soar 12pc February 18, 2014 HOUSE prices in the capital have pulled further away from those in the rest of the country, official figures showed yesterday. London’s prices jumped by 12.3 per cent in the 12 months to December, more than double the 5.5 per cent rise in the UK as a whole, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said. The increase [...]
This press release sums up everything that’s wrong with the UK’s house price obsession February 18, 2014 If there's a blindspot in the UK's collective understanding of economics – house prices is certainly it. In no other area would we so excitedly greet news of rising prices. That public relations officers feel we should want to applaud news of house prices well above their pre-crisis high is an insult. "Like chinks of sunlight, [...]
Booming housing market could see Help to Buy scaled back February 18, 2014 UK house prices continued their forward march at the end of 2013, with the capital pulling even further ahead from the pack and the average house price hitting £250,000. Figures from the Office for National Statistics have shown London house prices rose 0.9 per cent in December, putting them more than a fifth higher than [...]
Carney backs big bonuses for top successful bankers February 17, 2014 SENIOR bankers should get big bonuses as long as the money is spread out over several years and can be clawed back if they make mistakes, Bank of England governor Mark Carney said yesterday. His argument runs counter to much of the criticism of high pay for bankers, as he favours the payouts when they [...]
Stamp duty is feeding the growing bubble in London’s house prices February 16, 2014 SUPPORTERS of financial transaction taxes (FTT), often known as Robin Hood taxes, claim that they can make markets safer. But a look at London’s frothy housing market makes this argument difficult to sustain. FTTs remove liquidity from markets, making bubbles more likely to form. And it looks like London house prices are booming thanks to [...]
Housing boom as deals near pre-crisis high February 13, 2014 HOUSE sale volumes hit their highest level in seven years in January, and are now just four per cent below the average seen in the boom years of 2000 to 2007, according to figures out today from LSL Property Services. Last month 73,000 properties changed hands, rocketing up 67 per cent compared with last January. [...]
Surveyors say house shortage is lifting prices February 12, 2014 A SHORTAGE of homes is forcing up house prices across the whole of the UK, according to a leading survey published this morning. The alarming figures follow a separate data release yesterday which showed mortgage-lenders ramping up loans to first-time buyers who are anxious to get on the housing ladder. Demand in the market appears [...]
Inside Track: Jenkins should settle Barclays’ £50m fine so he can move on February 12, 2014 RAISE £6bn from investors and hand more than half of it back to employees and investors six months later: as a formula for managing a corporate balance sheet, there’s a certain novelty in Barclays’ approach. But for someone who has choreographed efforts to rehabilitate a company’s image as carefully as Antony Jenkins, this has been [...]
Lending to first-time buyers rocketed 37pc at end of 2013 February 12, 2014 Better economic conditions and Help to Buy prompted more and more Brits to take steps to become home owners at the end of 2013, according to new data from the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML). Lending to first-time buyers jumped 37 per cent in December from a year earlier. Paul Smee, CML director general, said [...]