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 [...]
Interest rate rise by the Bank of England is the “greatest risk” to house prices July 24, 2015 House price growth for this year is on track to hit double-digit figures in a number of cities across Britain – providing the Bank of England doesn't hike interest rates anytime soon. House prices in the 20 cities monitored by Hometrack's cities house price index rose 6.3 per cent in the first half of 2015, and look set [...]
As Blair warns Labour has rediscovered losing, are its 2020 election chances slipping away? July 22, 2015 Patrick Diamond, lecturer in public policy at Queen Mary, University of London, says Yes Labour is at grave risk of throwing the 2020 election away. To win in five years, it has to understand why it suffered a devastating defeat on 7 May. The reasons are obvious: the public did not believe that Ed Miliband [...]
Home extensions pile on the pounds to property values July 20, 2015 The alterations and extensions made to people's homes have added billions of pounds to property prices across Britain. Over the last 12 months, the work has added a combined £6.5bn to the value of homes, as nearly a quarter of a million owners made changes, adding around £30,000 per property on average. In London, where homeowners have [...]
July Budget 2015 at a glance: From a new tax-free dividend allowance to the raid on buy-to-let landlords and new inheritance tax rules July 8, 2015 The chancellor outlined £12bn of welfare cuts, introduced new inheritance tax rules & vowed to crack down on tax avoidance. UK ECONOMIC OUTLOOK ● The UK is expected to be the fastest-growing advanced economy again this year. The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) expects the economy to grow by 2.4 per cent in [...]
July Budget 2015: Buy-to-let tax relief cut hits housebuilders as Foxtons, Barratt, Crest Nicholson and Berkeley Group share prices slide July 8, 2015 Shares in housebuilders and estate agents slid yesterday as the chancellor announced plans to curb the booming buy-to-let sector by cutting tax relief. While homeowners had mortgage interest relief withdrawn 15 years ago, buy-to-let landlords have continued to reap the benefits, with the wealthiest able to reclaim 45p of every £1 they pay in [...]
As the first homes go on sale in Canary Wharf: Is this the death of the commute? June 25, 2015 Since its inception in the 1980s, Canary Wharf has come to epitomise modern business. But until this week, no one could live there. The Canary Wharf Group, the development company responsible for the entire estate, has unveiled its first show home this week – and City A.M. has exclusive pictures of what’s inside. So whether [...]
Will British house buyers learn to love apartments? June 25, 2015 With space running out in the city’s most prestigious districts, developers are desperate for Londoners to embrace the apartment building. But buyers have clung to their period townhouses around neat garden squares for centuries and not everyone is finding the transition to lofty glass towers so easy. But the team behind this penthouse at [...]
At your service: Meet the concierges who run the lives of London’s elite homeowners June 25, 2015 The humble bowler-hatted doorman was once a tell-tale sign of a prestigious London address. But he’s quickly being replaced by a tenacious new breed of concierge. The industry travels with the global super-rich, arriving at whichever city blossoms into the darling of the international property market. Multilingual, persistent and well-connected, London’s hard-working concierges are on [...]
New build or old house? Just one in five prefer new properties dubbed “rabbit hutches” with “zero charm” June 17, 2015 There may be new developments popping up all over London as housebuilders scramble to serve the property needs of an ever-growing capital, but just one in five Brits would prefer buying a newly built house. New builds have been lambasted as too small, poorly built and lacking in character and nearly half of Brits prefer [...]