SELL November 24, 2011 MANAGING DIRECTOR OF KAY & CO, CENTRAL LONDON ESTATE AGENCY Q.I’m about to put my house on the market – how long should I expect it to take me to sell my home? A.This is a tricky question to answer as time scales vary dramatically. However, on balance, in order to allow for a full [...]
PROPERTY NEWS November 10, 2011 BABY NUMBER TWO IS VERY EXPENSIVE A new HSBC survey found that London is the most expensive place to house a second child. The average additional cost of baby number two nears £60,000. The average property upgrade typically needed to house a second child is 38 per cent, 1.6 times the UK’s annual household income. [...]
ABERDEEN SETS SAIL FOR COWES IN STYLE August 4, 2011 THE RECEIVED wisdom about sailing is that it is equivalent to “standing under a cold shower tearing up £20 notes”. Make that “standing under a fire hydrant tearing up £50 notes” and the description is spot on, said double gold-winning Olympian Sarah Gosling, as she sheltered from the rain in Bow Churchyard outside Aberdeen Asset [...]
PROPERTY NEWS July 28, 2011 FAIRY TALE CASTLE FOR SALE Castello di Scerpena, a five-bedroom mediaeval castle in Tuscany, is now on the market for €16.5m. There are two villas, a guardian cottage, a deer park and 190 hectares of land with 7,000 olive trees attached to the property’s sale. Contact Savills International on 0207 016 3754 or go to [...]
FOREIGN EXCHANGE AS MOSCOW MOVES TO BECOME WORLD-CLASS July 21, 2011 CAN MOSCOW ever become a world-class financial centre? BP may have had its fingers burned over the ill-fated Rosneft deal, but Anglo-Russian relations are being improved behind the scenes following a Moscow-London foreign exchange to set up the Moscow International Finance Centre (MIFC). First, Lord Mayor Michael Bear – the co-chairman of the MIFC Liaison [...]
Opportunities for careful investors July 10, 2011 Office Space Residential provides commercial returns if you pick well THE current financial climate is making it harder to decipher where investors are going to find returns. The rates on holding cash are low, bond yields in general have narrowed substantially and there is much uncertainty on the outlook for the stock market. In addition, [...]
PROPERTY NEWS July 7, 2011 LONDONERS LOVE NORTH AND SOUTH WEST BOROUGHS North and south west boroughs dominate London’s top ten development hotspots, according to research from CB Richard Ellis. Although Kensington and Chelsea has predictably topped the table of London’s residential favourites, the new research reveals that good development prospects are not limited to central locations. Jennet Siebrits of [...]
London is top global city for visitors June 1, 2011 LONDON has fought off both New York and Paris to be crowned the world’s number one destination city, with an expected 20.1m inbound passengers visiting the capital this year, according to a survey out yesterday. Foreign visitors to London are expected to pull in a record $25.6bn (£15.58bn) this financial year alone. “London has yet [...]
British Land asset value rises May 23, 2011 British Land posted a 12.5 per cent increase in its net asset value per share and said it expected strong demand for prime office and retail property to continue. The property company confirmed a full-year NAV per share of 567 pence, from 504 pence a year earlier. Its underlying pre-tax profit was £256m, up 2.8 [...]
BUYING April 7, 2011 MANAGING PARTNER AT BLACK BRICK, BUYING AGENT Q. The Budget suggested that it is going to become easier to get planning consent. What will be the impact on house prices? A. The Budget announced measures to streamline planning applications, including a 12-month guarantee for processing all applications and appeals, a fast track for major infrastructure [...]