London house prices: stamp duty reforms put brakes on the capital’s prime property market December 2, 2015 George Osborne’s tougher stamp duty regime has put the brakes on London’s prime housing market, Knight Frank figures show, as annual price growth slowed to 0.9 per cent in November. The upmarket estate agency said annual growth has fallen to its lowest level since October 2009, with a monthly decline of 0.3 per cent contributing [...]
London’s prime rental property prices have grown 22.2 per cent since Lehman Brothers: Faster than New York, Hong Kong and Singapore December 2, 2015 London's prime rental properties have gone up 22.2 per cent since the Lehman Brother's collapse of September 2008: faster than New York (15.4 per cent) while avoiding the falls seen by other cities such as Hong Kong (-14.4 per cent) and Moscow (-14.9 per cent). But despite this growth, prime rents in the capital have actually [...]
Insecurity of tenure, inadequate legal protection and a lack of publicly available information: The UK’s dysfunctional rental market is due a shake-up December 2, 2015 Insecurity of tenure, inadequate legal protection and a severe lack of publicly available information on individual rental properties are just some of the woes reported by this country’s nine million renters. But for me, by far the worst characteristic is the breath-taking amateurishness which underpins every aspect of the rental experience. The Private Landlords Survey [...]
Zoopla’s share price rises as property group reveals strong full year results and sets confident outlook for next year December 2, 2015 Confidence in Zoopla's future buoyed the group's share price to more than 245p this morning, taking its market cap to more than £1bn for the first time in months. Shares in the FTSE 250-listed firm rose more than 2.5 per cent to 245.98p in early trading, taking its market cap to £1.028bn. Revenue at Zoopla, which owns uSwitch [...]
Shop prices fall in November as retailers gear up for Black Friday frenzy December 2, 2015 Shop prices fell by 2.1 per cent in November, with clothing and electricals leading the way as competition intensified ahead of Black Friday. Non-food prices fell by 3.3 per cent year-on-year, according data from the British Retail Consortium (BRC) and Nielsen, which was an acceleration on the 2.7 per cent decline recorded in October. November [...]
Bank of England to act if needed on the buy-to-let market December 1, 2015 The Bank of England (BoE) has said it’s ready to act if it feels the booming buy-to-let mortgage market is getting out of control. Threadneedle Street’s Prudential Regulation Authority said it was reviewing banks’ lending criteria. The market for buy-to-let mortgages has ballooned 10 per cent in the first nine months of this year. Although there [...]
Croydon poised for 63 per cent surge in office rents by 2017 as the borough undergoes a revival December 1, 2015 Croydon office rents are set to surge by 63 per cent in the next two years, new research shows, as the south London borough undergoes a revival and new schemes come onto the market. According to Savills, rents will rise from £24.50 per sq ft to £40 per sq ft (£430 per sq m), putting Croydon [...]
Why does the UK have a productivity puzzle? The skills gap is one factor – but there are many more issues at play here December 1, 2015 Classical economic theory talks about three “factors of production”, land, labour and capital – the ingredients required to produce things. In a speech last month Ben Broadbent, deputy governor for monetary policy at the Bank of England, correctly identified changes to the labour market as one of the causes of weakness in productivity growth [...]
Bank of England stress tests: RBS and Standard Chartered flagged for “capital inadequacies” as Bank warns new capital requirements could be introduced next year December 1, 2015 British banks could be required to bolster their capital reserves by billions of pounds as soon as next year, the Bank of England said this morning, as it revealed that two of the country’s largest lenders had narrowly avoided failing its latest round of stress tests. The Bank is actively considering raising the so-called countercyclical buffer, [...]
Think tank Respublica: Tax rich foreign buyers more than Brits – to boost UK manufacturing December 1, 2015 How to sort out the UK’s ailing manufacturing industry? Think tank Respublica has an unorthodox solution: Start taxing wealthy foreign property buyers more. The think tank is calling for foreign property purchases to be taxed higher than British ones in a report released today, arguing that foreign investors are “skewing” the property market. The government [...]