London house prices: Growth in prime postcodes has declined to lowest rate in more than six years May 2, 2016 Annual house prices in prime central London areas grew at their slowest pace in six and a half years in April, as the economic uncertainty and recent tax changes continued to unsettle prospective buyers. Knight Frank's latest monthly sale index released today shows that although viewings are up by a quarter over the year, the number of prospective buyers [...]
City Moves for 24 May 2016 | Who’s switching jobs May 24, 2016 The Dining Club Group The Dining Club Group, owner of dining clubs, tastecard and Gourmet Society, has announced that Annette Court has been appointed as the group’s new chair. Annette brings a wealth of experience to the role. She is currently a non-executive director of the boards of Admiral Insurance Group, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Group, [...]
UK housing: Remove the mavericks and stabilise the property market October 13, 2015 The wave of financial services regulations introduced over the last five years has caused deep changes in the way we invest in various asset classes, from equities and fixed interest securities to cash – yet the property market seems to have escaped the regulation firing line. According to the Investment Property Databank (IPD), residential property has been [...]
Reforms spark frenzy of offices turned into flats September 10, 2015 CHANGES introduced by the government to make it easier to convert offices into residential properties helped to create around 7,600 homes in England last year at the expense of 6m square feet of office space, new research shows. In 2013, the coalition government introduced new rights allowing office buildings to be converted to residential without [...]
M&G Real Estate move in on the east London housing market with development in Bow May 31, 2016 More tower blocks are set to pop-up in east London as property investors M&G Real Estate has signed a deal with Telford Homes to build new private rental homes in Bow. The £69.3m development will comprise two five-storey buildings and one 22-storey tower near the Langdon Park DLR station. Telford Homes is the developer and contractor of the scheme, which [...]
City Moves for 13 July 2016 | Who’s switching jobs July 13, 2016 Deloitte Deloitte has appointed Stephen Rees as a real estate senior advisor in its private client and family office group. Stephen will support family offices wishing to access UK commercial real estate, and provide a strategic and execution role as families continue to seek alternative investment opportunities in the UK. Stephen started his career at JLL, where [...]
Knowing me knowing Kew: your guide to buying and living in this greenest of London areas May 5, 2016 For a capital city, London is pretty green – not environmentally, of course – but aesthetically, coming in at number three for green space globally. Kew, however, is pretty green even by London’s standards and its 75 acre botanical gardens are world-renowned. This, coupled with an underground and overground line and good schools, make it [...]
The number of rental homes in the UK has nosedived – and the situation will only get worse April 28, 2016 An unintended consequence of the chancellor's stamp duty hike or just more nerves about Brexit? Either way, a report by one of the UK's largest landlords' associations has warned the number of rental properties in the UK is dangerously now. The report, by the Association of Residential Letting Agents (Arla), found the supply of rental [...]
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 [...]
Boris Johnson (nearly) empties mayoral inbox after approving Alpha Square and former Westferry Printworks schemes April 28, 2016 With just a week left until his term as London mayor comes to an end, Boris Johnson will leave two major planning schemes in his inbox for his successor to review after giving the go-ahead two controversial developments this week. Plans for Alpha Square, a 63-storey residential tower being proposed by Asian property firm Far East [...]