Britain’s booming population has reinforced London’s power July 16, 2012 NO other trend is as important as the population explosion since the Industrial Revolution: there are now more human beings than ever before. This holds true also for the UK: yesterday’s 2011 UK census results showed another huge rise. The population of England and Wales surged by 3.7m in the last decade – 7.1 per [...]
Stamp duty woes: selling up and a renovations business April 26, 2012 DIRECTOR, KAY & CO Q My property is currently on the market at £2.15m. I had accepted an offer of £2.05m but unfortunately the recent stamp duty increase caused the sale to fall through and I have not had much interest since. I have found somewhere else that I want to buy and do not [...]
Helical Bar chief Mike Slade: it is time to kick-start building November 22, 2012 HELICAL BAR chief executive Mike Slade gave an upbeat outlook on the property market yesterday and declared “it is time to start building” as the developer reported a solid rise in first half profits. The group reported a better-than-expected rise in net asset value per share, up 0.8 per cent to 252p, driven by £4.7m [...]
Workspace plans Tower Bridge building as pre-tax profits soar November 13, 2012 WORKSPACE yesterday posted better-than-expected half year results, driven by strong tenant demand for its trendy London office space and its focus on asset management. The company, which provides offices to some 4,000 businesses such as Moonpig, as well as the Metropolitan Police, became a stock market darling after posting stellar annual results in May and [...]
New property tax rules will stamp on UK developers April 17, 2012 FEW readers of City A.M. may have lost sleep over the chancellor’s decision in the recent Budget to impose a 15 per cent stamp duty land tax (SDLT) on acquisitions of homes costing over £2m by “non-natural persons”. After all, why shouldn’t we clamp down on the purchase of residential properties through companies, collective investment [...]
London will be hit hardest by levy increase March 21, 2012 IN YESTERDAY’S budget, chancellor George Osborne increased the stamp duty land tax rate to 7 per cent for residential properties over £2m as well as introducing a stamp duty land tax of 15 per cent for residential properties worth more than £2m purchased by companies and other entities. As Paul Emery, PwC tax director, points [...]
A vision of the future: how the rental sector can reward investors March 29, 2012 Institutional investors, such as pension funds and investment funds, have been debating whether to dip their toe in the residential property market for years. Such investment is the lifeblood of the UK’s commercial sector, but despite much talk, institutions have very little exposure to residential property. This fact has often been blamed on factors such [...]
Loopholes on home sale fee slammed shut March 21, 2012 AN AGGRESSIVE crackdown against stamp duty avoidance on high-end properties will begin today, as the government slaps a punitive tax on the sales of expensive homes that wealthy people put into companies’ names. Sales of properties worth £2m or more that are “enveloped” in a bid to avoid the tax, will now be hit with [...]
Overseas demand boosts east London housebuilder Telford October 22, 2012 TELFORD HOMES, the London-focused residential developer, yesterday said demand from UK and overseas buyers means it will report a better-than-expected rise in first half profits. The east London housebuilder said the Olympics had helped to boost London’s profile, attracting overseas investors as well as owner-occupiers to its schemes. Foreign investors buying up property to rent [...]
Best of the Brokers September 25, 2012 CABLE & WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS Liberum Capital’s Lawrence Sugarman has downgraded Cable & Wireless Communications from “Hold” to “Sell” and recommends investors take the opportunity to lock in profits. The FTSE 250 telecoms group makes most of its money from operations in Monaco and island territories with historic connections to the UK. But Sugarman says “the [...]