Living – if you dare – in a Halloween home October 27, 2011 WITH Halloween weekend here, some people cannot resist the excuse to look at a haunted house. Strangely enough, there are buyers for whom a distinguished relationship with the dead makes a property all the more attractive. “Haunted houses are a funny one,” says veteran estate agent Kevin Allen of John D Wood & Co. “It [...]
BUY November 3, 2011 DIRECTOR OF ESTATE AGENT DOUGLAS & GORDON Q.We’ve been offered a flat but the lease is less than 80 years. Should we avoid buying a short lease? A.The explosion in flat conversions sold off on 99-year leases in the 1980s has meant many of these flats now have leases approaching or below 80 years. In London, [...]
PROPERTY NEWS September 29, 2011 BUYING NOW CHEAPER THAN RENTING Falling house prices and increasing rental demand has made it cheaper to buy than rent in 45 of the 50 largest towns across Britain. The cost of renting is now 13 per cent higher on average than the cost of owning, according to the latest research from property website Zoopla.co.uk. [...]
Kesa mulls move to quit London listing October 23, 2011 KESA Electricals is considering quitting the London Stock Exchange in favour of a Paris listing once it has sold its troubled Comet business. Moving the group to France would help it to avoid constant comparisons with Britain’s retail sector, a shift some major shareholders would view as beneficial. It could also change its name to [...]
Kesa mulls move to quit London listing October 23, 2011 KESA Electricals is considering quitting the London Stock Exchange in favour of a Paris listing once it has sold its troubled Comet business. Moving the group to France would help it to avoid constant comparisons with Britain’s retail sector, a shift some major shareholders would view as beneficial. It could also change its name to [...]
If life gives you rotten lemons … sue the banks September 4, 2011 ROLL up for the latest round of the sub-prime blame game! In an almost farcical turn of events, the world’s biggest buyers of dodgy mortgages and mortgage securities – government-sponsored Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – are now suing banks for selling them the “old lemons”, as Goldman allegedly called the stuff in private. In [...]
Margaret Thatcher’s legacy is that no-one tries to scrap what the Iron Lady achieved January 5, 2012 THIS isn’t a review of The Iron Lady, starring Meryl Streep as Margaret Thatcher and on general release in cinemas this week [For this, see p. 18]. I’m sure it’s a fine film and I’ll see it once I can scrape together the money from my dwindling pension for a pair of tickets and some [...]
Margaret Thatcher’s legacy is that no-one tries to scrap what the Iron Lady achieved January 5, 2012 THIS isn’t a review of The Iron Lady, starring Meryl Streep as Margaret Thatcher and on general release in cinemas this week [For this, see p. 18]. I’m sure it’s a fine film and I’ll see it once I can scrape together the money from my dwindling pension for a pair of tickets and some [...]
FTSE hit by soaring bank yields November 17, 2011 The FTSE 100 fell in early trading today as yields on a Spanish bond auction soared to almost seven per cent – a level considered unsustainable by economists. A warning from ratings agency Fitch that the outlook for US banks could deteriorate if the Eurozone sovereign debt crisis is not resolved also took its toll. [...]
To track or chase returns December 21, 2011 WHETHER investors should aim for alpha (beating the benchmark) or beta (tracking the benchmark) is a debate that divides investors. Here a defender of tracking beta and an advocate of chasing alpha put their respective cases. WORLDTRACK ANTHONY CHRISTODOULOU Should investors chase Alpha? In a word: no. Evidence shows that it is futile attempting to [...]