In graphs: Stamp duty rises by over £900m in 12 months June 20, 2014 A Londoner making his or her way up the housing ladder can expect to have paid £38,000 in stamp duty between 1998 and 2014, according to new research by Lloyds Banking Group. The data also shows, as this paper reported, that stamp duty was up over £900m in the last 12 months. These are big [...]
Ed Miliband’s conference speech: Here’s what you need to know September 23, 2014 Ed Miliband has delivered his last speech to a Labour conference before the 2015 general election. The Labour leader hopes his six-point plan will be enough to entice voters to give his party the keys to Downing Street and reverse his low personal ratings. The plan is intended to be implemented over 10 years. Here [...]
Housing market surges in March as fresh loan regulation looms April 24, 2014 MARCH was a boom month for the housing market according to a range of research released today, and ahead of the oncoming change in regulation with the mortgage market review. According to estate agents Barnard Marcus, London sales roared back from a winter slumber, with the number of transactions up by 34 per cent from [...]
New property website has to conquer Google – Bottom Line January 28, 2015 ONTHEMARKET.com, the new property website from the Agents’ Mutual group of estate agents, launched this week with an apparent threat to the “duopoly” of Rightmove and Zoopla. Zoopla, as the less well-visited of the two, seemed in danger as one of the requirements of OnTheMarket.com meant participating agents could only list on one other rival. [...]
Which London street is the most expensive to live on? Belgravia beats Kensington and Chelsea December 12, 2014 Grosvenor Crescent, near Buckingham Palace, has been named London's most expensive street to live on, according to new research by Lloyds Bank. Home buyers who want to live in one of the prestigious crescent's white Georgian townhouses will, on average, have to shell out a whopping £16.9m. It's located in high-end Belgravia, one of the wealthiest [...]
City Link administration: Most jobs to go on New Year’s Day December 29, 2014 Most workers at City Link are expected to be made redundant on New Year's Day, they have been told. An internal document seen by Sky said it is unlikely to be able to make termination payments – "however, you may be entitled to make claims to the Redundancy Payment Service". The news came on the [...]
How London’s brutalist Centre Point tower is being turned into luxury flats with a view January 26, 2015 Both reviled and admired, London’s Centre Point tower at the east end of Oxford Street has stirred controversy ever since it was first erected in 1966. A beehive of concrete and glass, its brutalist-style was regarded as an eyesore on the skyline and the fact that a building of its height (it is 117 metres [...]
Bank of England mortgage lending cap attempts to stop boom June 26, 2014 The Bank of England announced a new mortgage lending cap yesterday, with the hope that the rule would cool down the housing market if credit became too frenzied. Governor Mark Carney revealed the rule, which will put a ceiling on banks’ riskier mortgage lending. The financial policy committee (FPC) decision means that no more than [...]
Intelligent design: Made.com co-founder Chloe Macintosh talks knitting and the importance of opportunities April 26, 2015 When Chloe Macintosh sat down with a friend of a friend, she didn’t expect to get a job out of it – or to go on to become the co-founder of e-commerce furniture company Made.com. But Brent Hoberman, co-founder of Lastminute.com and mydeco.com, isn’t any old coffee meet-up – and there’s nothing ordinary or unremarkable [...]
Return to Utopia: The desire to live where you work harks back to the industrial towns of yesteryear February 19, 2015 On frosty, damp mornings like the ones London has seen of late, the morning commute is worse than ever. Biting winds followed by packed, sweltering trains, followed by more wind – it’s as if the commute was specifically designed to make you as ill-prepared as possible for the day ahead. Yet it’s accepted by millions [...]