Focus On Bloomsbury: House prices are blooming marvellous in this intellectual corner of central London June 16, 2016 Bloomsbury conjures up images of fusty intellectuals like former residents Charles Dickens, Virginia Woolf, EM Forster and John Maynard Keynes. Home to austere, prestigious institutions like the British Museum, the Royal Portrait Gallery and University College London, it isn’t necessarily somewhere you’d think of moving to. But the recent clamour for central London property has [...]
Charter Court Financial Services auction sunk by Brexit fears May 4, 2016 The auction of Charter Court Financial Services has collapsed due to concerns over the impact of a Brexit on the UK housing market. Bidders were told the sale process has been abandoned in recent days, it was first reported by Sky News. BC Partners, Varde Partners and Warburg Pincus were among the buyout firms interested [...]
Why Build to Rent is the answer to London’s housing shortage April 14, 2016 Every week, City A.M. invites an industry professional to write about an emerging trend in the property market. Build to Rent represents a new way of living at a time when people are struggling with affordability and poor rental accommodation. And it could be the answer to the UK’s housing shortage providing large numbers of [...]
Construction of new homes needs to rise “five-fold” to meet right to buy pledge warns National Audit Office March 16, 2016 The construction of new homes will need to increase "five-fold" to meet the government's one-for-one pledge through the right to buy scheme. The National Audit Office (NAO) has warned MPs in written evidence supplied to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) that the current proposals in the Housing and Planning Bill to give 1.3m housing association tenants the right to buy their [...]
Institute of Directors boss slams Arcadia chairman over BHS collapse in open letter to MPs June 3, 2016 A day after its collapse, the boss of one of the UK's largest business lobbying organisations has said he "can't defend" the running of BHS – and added that "serious questions need to be asked of almost everybody concerned". In an open letter to MPs Frank Field and Iain Wright, chairs of the Commons Select [...]
Tata Steel still considering bids for its UK assets May 25, 2016 Tata Steel is still considering bids for its loss-making UK business, despite hopes for a shortlist of bidders to be revealed after its board meeting today. The announcement came after Tata execs scrutinised the details of the bids, as well as discussing the British government's support for a potential sale in Mumbai. Finance director, Koushik Chatterjee, subsequently told reporters: [...]
Focus On Southfields: This south west London suburb is bucking the London property trend ahead of Wimbledon June 2, 2016 If you went down to Southfields today, you’d be in for a big surprise. Buying London property is hardly a teddy bear’s picnic at the best of times, but as buyers rush to the leafier outskirts in search of more affordable property, outer boroughs that were once overlooked are finding they’re in high demand. London [...]
Nearly a fifth of Londoners are less likely to sell their home post-Brexit June 29, 2016 Nearly a fifth of Londoners say they are less likely to sell their property after Britain voted to leave the European Union. A survey of UK homeowners found an average of 12 per cent are less likely to put up a 'for sale' sign in the next three years – and the figure rises to 18 per cent of [...]
US new home sales figures lay foundations for June rate hike May 24, 2016 Sales of new homes in the United States jumped to their highest level since before the crisis, as the US economy picks up momentum in the second quarter. The number of newly-built homes sold – on an annual basis – hit 619,000, a jump of 16.6 per cent on last month and around 100,000 ahead of [...]
Liberty assures it can afford Tata’s UK assets as concerns grow April 7, 2016 Liberty House has assured it can afford to buy Tata's UK business, as doubts grow over its ability to rescue Port Talbot and Tata's other steel sites without significant government support. The group's chief executive, Sanjeev Gupta, told Reuters that it has a turnover of around $6.5m (£4.6m) and so working capital needs to buy out Tata's UK plants [...]