Top economists reject Paul Krugman’s call for government intervention to curb Amazon’s market power October 29, 2014 Rarely far from controversy, Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman caused quite the stir in his New York Times column a couple weeks back. Krugman argued that e-commerce giant Amazon "has too much power, and it uses that power in ways that hurt Americans". Furthermore, state intervention was necessary to protect the public. Amazon drew Krugman's [...]
News Corp buys Move to boost its real estate September 30, 2014 Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp yesterday stepped further into the digital age with the announcement it would spend $950m (£586m) buying Move, the US company which owns property websites such as realtor.com. News Corp said it would pay $21 per share, a premium of 37 per cent to Move’s closing price on Monday. Australian real estate [...]
Federal Reserve’s William Dudley sees inflation staying low despite rise in hiring September 22, 2014 Unemployment can continue falling to unusually low levels without risking dangerously high inflation, Federal Reserve policymaker William Dudley said yesterday. Inflation has been running below the Federal Reserve’s target for more than two years, meaning there may be more room than expected to allow growth to surge before any rate rises. Dudley is already considered [...]
Bovis Homes share price up as housebuilder delivers record property sales August 18, 2014 Bovis Homes revealed a 166 per cent leap in first half pre-tax profits as Britain’s buoyant property market helped the housebuilder to sell a record number of homes. The FTSE 250 company, which builds most of its homes in the south of England but outside London, completed 1,487 property sales in the six months to [...]
Persimmon profits rise on UK housing boom August 19, 2014 Persimmon is the latest housebuilder to benefit from the UK's housing market recovery, reporting a sharp rise in profit before tax for the six months to 30 June. Pre-tax profit went up by 57 per cent to £208.9m for the period, compared to £132.9m the year before. New home sales went up by [...]
Profits soar as Next sees “strongest sales growth for many years” September 11, 2014 Next has experienced “its strongest sales growth for many years”, the retailer said this morning as it reported total sales up 10.3 per cent while pre-tax profit jumped 19.3 per cent. Revenues at Next's retail arm rose 7.5 per cent to £1.08bn in the six months to the end of July, while its online [...]
Housing boom as deals near pre-crisis high February 13, 2014 HOUSE sale volumes hit their highest level in seven years in January, and are now just four per cent below the average seen in the boom years of 2000 to 2007, according to figures out today from LSL Property Services. Last month 73,000 properties changed hands, rocketing up 67 per cent compared with last January. [...]
No more bubble? UK house price growth falls to 10.2 per cent August 19, 2014 House price hysteria has calmed slightly with prices rising by a marginally more modest 10.2 per cent in the year to June, compared with 10.4 per cent in May, official figures showed today. According to the Office for National Statistics' House Price Index, London and the South East continued to drive growth, with prices [...]
UK house prices: More expensive properties take up growing share of market July 14, 2014 More high-end properties are now entering the housing market than at any time in the last four years, according to a report released this morning. Figures from Experian show that the number of homes entering the British housing market worth over £500,000 is up by 29.9 per cent. The number of houses in the bracket [...]
In graphs: London house prices no longer the fastest growing in the UK July 28, 2014 The Land Registry has released new data on house prices in England and Wales and the figures show the market is cooling. The average across England and Wales shows that prices are stagnant – showing no change at all. The average selling price for a house in England and Wales during June was £172,011: a zero per [...]