Q&A: BUYING May 27, 2010 Camilla Dell MANAGING PARTNER AT BLACK BRICK Q.Dear Camilla, Hips were originally introduced to protect buyers, now that they have been abolished what protection do buyers have? A. HOME Information Packs (Hips) were initially put in place to help buyers find out important information about the properties they were buying and to stop sales falling [...]
A Lab-Lib deal would be terrible for Britain May 7, 2010 AMONG all of the uncertainties of our first hung Parliament in 36 years, a few definite trends can now be discerned. The first, and most important, is that we are now in coalition talks. Gordon Brown wants to cling to power and do anything he can to create a coalition with the Lib Dems and anybody [...]
Swedes should act to weaken krona April 20, 2010 AFTER rushing to cut interest rates at the peak of the financial crisis, the next challenge for central bankers is when to start the tightening cycle. The National Bank of Australia has already taken the plunge and hiked rates twice this year, while last month Sweden’s central bank signalled it would raise interest rates in [...]
Going underground to extend your home March 25, 2010 IT seems we Britons are spending more and more time down under – in our basements, that is. No longer storerooms for junk, these subterranean spaces are increasingly becoming part of our homes, and their uses increasingly varied, with owners busy moulding cinema rooms, saunas, gyms, even golf simulator rooms. And that’s just in your [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING March 22, 2010 FINANCIAL TIMES MOD TALLIES COST OF CUTTING PROJECTS The Ministry of Defence has instructed its equipment managers to calculate the cost of cancelling all individual programmes in the latest sign of the budget squeeze it faces. The directive, issued in the past two weeks, underlines that no programme, even if under contract with industry, is [...]
City favourite banking on a revamp March 22, 2010 IT’S hardly as if the City’s been short of “sign of the times” changes, but another came late last year when Prism, the Harvey Nichols outpost that was one of the Square Mile’s grandest and most lauded fine-dining restaurants, was reborn as a brasserie and bar. That meant a back-to-basics menu emphasising cosy ingredients including [...]
REVOLUTIONISING the runabout March 16, 2010 OFTEN it’s the least exciting cars that are the most surprising. Testing an eco model from the most traditionally conservative car segment – the Supermini or B segment – promises to be, if not dull, then certainly a pedestrian experience. Yet, in a difficult car market, the Supermini segment is where all of the action [...]
Don’t expect a return to the boom years November 11, 2009 OPTIMISM is back in fashion at the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street. It is always tricky to work out what the Bank of England is talking about in its Inflation Reports so I’m grateful to George Buckley, chief UK economist at Deutsche Bank, for his help in trying to decipher the relevant graphs. The Bank’s [...]
Firms still don’t have much spare cash September 9, 2009 MUCH nonsense will be written on quantitative easing (QE) over the next few days, regardless of what the Bank of England decides to do today. So it is worth taking a look at what Mervyn King’s massive purchases of gilts have actually achieved, apart from merely bailing out Gordon Brown. By the end of last [...]
UK set for square root-shaped recovery September 6, 2009 IT is almost official: we are out of recession. The economy is growing again, albeit at a snail’s pace, the equity and debt markets have bounced back, some firms are posting higher profits and there has been a mini-renaissance in City deal-making. All of which is great news but certainly not enough to uncork the [...]