Two former City workers who built businesses out of the financial crisis September 29, 2013 Adam Taylor and Lexi Tamasan’s pet food subscription service is taking a sizeable bite out of a large market PET FOOD is not the first product most think about when founding a company. But when Adam Taylor saw his mother, who suffers from arthritis, struggling with a large bag of dog biscuits, it struck him [...]
‘Appy days – App Store at 5 July 17, 2013 Alex Dymoke looks back at the five year history of Apple’s revolutionary online shop THE app was unleashed on the world with a typically smart advertising campaign from Apple. A niggling problem in your daily life? There is, they assured us, an app for that. “A what for what?” was the reaction from most people [...]
FIRST TIME BUYERS HURRY TO BEAT STAMP DUTY DEADLINE February 13, 2012 THE HOUSING market saw a jump in activity in December and January as first-time buyers snapped up houses before the stamp duty exemption runs out next month, data from the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) showed yesterday, and Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) today. Loans to first-time buyers were up 14 per cent on [...]
First time buyers rise ahead of stamp duty increase February 13, 2012 The number of first-time buyers purchasing property increased by seven per cent at the end of 2011, fuelled by the impending increase in stamp duty. There were 18,700 mortgages – worth a total of £2.3bn – issued to new purchasers in December, an increase of seven per cent by volume and ten per cent by value [...]
Give London back its stamp duty to reinvest in growth February 5, 2013 FIFTY years ago the average London house cost roughly the same as a month’s rent in some parts of North London today. Notwithstanding the effect of inflation, that cannot be sustainable, socially or economically. Among the range of housing challenges we face, the greatest by far is simply to build more homes. That’s why Boris [...]
Back Pietersen to be thorn in side of Aussie bowlers July 17, 2013 Kevin Pietersen will have mixed emotions about his Test match debut against Australia at Lord’s back in the heady and historic summer of 2005. It was all going swimmingly when Steve Harmison ran through the tourists, taking 5-43 and restricting them to just 190 on day one. But when Glenn McGrath skittled England for an [...]
Housing lifted by government scheme boost November 8, 2012 MORTGAGE lending climbed rapidly through the third quarter and into October, two sets of data showed yesterday, as the Funding for Lending scheme finally appeared to be having an impact on lending. This came in tandem with a reversal in the downward house price trend of the past few months, revealed by another set of [...]
House prices up on high volume of transactions December 13, 2012 HOUSE PRICES managed to creep up in November, after the month saw uncharacteristically high activity. Prices were up 0.2 per cent on the month, according to data from LSL Property Services and Acadametrics, on the back of a five per cent rise in the number of transactions compared to last November. This put prices up 3.3 per [...]
Inside Africa’s megacity: God, oil, and traffic chaos in Lagos November 29, 2013 From the Nollywood film industry to shanty-dwellers with a line in tech imports, Nigeria’s biggest city reveals its secrets to Alex Dymoke NO ONE knows quite how many people live in Lagos. Nigeria’s 2006 census put the official figure at just under 8m. The UN estimated the number for 2011 at 11.2m. Others say it’s [...]
Our at-a-glance guide to Osborne’s mini-budget December 5, 2013 Growth up, borrowing down, yet the debt is still rising. Another raid on the banks, but shops to gain from reduced business rates THE UK ECONOMIC OUTLOOK● The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) has revised up its forecast for economic growth and revised down its prediction for inflation. It expects unemployment to drop quickly next [...]