Breaking News
Aston Mead calls on councils to produce local housing plans soon or face Government intervention
Leading land broker Aston Mead is advising councils without up-to-date local housing plans in place to act quickly before the Government steps in to write their plans for them. Local authorities have been given until March 2017 to produce a local plan in accordance with the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), which was introduced in…
Christopher Walkey
ONS House Price Index Feb 2016
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) released today the house price index February 2016. Monthly output based on mortgage completions data from the Regulated Mortgage Survey. Main points. UK house prices increased by 7.6% in the year to February 2016, down from 7.9% in the year to January 2016. House price annual inflation was 8.2%…
Allen Walkey
Countrywide announces acquisition of Mortgage Bureau
Countrywide PLC the UK’s largest property services and estate agency group announced on their website yesterday that it has aquired Mortgage Bureau, by doing so it has further enhanced its focus on the residential development mortgage market. With a team of 50 professional consultants and with access to a broad spectrum of the UK’s mortgage…
Allen Walkey
Lenders compete for BTL mortgage business
Buy-to-let mortgage rates are being slashed to record lows in an effort to keep the market alive following the continued efforts by the Chancellor George Osborne to keep the buy-to-let boom under control. In fact these efforts by the Chancellor appears to have triggered what might be called a ‘price war’ as lenders compete to…
Allen Walkey
Property licence applications made easy: new service launched today for London landlords!
A new service launched today (11 April 2016) will help landlords and letting agents navigate the complex world of property licensing and ensure they comply with the law. With an estimated 160,000 private rented homes in London needing a property licence, many landlords find themselves struggling to understand the rules and yet fearful of getting…
Christopher Walkey
Is PurpleBricks valued too high?
PurpleBricks a new generation “online estate Agent” made headlines in December last year when they started trading on the London AIM (Alternative Investment Market) at a market capitalisation of £240.3 million. The share price as of today puts a value on the company of around £400million, to put that into perspective Foxtons have a market…
Allen Walkey
The ESTAS AWARDS 2016
The ESTAS Awards 2016 take place this Friday April 16th at the Grovenor House Hotel London. Each April an audience of some 1,000 guests gathers at the Grosvenor House Hotel in London to watch the annual ESTAS Ceremony, the ESTAS highlight the great service provided by different firms involved in the residential property sector. The…
Allen Walkey
UBS… Zoopla downgraded
According to London ShareCast News – UBS has downgraded Zoopla to a ‘neutral’ recommendation from ‘buy’ due to continued competetive pressures from rival OnTheMarket, but left Rightmove at ‘buy’. UBS said its Evidence Lab research team had unearthed data on the UK property portal marketplace that indicated estate agency collective OnTheMarket had continued its momentum…
Allen Walkey
Housing Market Bulletin March 2016
The Housing Market Bulletin March 2016 published yesterday by the Homes and Communities Agency. House prices: The trend for average house price change continues to be steady growth. All English regions are now seeing growth, albeit relatively slowly in the North and strongly in the South East, the East and in London. Housing market: The…
Allen Walkey
Halifax HPI March 2016
Halifax house Price Index (HPI) for March 2016 released today announces house prices in the three months to March 2016 were 2.9% higher than in the three months to December 2015 annual house price growth edges up to 10.1%. Commenting, Martin Ellis, Halifax housing economist, said: “House prices in the first three months of 2016…
Allen Walkey
Merger of three London Housing Associations
Three London housing associations L&Q, The Hyde Group and East Thames have entered into talks for a merger, in a bid to create one of the country’s largest housebuilders. They are expected to be able to build 100,000 new homes across London and the south east over the next 10 years, an investment of £25bn over the…
Allen Walkey
Buying cheaper than renting.
An interesting article appeared on the Zoopla website yesterday with the headlines ‘Buying cheaper than renting in nearly half of Britain”s major cities’, with Glasgow, Coventry and Birmingham topping the list of places where buying beats renting. Zoopla’s Lawrence Hall explained: “On top of the enjoyment that can come with owning your property, buyers may…
Allen Walkey
Bullying by Landlords in Glasgow.
Local news in Glasgow is highlighting new research by Citizens Advice Scotland (CAS) that Glasgow landlords are “bullying” tenants and failing to carry out basic repairs. Citizens Advice Scotland said it received more than 6,000 complaints last year, with évidence of multiple cases of landlords failing to meet their legal responsibilities, many tenants are living…
Allen Walkey
South East expected to outperfom London
House prices in the UK are expected to grow more slowly in the second-half of 2016 according to predictions by the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR), however house prices in the South East are expected grow faster than London as more homebuyers are driven out of the city by an increasingly expensive housing…
Allen Walkey
Stamp Duty changes will tempt sellers towards auction rooms:
One of the capital’s leading auctioneers says that selling homes through estate agents will inevitably become longer and more frustrating because of new Stamp Duty charges. Last Friday (1 April 2016) saw the introduction of an additional 3% Stamp Duty for anyone owning more than one home – even if this is because they are…
Christopher Walkey