Docklands News

Richard Desmond is reportedly reviving plans for a controversial £1bn housing development in London's Docklands - which was blocked by the Government last November, overturning initial approval by former Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick. The businessman has held early-stage discussions with lenders to bankroll the Westferry Printworks scheme on the Isle of Dogs, which could create 1,500 new homes. Mr Jenrick's verdict, which contradicted the advice of the planning inspector, was quashed after a High Court case filed by Tower Hamlets Council found "apparent bias" in favour of Mr Desmond. 

The Sunday Telegraph (03/07/2022)  

Requests for property valuations have hit their highest since the start of the year, the latest research has revealed. House price growth has been slowing since the beginning of the year, according to the country’s most-watched indexes. While still breaking new records, the Nationwide House Price Index revealed that the figure grew 10.7% in June, to an average of £271,613. However, growth was more subdued than in the previous month, which saw the cost of a home climb 11.2%. House prices have been steadily rising over the last decade but have exploded since the start of the pandemic. 

City AM (06/07/2022)   The Daily Telegraph (06/07/2022)  

A rush to lock in low borrowing costs sparked the biggest rise in mortgage lending in eight months as net mortgage lending leapt to £7.4bn in May, up from £4.2bn the previous month, despite a jump in interest rates for borrowers, new Bank of England data showed. The data revealed that borrowers suffered the biggest six-month surge in mortgage rates in a decade. Average interest rates on a new mortgage have jumped almost 50 basis points in six months and rose a further 13 basis points in May to 1.95%. The rate on the outstanding stock of mortgages ticked up two basis points to 2.07%. The number of mortgages approved for house purchases ticked up to 66,200 in May, from 66,100 in April. This was below the 12-month pre-pandemic average up to February 2020 of 66,700. Approvals for remortgaging were unchanged at 47,800 in May, below the 12-month pre-pandemic average up to February 2020 of 49,500 - but these statistics only reflect those remortgaging with a different lender and the number entering a new deal with their existing lender is likely much higher. 

Daily Mail (02/07/2022)   The Daily Telegraph (02/07/2022)  

A typical home in the UK now costs more than seven times average earnings, new data has revealed. Research from Halifax found that, since the start of the pandemic, property prices have risen 16.8% from £239,281 while average incomes have only increased by 2.7% from £38,374. In the first quarter of 2022, the cost of an average home in the UK was £279,431, while annual average earnings of a full-time worker were estimated to be £39,402. London was found to be the most expensive place to buy a home, with an average property price of £534,977 and house price-to-earnings ratio of 9.7. Westminster and the City of London, however, witnessed the sharpest improvement in the house price to earnings ratio since the start of the pandemic, with a drop from 16.8 in early 2020 to 14.5 in 2022.

Daily Mail (25/06/2022)  

Down valuations are being blamed for an increase in abandoned house sales, with property experts reporting huge differences between home sellers' asking prices and formal valuations. According to online broker Mojo Mortgages, down valuations affected 12.8% of all house purchase mortgages in April, up from 10.4% during the same period last year. Richard Hayes, co-founder and chief executive of Mojo Mortgages said the problem is also affecting property owners trying to remortgage. He added that down valuing on remortgages has fallen in recent months, but is much higher than for purchase mortgages, standing at 15.4% in April. A rise in down valuations is sometimes seen as a precursor to a price crash, "[But] our data is not showing this to be the case. We believe it is more likely to be people trying to take advantage of a buoyant market and not quite getting it right." 

I (28/06/2022)  

Borrowers are paying charges to get out of their mortgages early so they can move onto new deals before rates increase further. Yorkshire Building Society customers paid 88% more in early repayment charges in the first five months of this year than in the same period of 2020. "More borrowers are considering their options before coming to the end of their deal. With rates seemingly only heading in one direction, I suspect we'll see similar activity throughout the year at least," commented Ben Merritt, the director of mortgages. 

The Sunday Times (26/06/2022)