Docklands News

The average property price climbed by 10% in the year to May, with Office for National Statistics data showing that the typical value hit £254,624 as the stamp duty holiday drove demand. The figures, which are based on sales that have been completed and registered, show that homeowners making a move saw the biggest increase in prices, paying an average of £296,872 – 10.7% more than in May 2020. First-time buyers also saw an increase, paying an average of £213,336 in May – 9.5% more than May last year. London continued to be the region with the lowest annual growth for the sixth consecutive month, with property prices growing just 5.2%. The North West was revealed as the property hotspot, with house prices soaring 15.2% over the past year. At a country level, the largest annual house price growth in the year to May 2021 was recorded in Wales, 13.3%. London recorded the slowest property price rise over the year, of 5.2%.

BBC News (14/07/2021)   Daily Mail (14/07/2021)   Evening Standard (14/07/2021)   The Daily Telegraph (14/07/2021)  

Banks expect mortgage lending to ease off in the coming months as a result of the tapering of the stamp duty holiday. “Demand for secured lending for house purchases was expected to decrease over the next quarter,” the Bank of England said. Robert Payne, co-founder of Bristol-based Langley House Mortgages, said: "The housing market has boomed this year and we have submitted more mortgage applications than ever before but there is a huge amount of uncertainty in the economy and people need to be vigilant in terms of what they should borrow.” Ashley Thomas, director of London-based mortgage broker, Magni Finance, commented: "With the main Stamp Duty relief now over, demand has certainly reduced and is likely to cool in the months ahead.” Meanwhile, UK banks expect defaults to rise over the coming months as households struggle to service debt taken on to cope with the financial pressures of the coronavirus crisis, new figures reveal. 

City AM (15/07/2021)  

The UK's domestic property market is set for a quicker recovery than previously expected, putting Britain on track to reclaim its title as the top destination in Europe for international real estate investors. The property market tends to track the health of the wider economy, and analysts at CBRE predict that the British economy will grow by 7.7% this year, followed by 6.6% in 2022. Previously, they had expected 6.7% and 5.9% respectively. CBRE's Miles Gibson commented: “The resolution of Brexit is one thing and the other is that it is now much clearer what our path out of the pandemic will be.” Before Brexit, the UK was the go-to destination for overseas real estate investors but it fell behind Germany shortly after the referendum. “Now that those uncertainties have been resolved, we expect that, once again, the UK will overtake Germany as Europe’s biggest real estate investment destination,” Gibson added. 

The Times (12/07/2021)  

The average age of a renter is now 41 - nine years older than a typical first-time buyer, new research shows, while more Brits live in private rental homes compared to ten years ago. The number of 35 to 44-year-olds renting has increased from 17 to 27%. Only 56% of the same age group are home owners, down from 67% a decade ago, the English Housing Survey shows. It also revealed the number of people owning a second property has risen from 1.81m to 2.44m in the past ten years. For the majority, 39%, this is a holiday home. Meanwhile the average age of someone with a mortgage is 45.6 years old, while those that are outright owners tend to be older at almost 68 years. The intergenerational wealth gap is benefiting some, with 1.13m homeowners saying they had help buying their home with a loan or gift from family. Londoners save more for their deposits: despite the high property prices in London only 13% of first-time buyers in the capital bought with a deposit of less than 10% compared with 27% elsewhere in the country. 

The Times (10/07/2021)  

A new pedestrian bascule bridge in London’s Docklands has received “substantial public backing” at recent consultation. Designed by Arcadis, Knight Architects and Kgal, the proposed South Dock Bridge will support increased volumes of pedestrian traffic which are predicted with the expansion of the Isle of Dogs. The bridge has been designed as a sculpted two-span variable-depth steel beam with a single central pier in the dock. Each of these spans is approximately 35m long. In addition to this, the bridge provides a permanent 15m-wide and 3m-high navigable channel for smaller boats to pass underneath and, thanks to a movable (bascule) north span, a 25m wide channel without height restriction for taller ships. The deck width varies from 7.8m at the south end to 15.4m at the north. Work is expected to start on site in 2022, with the crossing scheduled to open in 2023.

New Civil Engineer (07/07/2021)  

The Halifax house price index has revealed that prices fell in June for the first time since January, coinciding with the end of the full stamp duty holiday, which had removed the purchase tax on properties worth up to £500,000. Anna Clare Harper, the chief executive of property consultancy SPI Capital, said: “The tapering down of the temporary stamp duty reduction takes the pressure off demand. However, supply is still constrained, construction is getting harder and more expensive, and a mass sell-off from property owners is unlikely in the absence of significant interest rate rises.” On an annual basis, Halifax said property prices were still 8.8%, or about £21,000, higher than they were a year ago, with the strongest growth in Wales, Northern Ireland and north-west England. 

Evening Standard (07/07/2021)   The Daily Telegraph (07/07/2021)   The Guardian (07/07/2021)   The Times (07/07/2021)