Docklands News

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)  

Ten times more homes sold than usual on the final day of the stamp duty holiday. Almost 36,000 property sales were sealed on June 30 as lawyers rushed to push through deals before the maximum stamp duty saving fell from £15,000 to £2,500 in England and Northern Ireland, according to data from TwentyCi. Helen Hutchison, a partner at the law company Irwin Mitchell, said: "It has been the busiest I have ever known it. We had people exchanging and completing on the same day to make it." Across the UK, 1.1m properties were sold during the tax holidays. There were 78,022 home sales completed in the last week of the stamp duty holiday in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. This compared with an average of 19,000 sales a week in a typical year. Just over 124,000 people who had agreed a sale before April 1 and so had a realistic chance of making the deadline missed it. 

The Times (06/07/2021)  

The Independent's Phil Thornton warns that the property market boom will hit young people the hardest. As Nationwide data reveals the strongest rise in residential property values for 17 years, Mr Tornton believes that "home ownership will simply become yet more unaffordable for young people, and for key workers who were already priced out of many areas before COVID-19." He adds that "this will exacerbate the intergenerational wealth gap and favour those who rely on the 'bank of Mum and Dad'."

The Independent (05/07/2021)  

A new regulator will be set up with the power to prosecute property developers that do not meet safety standards, the Government has announced. The new safety regime is designed to prevent any repetition of the Grenfell Tower disaster. Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick will unveil the plans in the Government's Building Safety Bill today. The new system would reassure "the vast majority" of residents, he said. He also said the new regulator would provide "essential oversight at every stage of a building's lifecycle, from design,?construction, completion to occupation". A spokesperson for the Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) said the bill would ensure there were clearly identified people responsible for the safety of the design, build and occupation of high rise buildings. 

BBC News (04/07/2021)  

Hackney has been named as the London borough with the most streets covered by low traffic neighbourhood (LTN) schemes, with LTNs in force in 55% of streets for which they are considered appropriate. The annual survey, by the Healthy Streets Scorecard coalition, found that Waltham Forest had the second highest level of LTN coverage (47%), followed by Newham with 40%. By contrast, fewer than 5% of roads in Croydon, Barking and Dagenham and Bexley were in LTNs, while Islington was found to be the capital's top "healthy streets" borough overall, followed by Hackney and Camden. The overall assessment included other factors like pedestrian and cyclist casualties, school streets schemes, and 20mph limits. 

Evening Standard (07/07/2021)  

Pre-pandemic, it was easy to dismiss Canary Wharf as a business district where people only lived because they worked there. However, even in the post-COVID "new normal", where many financial and legal professionals are likely to be offered the chance to conduct business from home at least some of the time, there are plenty of reasons to want to live in one of the district's new luxury apartments. Options include the £2.645m three-bed Executive Collection apartment at South Quay Plaza, a two-bed penthouse at Wardian for £2.35m, and a three-bed, triplex penthouse  - with a double-height room dedicated to a panoramic Jacuzzi - in Dollar Bay for £3.999m. Nearly everyone is buying them as a primary residence and they are attracted to the new parks, gardens and riverside boardwalk in the first completed phase of our new neighbourhood, Wood Wharf", explains Brian De'ath, head of residential sales at Canary Wharf Group. The Far East Consortium, meanwhile, has developed Aspen, a 65-storey residential tower. Project director Bruno Santos says the building is as much about its services and amenities as its residences, from the hotel doctor on call to vending machines selling freshly-made bread. “We’re seeing a lot of interest from families who don’t work in Canary Wharf but want to live there because it’s an easily walkable neighbourhood,” he said.

The Daily Telegraph (30/06/2021)