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Hundreds of construction workers had to be evacuated on Tuesday from a tower block under construction at Wood Wharf, after a fire broke out on the 35th floor. Five fire engines and around 35 firefighters were called to the blaze at the Canary Wharf Contractors (CWC) development on Prestons Road; one man suffered smoke inhalation, while part of a five-roomed apartment suffered damage. A CWC spokesperson said it is fully supporting a London Fire Brigade investigation.
Construction Enquirer (05/06/2019)
House prices in May fell 0.2% from April, according to Nationwide Building Society. Compared with a year earlier, house prices rose 0.6% - slower than the 0.9% rise the previous month. The average price for a house bought over the period was £214,946, up from £214,920 the previous month. Meanwhile the number of first time buyers has continued to recover, with 359,000 first-time buyers in the 12 months to March, just 10% below the 2006 peak, according to the Nationwide data. "New buyer inquiries and consumer confidence have remained subdued in recent months," said Nationwide chief economist Robert Gardner. "Nevertheless, indicators of housing market activity have remained broadly stable”.
BBC News (31/05/2019) City AM (31/05/2019)
Housing minister James Brokenshire is expected to propose that young people be allowed to dip into their pension pots to help them fund a deposit for a new home. Mr Brokenshire will suggest changing the rules on pensions to “empower” those trying to take their first step on the property ladder. Mr Brokenshire will call on the next Prime Minister to reform pensions to allow young people to “make the choice for themselves” if they want to spend them on property instead. “We should be changing the necessary regulations to allow this to happen, protecting the integrity of pension investments but allowing lenders to innovate and design new products to bring this opportunity to consumers,” he said. However, Alistair McQueen, head of savings and retirement at Aviva, said: “The idea of funding a house deposit by opening a pension addresses one challenge by exacerbating another”.
The Daily Telegraph (02/05/2019) Mortgage Introducer (04/06/2019)
An analysis of all housing developments of at least 10 houses and flats that were approved by London councils in 2015 has found that work had started on only 54% of them within three years. Almost 57,500 homes were given consent that year but by the end of 2018 construction was only under way on 46%, the same proportion as in the previous year. The number of applications fell last year by 17%, although the number of permissions rose. The figures, compiled by Grant Thornton, also show a 30% drop in affordable homes completed last year, despite a threefold rise in planning approvals.
Evening Standard (28/05/2019)
Sam Woods, the deputy governor of the Bank of England, has said that regulators are watching a mortgages price war “like a hawk” and may need to impose stricter minimum capital requirements on lenders. The price war over the past two years may be good news for first-time homebuyers, but it was less good for a bank or building society concentrated in mortgages, Mr Woods warned. The Bank has said “ring-fencing” rules designed to protect high street operations from risks taken in lenders' investment banking had contributed to the increased competition. His comments come after the Bank forced Metro Bank to correct how much capital it was setting aside to cover mortgages after under-reporting the risk from its loan book.
The Times (25/05/2019)
More money entered the UK housing market in April than at any point since 2007, according to industry group UK Finance, with almost £9bn of home purchase mortgages approved for nearly 43,000 such loans. The number of mortgages was up 6% on the month and more than 11% on April 2018, while remortgaging also picked up - with more than 31,000 homeowners shopping around for a new loan in the month. However gross mortgage lending eased back by 1.4% to £20.3bn year-on-year. Howard Archer, chief economic adviser to the EY Item Club, commented: “April’s marked rise in mortgage approvals suggests that housing market activity may well have got at least some temporary support from the avoidance of a disruptive Brexit at the end of March.”
City AM (28/05/2019)