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A “no-deal” Brexit would hit the capital’s house prices “like a sledgehammer”, a London mortgage lender has warned. Jonathan Samuels, chief executive of specialist home loans company Octane Capital, said the London market was already “fragile”, and uniquely exposed to the fallout from a “chaotic” Brexit because of its dependence on international buyers. “Given that the London property market is heavily exposed to big business and international buyers, if both begin to retreat in the event of a no-deal Brexit, prices in the capital could suffer disproportionately,” he said.
Evening Standard (31/08/2018)
Ballymore is offering a range of apartments starting from £395,000 at a new Dockland tower that forms part of its Goodluck Hope neighbourhood, situated where Bow Creek meets the Thames. The 30-storey Douglass Tower is named after Sir James Douglass, the Victorian civil engineer who designed a number of the UK’s most famous lighthouses; it sits next to Trinity Buoy Wharf lighthouse, the only surviving coastal beacon in the capital. The tower houses 167 apartments, and is topped off by a metal-framed Lantern Room, a lifestyle space for residents, complete with viewing platform.
Evening Standard (24/08/2018
A barrage of planning appeal inquiries on major developments previously refused permission awaits Tower Hamlets London Borough Council this autumn, with the decisions to turn down projects such as Make Architects’ much-tweaked 225 Marsh Wall skyscraper on the Isle of Dogs to come under scrutiny. A reworked version of that scheme, which dropped the height from 56 storeys to 49, was refused last year on the grounds that it represented overdevelopment of the site. The 3DReid scheme at Millharbour will also be examined, created for Meadow Residential, the 30- and 26-storey towers promise 319 homes and 1,700 sq m of non-residential floorspace for retail and nursery use.
Building Design (28/08/2018
London house prices could fall a further 1.6% this year, according to a survey of housing market specialists by Reuters, and a further 0.1% in 2019. Participants in the poll also warned that a potential no-deal Brexit next March could drag down house prices further. Tony Williams, boss of property consultancy Building Value, told Reuters: "Central London is tanking because the traditional international buyers are staying away - and the quantum of buyers is falling. A disorderly Brexit will exacerbate this trend".
City AM (29/08/2018)
New figures from UK Finance have revealed that mortgage approvals fell to 39,600 in July, down from 40,300 in June, as the UK housing market continued to show signs of slowing down. Total mortgage lending, however, rose in July to £24.6bn – a rise of 7.6% on the same month last year. UK Finance suggested the growth was driven by homeowners remortgaging to take advantage of ultra-low interest rates. Samuel Tombs, chief UK economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, said mortgage approvals were set to remain low for the rest of the year. “Approvals likely will languish at their current low level, given that the new buyer enquiries balance of the RICS Residential Market Survey remained close to zero in July”, he said.
The Independent (24/08/2018) The Guardian (24/08/2018) Financial Times (24/08/2018)
A family bathroom downstairs can reduce a home's value by some 6%, a study shows. Keeping the bathroom downstairs can knock off the value of a property by an average £13,580, as buyers prioritise downstairs living space. Some 44% of adults, rising to 57% in London, said a downstairs bathroom would put them off buying a property, according to a Direct Line Home Insurance survey.
Daily Mail (29/08/2018)