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Average house prices in the UK increased by 3.1% in the year to July, according to the Office for National Statistics, the lowest annual rate since August 2013 - when it was 3%. House prices in the North West rose the fastest, though the South West and West Midlands regions both experienced price hikes of 4.4%. The biggest fall was in London, where prices dropped by 0.7% year-on-year, to £484,926. The average UK house price was £231,000 in July, £6,000 higher than in July 2017 and £2,000 higher than last month.
BBC News (19/09/2018)
Westferry Developments has doubled the proposed number of new homes in a full planning application for its mixed-scheme development on the former Westferry Printworks site. The new proposals, recently submitted to the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, now include 1,540 residential properties to purchase or rent. Plans for the waterfront scheme south of Canary Wharf on the Isle of Dogs, designed in partnership with Mace Developments, also include retail, workspaces, a secondary school and two new parks. More than a third of the homes created by the revised scheme would be classed as affordable.
Property Week (04/09/2018) Architects Journal (06/09/2018)
London’s £15bn Crossrail project is to open nine months after its scheduled launch. The route had been due to open in December, but will now be launched in autumn 2019 "to ensure a safe and reliable railway", transport officials said. Crossrail Limited described the 10-year project as "hugely complex", and said "further time" was required for testing, and that contractors needed to complete work in the central tunnels and to develop "railways systems software". In other transport news, the Canary Wharf Group has lodged an objection to plans to redevelop Canada Water should be revised, and that the Bakerloo line should instead be extended to Canary Wharf.
BBC News (31/08/2018) Evening Standard (31/08/2018) Southwark News (06/09/2018)
UK house prices suffered their greatest month-on-month fall in August since July 2012, according to new data. Nationwide Building Society's house price index showed prices fell by 0.5% in the month, as annual house price growth slowed to 2% , down from 2.5% in the previous month. The average price of a house slipped to £214,745 in August, from £217,010 in July. Nationwide chief economist Robert Gardner said: “Looking further ahead, much will depend on how broader economic conditions evolve… Subdued economic activity and ongoing pressure on household budgets is likely to continue to exert a modest drag on house price growth and market activity this year. Overall, we continue to expect house prices to rise by around 1% over the course of 2018.”
Daily Mail (31/08/2018) City AM (31/08/2018)
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