020 7538 0102
5th January 2018
Theresa May says stamp duty cuts are helping 4,000 first time buyers a week to get on the housing ladder, with 16,000 property market entrants having taken advantage of the reform since it was outlined in the Autumn Budget. She said Conservative plans to “fix the broken housing market” stem from a “personal mission to build the homes this country needs so we can restore the dream of home ownership for people up and down the UK.” Commenting on her party’s stance on delivering homes for young people, the Prime Minister said she wanted to make sure the housing ladder “is not just a dream of your parents' past, but a reality for your future".
The Daily Telegraph (02/01/2018)
5th January 2018
London Labour housing spokesman Tom Copley has urged Philip Hammond to lift the borrowing cap for all councils to allow them to build more homes in the capital. In a letter to the Chancellor he wrote: "Many boroughs are delivering new council homes for the first time in decades and have ambitions to do far more - but their ambitions are not matched by their capacity to deliver and that capacity is artificially constrained by Government."
Evening Standard (02/01/2018)
5th January 2018
Demand for housing supported the construction industry in December, IHS Markit’s purchasing managers’ index (PMI) shows, although growth slowed. Residential property construction led the way with a score of 55.3, slightly down on the 56.6 recorded in November, while the commercial construction sector fell to 47.2, down from 48.4 in November, marking six consecutive months of falls. The overall reading for the PMI was 52.2, down from 53.1 in the previous month.
The Daily Telegraph (03/01/2018)
5th January 2018
A Knightsbridge “micro-penthouse”, believed to be the smallest such home in London, has gone on the market for £400,000. The apartment, designed by specialist space-saving architects Caiano Morgado, offers a mere 135 sq ft of living space and is located on the 10th storey of a block opposite Harrods on Brompton Road.
Evening Standard (03/01/2018)
22nd December 2017
A record number of first time buyers need at least £500,000 to get onto the housing ladder in London, new research reveals. So far this year 25..9% of the homes bought by debut buyers in London have been at or above the half a million pound mark, according to analysis of mortgage lending - compared with just 8% only five years ago
Evening Standard (15/12/2017)
25th December 2017
The Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors has warned that house prices will see a slowdown in 2018, with growth to be hit by the gap between incomes and property prices, tax changes and interest rate rises. The report said that transactions next year are unlikely to breach the 1.2m sales seen in both 2017 and 2016, "with political and economic uncertainty proving a hindrance as well as the lack of stock, stretched affordability, tax changes and interest rate rises". In London, a net balance of 49% of surveyors expect prices to fall over the coming year.
The Times (19/12/2017)