Docklands News

Experts are predicting that sub-1% mortgage rates will completely disappear in the next month. The Bank of England has hinted heavily at an interest rate rise next month and mortgage lenders have started pulling their cheapest rates from the market. The number of fixed-rate sub-1% mortgages has fallen by almost a third in the past two weeks, from 131 to 93, according to Moneyfacts. Samuel Tombs, of consultancy Pantheon Macroeconomics, said more sub-1% deals were likely to disappear in the next month. "There has been a rapid reassessment of how quickly rates will rise. Lenders do not have the scope to absorb this, so they will have to pass the cost of a base rate rise on to borrowers,” he said. 

The Daily Telegraph (22/10/2021)  

British home-movers are spending £748 on average each time they move house, on top of estate agency fees, conveyancing fees and stamp duty land tax. Research by the home-moving app Moveable shows that the cost is rising along with inflation and a booming housing market. As we move at least five times in our life on average, and the total cost of these add-ons is £4,116, up 12% on 2020 (£3,688) and 20% on 2019 (£3,417).

The Times (28/10/2021)  

Ballymore has submitted a planning application for a mixed-use quarter at the 15-acre UNEX-Thames Road Industrial Estate in London’s Royal Docks. The proposals at the site, identified as suitable for mixed-use development in the Newham Local Plan 2018, include up to 1,610 new homes, including three-storey townhouses, lower blocks of six-to-nine storeys and taller blocks of between 15-to-18 storeys, as well as light industrial and commercial space and a two-form entry primary school. The proposal also features a major new public park along the river and community leisure facilities, such as a gym, outdoor pool, tennis court, rooftop running track and café. If planning is successful, construction is estimated to start in 2023, with the site anticipated to complete 2027.

Property Week (18/10/2021)  

Morgan Sindall is set to start work imminently on the construction of a £107m, 34-storey tower block in Canning Town. The development will have 355 apartments, as wells as 8,000 sq ft of commercial and retail space. The £107.25m Manor Road Quarter scheme is being developed by English Cities Fund (ECF), a joint venture of Homes England, Legal & General and Morgan Sindall’s property development arm Muse. The tower block represents phase one. There are plans, approved by Newham Council back in 2019, for 804 homes across eight buildings eventually. It  follows on from the nearby £180m Rathbone Market development that ECF delivered in Canning Town.

The Construction Index (16/10/2021)  

Swan Housing Association has won planning for the 315-home third phase of its £500m Blackwall Reach development. The scheme forms part of the wider 1,575-home regeneration of the area around the Blackwell Reach Dockland Light Railway station, which Swan is building in partnership with Tower Hamlets council and the Greater London Authority. Swan has already built out the 340-home first phase of the scheme, with the 268-home second phase under construction; the new development replaces 252 existing homes, with half of the new houses affordable.

Building (15/10/2021)  

Affordable home building in the capital has slumped to its lowest level since 2017. Work began on only 272 new affordable homes funded by City Hall in the first three months of the new financial year, according to latest figures - the lowest for the quarter in four years. Critics say Mr Khan has been slow to spend the £4.82bn he received from the Government’s Affordable Homes Programme in 2016. That was supposed to deliver 116,000 new affordable homes by 2022, though the deadline was extended to 2023 due to complications including the pandemic.

Evening Standard (18/10/2021)