Docklands News

The number of first-time buyers is estimated to have fallen by around 9% in 2022, as the cost of borrowing soared and low-deposit mortgages disappeared from the market, according to analysis by Yorkshire Building Society. Across the UK, the number of people taking their first step onto the property ladder was estimated to have fallen to 370,287, edging down from a 20-year high of 405,320 in 2021. The housing markets in 2020 and 2021 were skewed by the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic, the mutual added. It said its estimate for 2022 would still represent a 5% annual increase, compared with 2019. But although the number of first-time buyers in 2022 was thought to be fewer overall than the previous year, those who bought a property for the first time in 2022 were believed to represent more than half (53%) of all house purchases with a mortgage, up from 50% in 2021, and 41% a decade ago. 

City AM (03/01/2023)   Daily Mail (03/01/2023)   Daily Telegraph (03/01/2023)   Evening Standard (03/01/2023)  

Halifax is predicting that UK house prices will fall by 8% in the year ahead. The average house price increased by 23%, or nearly £55,000 in cash terms, between March 2020 and August 2022. To put the predicted 8% fall in house prices into perspective, the bank's homes director Andrew Asaam said: "Such a fall would place the average property price back at roughly the level it was in April 2021, reversing only some of the gains made during the pandemic." Surging living costs, including some mortgage outgoings, and expectations that unemployment will also rise will add to the challenges the housing market faces. 

City AM (02/01/2023)   Daily Star (02/01/2023)   The Independent (02/01/2023)   The Sun (02/01/2023)  

Mortgage approvals fell to their lowest level in two years as interest rate rises put off buyers, new Bank of England figures suggest. They slumped to just over 46,000 in November. This is down from 57,875 in October and 68,969 in November 2021 – a 33% fall year-on-year. Economists polled by Reuters had expected a more buoyant total of 55,000, despite the turmoil in the housing market after the September mini-budget. Remortgaging approvals fell 37% in November compared to the previous month, and down 30% compared to November 2021. The value of net mortgage debt owed by individuals in November increased from £3.6bn to £4.4bn. “The sharp fall in house purchase mortgage approvals in November comes as no surprise, given the tentative fall in quoted mortgage rates from October's high levels and the withdrawal of some lenders in the wake of the mini-budget,” Samuel Tombs, chief UK economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, said. 

BBC News (04/01/2023)   City AM (04/01/2023)   Daily Mail (04/01/2023)   Financial Times (04/01/2023)  

Savills has revealed that popular parts of north and east London have seen a 2.2% fall in house prices in the last three months of 2022. The estate agents' quarterly tracker of "prime" property prices said that prices in these areas - which include parts of Hackney, Islington, Shoreditch, and Clerkenwell - have fallen more sharply than in other areas where cash buyers are more prevalent. Savills' analysis also found that north-west London - which included Hampstead, St John's Wood, Primrose Hill, Maida Vale and Little Venice - was least affected, with prices down just 0.3% between September and December. Buyers in this area tend to be wealthy and are more likely to buy properties without mortgages, Savills said. 

The Daily Telegraph (28/12/2022)  

While Rightmove data shows that house prices in some regions have risen by up to 20% since 2019, the latest predictions from the Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR) forecast a 9% drop by the third quarter of 2024. The OBR says the prices will fall £26,550 by summer 2024, with the decline driven by “significantly higher mortgage rates as well as the wider economic downturn.” Elsewhere, Zoopla expects price growth to dip into negative territory as the market adjusts to weaker buying power and concerns over the economic outlook. Capital Economics and Oxford Economics expect prices to fall by 12% in 2023, while Lloyds, Pantheon Macroeconomics and the Centre for Economics and Business Research have each forecast an 8% fall. Nationwide expects a 5% drop but, in a worst-case scenario, it said values could plunge by 30%. 

Daily Mail (28/12/2022)   The Daily Telegraph (28/12/2022)  

Michael Gove has claimed that opposition to new housing developments could be reduced if there was a greater focus on design and the “heart and soul” of places. He criticised “indifferent or insipid” planning and suggested that the potential of some public spaces was being squandered as a result of poor design and maintenance. Mr Gove said: “Much of the opposition to new housing developments is often grounded in a fear that the quality of the new buildings and places created will be deficient and therefore detrimental to existing neighbourhoods and properties." He added: “If a general improvement in the standard of design reassures the general public that this will in fact not be the case, then they may be less likely to oppose it.” Mr Gove was speaking in the foreword to a report by the Policy Exchange think tank arguing for the creation of a new national school of urban design and architecture. The intake for the new school would include architects, planners, designers, engineers and consultants in an attempt to break down divisions between these fields. The report says that although the school would “seek to wholeheartedly revive traditional architecture from the annals of obscurity to which contemporary architectural education has unfairly consigned it”, but it would also offer a “broad range of other stylistic approaches”. 

City AM (28/12/2022)   The Daily Telegraph (28/12/2022)   The Independent (28/12/2022)