Rat and Mouse
Borough of Tower Hamlets
Wed
21
Sep

What's their secret? With transactions down 25% on last year and at a two-year low in August (RICS figures), Foxtons - after a good year - continue their march. This time, a new branch in Stratford, their eighth new office since 2010 and their 32nd in total, due to open its doors on October 1.

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Tue
09
Aug

The epicentre of the violence in Hackney has been around my house. Police in barricades have battled rioters outside the church 50m down my road in sporadic melees. Every local shop for miles has been shuttered. Cars and recycling bins have been set on fire. Helicopters constantly hover above, filming and surveying the unfolding damage. This is not what estate agents were referring to when they described local streets as “cosmopolitan”.

It's a short but interesting piece by the FT's Tony Tassell, and worries about the element of rioting as "spectator sport" he witnessed in Hackney, the cheering (of the rioters) as they attacked the police. Has Hackney, he asks, really changed?

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Mon
20
Jun

Yes, according overseas property portal HomesGoFast's director Nick Marr, who points to rapid rises in property prices in California's Silicon Valley and draws comparisons with the London Tech City initiative, occupying...

... the area of East End between Old Street and the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in Stratford. Companies that are committed to investing into the area include Cisco Systems, Facebook, Google, Intel Corporation, McKinsey & Company and Vodafone.

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Fri
14
Jan

Seven days to remove all Let By, Managed By and Sold By signs... that's the message in Tower Hamlets Council's latest missive to estate agents. Over at Estate Agent Today, Jamie Blake of the council is quoted thus:

Tower Hamlets will soon be welcoming hundreds of thousands of visitors as part of London 2012, and we want to ensure that the borough looks its best.

So covering it where possible isn't an option?

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Wed
11
Aug

It was a riot. Literally. When the bailiffs failed, the riot police turned up and were pelted with missiles from a Skipworth Road property. The house apparently belongs to the Crown Estate, which is planning a major 1,300 property fire sale across London. More here.

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Thu
10
Dec

Three hundred squatters have been evicted, today, from a block of ex-council flats in Poplar they've been living in, partying in, having noisy sex - apparently - on the roof of... since last autumn.

A spokeswoman for the squatters who gave her name only as Radiana said: "Why are the council evicting us just before Christmas? We will not be able to find anywhere else to go before the holiday, so families and children now face spending the festive season homeless on the streets."

Tower Hamlets Council claim to have visited them - without partying or having sex on the roof - several times to make sure the squatters knew they were going to have to arrange alternative accommodation.

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Wed
19
Aug

... Bow, Walthamstow, Clapton, Harringay, Deptford and - that old chestnut again - Tooting... apparently.

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Tue
23
Jun

One in five threatened by negative equity [ITN News]
Buy the Stig's house... maybe [Daily Mail]
Victorian Society v Lewisham Borough Council [Culture 24]
Bargain hunting or profiteering? [UPAD blog]

The Rat and Mouse - London's property blog, since 2005

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Tue
07
Apr

Regeneration of Stepney's crumbling Ocean Estate has been discussed, put out to tender, promised, fudged, kicked under the carpet time and time again during the New Labour years. Now, Tower Hamlets Council is said to be going straight to the Homes & Communities Agency to seek the £160plusm shortfall needed to make the housing civilised. And they're hopeful? Why? What's changed?

The council is keen to get the project done and dusted before the 2012 Olympics, when marathon stars including Britain’s Paula Radcliffe pass along the Mile End Road on the way to the Games at Stratford.

Some "previous" on the estate, from the BBC and the Independent, here and here.

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Mon
09
Mar

And that somebody is Stephen Lakey, an IT manager who, until now, has been living in a council flat supporting his unemployed parents, but now holds the keys to a one-bedroom Whitechapel party palace with Jacuzzi and steam room. Goodbye oldies, hello dancing girls. He paid £50 for a ticket, attracted by the fact that money was being donated to the Great Ormond Street Hospital Children's Charity. These property raffles have something of a checkered history. The usual scam involves some small print stating that if the value of the property isn't made up in ticket sales, a cash prize minus expenses is awarded instead. Recently, there's been some question about the legality of the process, since non-charity private lotteries are forbidden. In this case, it appears the question was hard enough to make the prize draw qualify as a game of skill. If you like the sound of this, there are nine further apartments up for grabs.

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