According to this, in Metro, the third quarter of 2011 saw a worrying 20% rise in repos. Almost half were ordered by lenders, the rest by landlords, mostly social.
An interesting piece in the Daily Mail (is this what it's come to?) about designer Tom Dixon's work to turn a 5,000 gallon water tower into a 5,000 square foot living space. It's a fascinating project, perhaps blighted a tiny bit, though, by its position. The photo below, from Google's StreetView, shows just how one side "benefits", as they say, from a view of the canal; but the other looks over a Sainsbury car park. Will it matter?
Another noteworthy detail from the Daily Mail piece is that Tom Dixon's a self-taught designer. Very, very impressive. More here.
The new figures show a fall of 1.3% in 2011, after zero change between November and December. The only region to see a rise in 2011 was - of course - London, where house prices rose 2.8%, which was modest and roughly half the level of general inflation. In the north east, prices fell 7.1%.
So, we have a winner, and damn if it isn't the much-mocked, much-maligned (but mainly by us, and for their very odd way of producing their monthly index) Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. Yes, we've egg on our faces, but not as much as Citi group, who forecast house price gains of between 5% and 10%, At the bottom end of last year's forecasts, we've probably got to cut Capital Economics (-10%) and Armstrong Davis (-10% to -15%) some slack, for the way those London figures have skewed what would otherwise be a market that was falling faster. What did we predict? Gains of 2%. For another look at last year's forecasts, go here.
Congratulations, RICS. If there was a prize, you'd get it. But there isn't.
The price has been up (£70m, originally), but it only sold when it was down (£36m, according to the Telegraph), to a Middle Eastern businessman who'll now enjoy a heated marble driveway, a guest bedroom with en suite swimming pool and 24 carat gold mosaics. The Telegraph describes it as Britain's "tackiest House", which sounds like a challenge. Can you find tackier?
Research by Lloyds TSB this morning showing that the cost of moving has risen 69% in the last decade is resulting in shock/horror headlines across the press. But average property prices have risen 64% during the same period, so moving costs as a proportion of purchase price have actually shifted hardly at all, despite huge increases in the cost of fuel, and a 5% increase in VAT. Other major costs (stamp duty, estate agents' fees) are directly linked property prices. So where's the story?
Certainly, moving costs as 27% of average pre-tax earnings are hard to swallow. But the issue - here - is with property prices. Go here for the story.
There's an interesting piece over at Londonist about "plans" (and we use the word loosely) by writer Alan de Botton and architect Tom Greenall to build a tower devoted to the religion that is atheism. This, from Greenall's website:
It's called Chaplin (after Charlie, who apparently lived in the Westminster Bridge area, and the founder's dog, who features in the logo), and it's the work of ex-Sequence agent Jason Lewis.They appear to have four properties for sale (ranging from £185,000 to £1.8m) and four to let. And they're recruiting.
Did you see Channel 4's 1900 House? It was one of those period living shows, in which a modern family travels back in time and experiences life as it was at the turn of the previous century. They did it in a very nice five-bedroom mid-terrace with - as you'd expect - period features, in SE7. The house is now for sale, with Felicity J Lord (that's an independent estate agents, not a posh lady thrown in as an extra feature), and a guide price of £550,000. Interestingly, it's described as "a contemporary home". Click this for some fancy particulars.
Fraud investigators looked closely at at 27,000 tenants and found red lights (mortgages, utility bills, credit database activity at other addresses) in 5,300 cases. That's 20%, and if it's indicative of illegal subletting across London, it suggests there may be as many 160,000 social tenants profiting by illegally subletting their properties. More here.
The FT does its own version of Hello magazine with a tour of Thatcher's old PR man and founder of the controversial (some might say, apparently) Bell Pottinger Group, Tim Bell's Hampstead pad, where he counts Thatcher and Yehudi Menuhin as neighbours.
Like a blood-splattered zombie policy, the mansion tax just won't die... but keeps dragging itself up and stumbling on, one foot dragging, its mouth open to reveal stubby, broken teeth.
Good morning.
This time, it's an annual tax of 1% on the value above and beyond £2m. So... £1,000 if your property's "worth" £2.1m. I ""ed worth for a reason. Many high value homes are unique, and the longer they remain off the market the harder it is to value them accurately or fairly. And that's even before you get into the issue of whether it is, indeed, ethically preferable to tax "wealth" over "income", whethet the taxation of wealth means you should tax income less, whether an illiquid property is wealth... the list goes on.
A mansion tax remains, however, a LibDem manifesto promise. And Vince Cable - here - claims there's support from within the Tory party too. Although I'd like to see evidence of that.
You'd almost think it was 1999... except everything's crap.
The buy-to-let party continues, though, according to tenant referencing people Landlord Assist, who report portfolios expanding, mortgage costs shrinking, tenant numbers burgeoning and rents rising. More here.
And now for one of those cheap and easy buy-to-let mortgages: Yorkshire Building Society today announced a relaxation in its lending terms to landlords, with a new minimum property value (£100,000, from £150,000), a new minimum earnings level (£20,000, from £35,000) and a new minimum age (25, from 30). Expect competition from other buy-to-let lenders imminently. More here.
The Wikipedia founder is apparently considering a move to London to be with his fiancée Kate Garvey... and to enjoy the cultural riches not, apparently, shared by Silicon Valley.
Total number of apartments: 85 Total number in full time occupation: 3 Total number classed as second homes: 49 Total number unsold: 27 Total number sold but empty: 6
The numbers come courtesy of Westminster Labour group's Paul Dimoldenberg, who's concerned that only three of the flats are accruing full council tax charges (there's a 90% discount if it's a second home). Here's what he has to say:
"This building - London's Mary Celeste - contributes nothing to local businesses or London's economy."
An interesting piece over at the Primelocation blog, inspired by a live radio spat with the Mail's Mira Bar Hillel over whether it was Thatcher or Macmillan who gave us the dysfunctional property market we so enjoy today, includes this:
According to agent Jackson-Stops & Staff, wealthy commuters could buy a good six bedroom family home in the stockbroker belt of Surrey with an acre of garden for £250,000 – today it would cost over £2 million.
And Dawn Carritt, who heads up JSS’s country house department, also remembers how “loans would not be considered for anything more than two and a half times a person’s salary” and mainly came from building societies and that only a few years before women would have needed to get their father’s or husband’s consent to get a mortgage in their own name.
It's a trial, by Redbridge council, called "FreeSpace". Except the space isn't technically "free", it's in a property owned by an old person. The scheme will help pensioners downsize without giving up ownership of their homes. The larger home will then be rented out to a family, and the pensioner will receive any profit. The scheme's being praised by Grant Shapps, here. I can see the sense, and it's clearly in response to last year's report about all the empty rooms being hogged by the elderly... but, still, there's a whiff of Orwell about this that's unsettling. Perhaps it's the name.
According to Rightmove, the number of new properties appearing on the website each week is at a ten-year (actually, an all-time) low. Bizarrely, the number of searches are at an all time high, up 27% on a year ago, at 44 million searches in the first ten days of the year. Bizarrely again, and demonstrating exactly why it's important to get over the supply-demand theory of pricing when it comes to the UK property market, asking prices have fallen on the month. More here.
However he ends the piece with a warning... of an over-supply of prime residential property in London if (I think he means) the market doesn't become more selective about what it calls "prime".
I think a lot of people will get caught with their trousers down.
Not even the Foxtons of old went that far for a deal.
The brothers were then driven to Chertsey, which should have been enough, but they then underwent a mock execution. Two men are currently on trial for kidnap, assault and false imprisonment.
It featured as an exterior - Sherlock's flat in the BBC's contemporary re-working of the Holmes stories - but the interiors were shot elsewhere. North Gower Street, NW1, a one-bedroom flat available from February for £330 a week. Particulars here.
But right across the capital, five years after the crunch transactions are still down by two-thirds. The research predicts a slight fall in house prices this year, followed by a slight rise next. Interesting, it predicts that Camden, Tower Hamlets and Hackney (the least affected by the slump in activity) will lead the recovery.
Nobody seems to give much of a toss any more (they will when rates start moving back to somewhere nearer "normal"), but the Bank of England announced unchanged base rates today of 0.5%, exactly where they've been since March 2009. More here.
It's a bit of a journalistic ploy - to push a spokesperson to rule something out and take their refusal as enough evidence for a headline - but the longer the idea of some kind of significant property value-based taxation (above and beyond Council Tax) continues to be debated, the more it becomes "normalised", the less it's seen as a philosophically radical change in the definition of "wealth".
According to Government research, more people competing for properties results in higher prices. That - you see - is why we have the Migration Advisory Committee.
During the best of times, this kind of report would just be pointless. But, while the Government makes low-earners' eyes water with brutal housing benefit reforms, effectively giving many a choice between homes and debt and moving to Margate, it feels provocative.
There's a "thing" in the Daily Mail about One Direction and Princess Park Manor, in particular Harry Styles and Louis Tomlinson who are said to be on the verge of buying the penthouse once owned by Ashley Cole. The development, next to New Southgate station, is the old Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum, which - in turn - was once home to John Duffy, who was worse than Ashley Cole.
More interesting than the property story are the comments below the piece... a true Daily Mail-style menagerie of opinions. My favourites, the one from the former asylum employee who warns of the ghosts, and this:
A two-bedroom house in Knightsbridge's Ennismore Gardens Mews with an asking price of £2.75m and a swinging sixties history that includes use as a location in The Avengers. More here.
According to entirely scientific research by CitySocialising - a network for the young and professional - five of the capital's ten most sociable postcodes begin with "SW". W1, however, topped the list, followed by WC1 and E14. More, if you really want it, here.
According to Shelter, almost a million people in the UK have taken out emergency "payday" loans in the last 12 months to meet their rent or mortgage obligations. Payday loans are controversial super-high interest short-term loans taken out quickly via the internet or a high street address. Interest rates are astronomical, although disguised by the apparent short-term nature of the loan. More here.
According to Primelocation, property prices rose in every single borough (the first time in the index's history), adding to nine consecutive months of growth with a 3.4% rise, leaving London prices at a new high, 10% up on the year. More here.
Yes, Happy New Year to you. Would you like to buy a pair of Cheryl's pants?
If so, there are apparently a few pairs available from her builders. According to this shock story suggesting British builders will not only have the shirt off your back but the pants out your drawer, workers at Cole's Hadley Wood home have been conducting tours of her empty (she's currently based in the States) property and selling off personal items she left behind. According to the builders, the pants were unwanted or abandoned. How could they tell? Because she wasn't wearing them?
