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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.
Technorati Tags: property, real estate
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An interesting news video, here.
Technorati Tags: property, real estate
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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.
Technorati Tags: property, real estate
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Say you bought a property today for £1.5 million, using income that’s already been taxed (much of it at, say, 40%), paid your £75,000 stamp duty on the property, spent a further few hundred thousand pounds on renovation (on which you’d paid 20% VAT), and as a result received a property valuation of £2.5 million.
On exactly what level is this accrued 'wealth' of £2.5 million in need of taxing to make the situation equitable for society? On a much more fundamental level, how is it fair to be taxed annually based on what a group of strangers might be prepared to pay for your home?
Our publisher creates a comment shit storm on the surprisingly emotional subject of a mansion tax, in his guest column for Citywire.
Technorati Tags: property, real estate
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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.
If these walls could talk... The Avengers edition [January 5, 2012]
Technorati Tags: property, real estate
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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.
Technorati Tags: property, real estate
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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.
Bell’s sitting room on the first floor overflows with books: on the shelves, on the tables. This is where he reads and many of the books tell the story of his life and times: first editions dedicated to him by Thatcher, Cecil Parkinson and Jeffrey Archer.
Nothing from Jimmy Wales, apparently.
Technorati Tags: property, real estate
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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.
Technorati Tags: property, real estate
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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.
Technorati Tags: property, real estate
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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."
More here.
Sold! To the oligarch with the worried look on his face... [April 19, 2011]
Kylie buys in One Hyde Park [April 6, 2011]
Exclusive! Rat and Mouse tipster inside 1 Hyde Park! [April 23, 2010]
Technorati Tags: property, real estate
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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.
Read the rest here.
Technorati Tags: property, real estate
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