Docklands News

Soaring house prices have been driving up the retail prices index of inflation, according to a new analysis. RPI, which includes a housing depreciation component that reflects property prices, reached 3.9% in June and is on course to hit 5.6% later this year, Simon Ward, economic adviser at Janus Henderson Investors, said. As the Office for Budget Responsibility forecast RPI of just 2.4% in March, a 3.2 point overshoot would add £15.2bn to the cost of servicing the government’s £470bn portfolio of index-linked gilts, Ward said. The housing boom, which has driven annual house price inflation to a 17-year high of 13.2%, accounts for £2.4bn of the overshoot by directly increasing RPI, Ward calculated. Given that the bill for the stamp duty relief is officially estimated at £4.7bn, the combined cost to the exchequer of the property market boom is likely to top £7bn this year. 

The Times (31/08/2021)  

Mortgages with 5% deposits made up just 1% of total lending last month according to online broker Trussle – despite their return being hailed by the Government as the way to "turn generation rent into generation buy". In July, just one in 100 mortgage completions on its books were for buyers with 5% deposits. Trussle said it had had a high level of enquiries about 5% deposit mortgages this year, peaking in March when the Government's Mortgage Guarantee Scheme was announced. This suggests that many first-time buyers are not able to qualify for one based on their finances. 

Daily Mail (30/08/2021)  

Analysis of council figures by Churchill Home Insurance has found that almost 370,000 noise complaints were made between April 2020 and March 2021 - up 28% on the previous year. A third of complainants said loud music, noisy children, slamming doors and other disturbances were affecting their wellbeing, while more than one in ten called the police to try to resolve the problem. Six of the top 10 councils for complaints were London boroughs, including Newham, Islington and Kensington and Chelsea, which had the highest proportion of complaints at 99 per 1,000 inhabitants. 

Daily Mirror (01/09/2021)   The Daily Telegraph (01/09/2021)   The I (01/09/2021)  

Tower Hamlets Council has given the green light to a mixed-used tower development at 2 Trafalgar Way, near Canary Wharf. The latest scheme, which consists of three towers of 28, 36 and 48 storeys rising from a four-storey podium, will provide 68 homes, nearly 1,700 student accommodation units, more than 4,000sq m of commercial space and 1,200sq m of retail space. Initially conceived as a series of angular towers, the scheme’s corners were chamfered to distinguish it from the towers of Canary Wharf to the south after a request by the council. The towers were also slightly lowered in height to satisfy the council’s requirement that the emerging Blackwall cluster, where the scheme is located, should be subservient to the towers in Canary Wharf. Work is expected to start on site in the first quarter of 2022.

Housing Today (20/08/2021)  

Greener homes could be worth £22,000 more on average, according to a recent study. Property experts predict that homes with sustainable features such as electric vehicle chargers and solar panels will command a higher premium than those without in 10 years' time. They will be worth on average 9% more when sold, according to a study of estate agents by Hive. With new legislation coming into force in 2030, banning the sale of new petrol and diesel cars, new buyers are increasingly looking to future proof their homes. As the nation prepares to go electric, estate agents have already started to see a surge in houses that are EV friendly. Four in five (82%) stated a rise in customers searching for homes with an EV charging point already installed. 

The Express (20/08/2021)  

Soaring house prices have created almost 100,000 property millionaires since the start of the pandemic, research has revealed. High demand and low supply, coupled with a stamp duty holiday, have led to record house prices since the first lockdown, with the average home gaining £31,000 in value in the past year. Last week, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said that the average house price had risen by 13.2% in the year to June - the highest annual growth rate since 2004. It is now £266,000. Of the estimated 770,000 homes worth £1m or more, 98,931 have crossed that line since March 2020, according to research for this newspaper by the independent analysts TwentyCi. 

The Sunday Times (22/08/2021)