Docklands News

The UK's domestic property market is set for a quicker recovery than previously expected, putting Britain on track to reclaim its title as the top destination in Europe for international real estate investors. The property market tends to track the health of the wider economy, and analysts at CBRE predict that the British economy will grow by 7.7% this year, followed by 6.6% in 2022. Previously, they had expected 6.7% and 5.9% respectively. CBRE's Miles Gibson commented: “The resolution of Brexit is one thing and the other is that it is now much clearer what our path out of the pandemic will be.” Before Brexit, the UK was the go-to destination for overseas real estate investors but it fell behind Germany shortly after the referendum. “Now that those uncertainties have been resolved, we expect that, once again, the UK will overtake Germany as Europe’s biggest real estate investment destination,” Gibson added. 

The Times (12/07/2021)  

The average age of a renter is now 41 - nine years older than a typical first-time buyer, new research shows, while more Brits live in private rental homes compared to ten years ago. The number of 35 to 44-year-olds renting has increased from 17 to 27%. Only 56% of the same age group are home owners, down from 67% a decade ago, the English Housing Survey shows. It also revealed the number of people owning a second property has risen from 1.81m to 2.44m in the past ten years. For the majority, 39%, this is a holiday home. Meanwhile the average age of someone with a mortgage is 45.6 years old, while those that are outright owners tend to be older at almost 68 years. The intergenerational wealth gap is benefiting some, with 1.13m homeowners saying they had help buying their home with a loan or gift from family. Londoners save more for their deposits: despite the high property prices in London only 13% of first-time buyers in the capital bought with a deposit of less than 10% compared with 27% elsewhere in the country. 

The Times (10/07/2021)  

A new pedestrian bascule bridge in London’s Docklands has received “substantial public backing” at recent consultation. Designed by Arcadis, Knight Architects and Kgal, the proposed South Dock Bridge will support increased volumes of pedestrian traffic which are predicted with the expansion of the Isle of Dogs. The bridge has been designed as a sculpted two-span variable-depth steel beam with a single central pier in the dock. Each of these spans is approximately 35m long. In addition to this, the bridge provides a permanent 15m-wide and 3m-high navigable channel for smaller boats to pass underneath and, thanks to a movable (bascule) north span, a 25m wide channel without height restriction for taller ships. The deck width varies from 7.8m at the south end to 15.4m at the north. Work is expected to start on site in 2022, with the crossing scheduled to open in 2023.

New Civil Engineer (07/07/2021)  

The Halifax house price index has revealed that prices fell in June for the first time since January, coinciding with the end of the full stamp duty holiday, which had removed the purchase tax on properties worth up to £500,000. Anna Clare Harper, the chief executive of property consultancy SPI Capital, said: “The tapering down of the temporary stamp duty reduction takes the pressure off demand. However, supply is still constrained, construction is getting harder and more expensive, and a mass sell-off from property owners is unlikely in the absence of significant interest rate rises.” On an annual basis, Halifax said property prices were still 8.8%, or about £21,000, higher than they were a year ago, with the strongest growth in Wales, Northern Ireland and north-west England. 

Evening Standard (07/07/2021)   The Daily Telegraph (07/07/2021)   The Guardian (07/07/2021)   The Times (07/07/2021)  

Ten times more homes sold than usual on the final day of the stamp duty holiday. Almost 36,000 property sales were sealed on June 30 as lawyers rushed to push through deals before the maximum stamp duty saving fell from £15,000 to £2,500 in England and Northern Ireland, according to data from TwentyCi. Helen Hutchison, a partner at the law company Irwin Mitchell, said: "It has been the busiest I have ever known it. We had people exchanging and completing on the same day to make it." Across the UK, 1.1m properties were sold during the tax holidays. There were 78,022 home sales completed in the last week of the stamp duty holiday in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. This compared with an average of 19,000 sales a week in a typical year. Just over 124,000 people who had agreed a sale before April 1 and so had a realistic chance of making the deadline missed it. 

The Times (06/07/2021)  

The Independent's Phil Thornton warns that the property market boom will hit young people the hardest. As Nationwide data reveals the strongest rise in residential property values for 17 years, Mr Tornton believes that "home ownership will simply become yet more unaffordable for young people, and for key workers who were already priced out of many areas before COVID-19." He adds that "this will exacerbate the intergenerational wealth gap and favour those who rely on the 'bank of Mum and Dad'."

The Independent (05/07/2021)