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Five "urban explorers" have been spared jail for climbing a Canary Wharf skyscraper, despite defying a court order banning them from trespassing on the site. Judge Jeremy Freedman said he would not jail them for contempt of court "as an act of leniency to safeguard [their] futures". The teenagers had climbed to the top of Canary Wharf Group’s Newfoundland building, which when finished will host 636 apartments.
ITV News (26/11/2018)
Hackney has recorded the highest rate of house price growth of all London boroughs, having leapt 489% in the last two decades, thanks to gentrification within areas such as Dalston and Shoreditch. According to data from London estate agent Ludlow Thompson, the average house price in Hackney now stands at £536,000, up from £91,000 in 1998. Other London boroughs with the highest growth in house prices include the City of London, where the average property has jumped 447% to £767,000 since 1998. Separately, NestEast has secured £4.7m in development finance from Shawbrook Bank for the high-end property developers latest scheme in Cambridge Heath Road, Hackney. The project nvolves redeveloping a former hairdressing academy into nine brand new loft-style apartments with a large rooftop garden.
Source: City AM (19/11/2018) Growth Business (21/11/2018)
According to a poll conducted by Reuters, London house prices will fall 1.7% this year and another 0.3% in 2019. Asking prices in London fell 1.7% this month from October, according to Rightmove. Along with Brexit uncertainty, a sharp increase in Stamp Duty Land Taxhas particularly affected the capital.“The high rates of SDLT will continue to stifle transaction volumes, especially in expensive price areas like London and the South East,” said Ray Boulger, a senior manager at mortgage broker John Charcol. After next year’s modest dip London prices will rise 1.5% in 2020, the poll found.
Source: Reuters (23/11)
Asking prices have dropped 1.7% this month to an average of £302,023, marking the largest November drop since 2012, with the South East leading the way at a 2.1% decline. The price of newly marketed property across the UK is 0.2% cheaper than it was 12 months ago — the first national year-on-year price fall since November 2011. In Scotland, average asking prices are down by 1.3% month-on-month, while in Wales they have fallen by 1.2% . However the lowering of prices has signalled a slight uptick in activity, with a 1% year-on-year rise in the number of November sales. While prices typically edge down ahead of the Christmas period, Rightmove, which compiled the figures, said the data signals a higher-than-usual drop as sellers lower their demands in a bid to lure in cautious buyers amid Brexit uncertainty and wage stagnation. Rightmove also found that the average property took 61 days to sell, up from 56 days earlier this year, while the number of properties on the books of the average estate agent is 52, compared with 42-47 earlier this year.
Source: City AM The Times The Guardian Daily Mai Daily Express (19/11/2018)
The number of London’s unsold homes has rocketed to its all-time high as Brexit uncertainty and affordability issues dog the housing market, with Wandsworth and Croydon, respectively, harbouring the largest stockpiles. Some 2,374 units remain unsold as of September 30, according to data compiled by Molior London, up from 1,595 at the end of 2017.
Source: Bloomberg (22/11/2018)
The Canary Wharf Group is making one its first forays into residential property, with a significant amount of build-to-rent stock, to be managed by its Vertus arm. A 327-unit building at 10 George Street, at Wood Wharf to the east of the Canary Wharf estate, will be the first to be completed, in December 2019, followed by 8 Water Street, with 174 units. The “flagship” of the Vertus estate, Newfoundland, to be finished in the second quarter of 2020, is a 60-storey, 636-apartment tower with a distinctive ‘diagrid’ design. Wood Wharf, one of the largest development sites in the capital, will eventually provide 3,300 new homes, almost 2m sq ft of office space, and 490,000 sq ft of shops, restaurants and community facilities.
Property Week (08/11/2018)