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Land Registry data shows the proportion of homes sold in London was lower than any other part of England and Wales last year. In total, 3.2% of all private London residential properties were sold in 2017, compared with the average of 4.1% for England and Wales. The London figure marked a decline from 3.6% in 2016 while the average for England and Wales was down from 0.2 points. The borough of Havering had the highest proportion of sales at 4.06%, while Brent had the lowest percentage at 2.15%.
City AM (11/06/2018)
Figures from the ONS show that house prices have reached a record high in the UK, but property inflation has slowed to its lowest level since March 2017. The average house price rose 3.9% to £227,000. London house prices staged a surprise bounce in the month, rising 2.4%, with annual property inflation in the capital returning to positive territory at 1%. However, this is the lowest rate of growth for any of the UK regions.
Daily Mail (13/06/2018)
The UK’s mortgage lending plummeted in the first quarter, with the number of new commitments agreed to by lenders down 5.9% from the previous quarter, reaching their lowest level since 2016, according to the latest Bank of England data. The share of lending to first time buyers also decreased 19.6% in the period, and there was a 9.6% drop in gross advances to £62.4bn. Meanwhile the share of buy-to-let lending increased, accounting for 13.9% of new lending, and remortgaging rose by 3.2 percentage points.
City AM (12/06/2018)
Over one-third of first-time buyers in London are changing the location of their property searches after stamp duty was scrapped for first-time buyers on the first £300,000 of any home costing up to £500,000.
Financial Times (08/06/2018)
London Mayor Sadiq Khan has unveiled revised plans for a new £1.1bn mixed-use cultural centre in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, which will be home to the BBC’s live music facilities. Its Symphony Orchestra and Chorus and the BBC Singers will join a dance theatre for Sadler’s Wells, a campus for the University of the Arts London and a new venue for the Victoria and Albert museum at East Bank, former known as Olympicopolis. The Mayor also announced that at least 50%of new homes across the remaining development sites on the Park - Stratford Waterfront, Pudding Mill and Rick Roberts Way - would be affordable.
City AM (05/06/2018) Property Week (05/06/2018)
A Reuters poll of 30 property industry experts has seen them predict that average house prices in London will fall by around 1% this year - the first annual decline since 2009. Prices across the rest of the country, they suggest, will climb 1.7%. This comes as ONS figures show the average value of a London property dipped 0.7% in the year to March, hitting £471,944. This decline was the second consecutive month where prices edged downward and the biggest dip since September 2009.
Evening Standard (07/06/2018) City AM (07/06/2018)