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Landlords are abandoning London in droves, spending billions less on property purchases than they were three years ago which in turn is leaving tenants facing a possible shortage of homes and rising rents. British buy-to-let investors spent £12.1bn on property purchases in the first half of this year - £5.2bn less than in the first half of 2015, according to statistics from HM Revenue & Customs.
The Times (14/10/2018)
Rohan Silva in the Standard discusses London’s “crazy property ladder,” which is making the city unaffordable for first-time buyers even compared to other major cities like Singapore, where the government “is playing a much bigger and more ambitious role in building homes,” with a “transformative” effect. While he calls for planning reform “to make it faster and cheaper to construct homes,” he says, “the truth is the private sector alone can’t fix the housing crisis.” He urges the Chancellor to follow through on Theresa May’s announcement of an end to the council borrowing cap to fund the building of more council homes.
Evening Standard (12/10/2018)
Prime properties in London face stagnant house price growth until 2020, according to research that cites uncertainty over Brexit as a key limiting factor on the housing market. The rate of annual growth in the prime country market has averaged less than 1% since mid-2016, compared to up to 5% in the mainstream UK market.
Financial Times (12/10/2018)
Plans for a new urban district in London's Canary Wharf featuring 3,600 homes have been revealed. The development, called Wood Wharf, is expected to create 20,000 new jobs and be completed by 2023. It is overseen by Canary Wharf Group, which is owned by the Qatar Investment Authority - the country's sovereign wealth fund. The scheme was approved by Tower Hamlets Council in 2014, which described its design as "innovative." A spokesman for CWG said the company had been "focusing on detailed building design and managing the infrastructure requirements for a development of this scale" since then. The development will involve homes - a quarter of which will be affordable, shops, new parks, offices, a GP surgery, leisure centre and restaurant, as well as a two-form primary school for 420 children, spread over 23 acres.
Luxury residential developer Mount Anvil has seen its average home selling price hit £1.2m in 2017 on the back of a number of high-value properties, including penthouse apartments at its Dollar Bay project in Canary Wharf and riverfront flats at Queen’s Wharf in Hammersmith. Turnover rose to £225.5m from £198m, while pre-tax profits to £89m from £73m.
Source: Evening Standard (09/10/2018)
The number of Londoners under the age of 40 setting up their own home in the capital is to fall significantly over the next 15 years, the Office for National Statistics has warned. While boroughs including Barking, Bexley and Havering, will buck the trend by showing projected increases, most will show a decline, including Hounslow, Harrow, Lambeth, Camden and Haringey. Joanna Harkrader of the ONS said changes in “living arrangements” meant the number of younger households would fall by 7%, from 1,051,800 in 2016 to 974,100 in 2041.
Source: Evening Standard (09/10/2018)