15th April 2016
Aspiring first-time buyers in London will need an annual salary of £106,000 – with a deposit of £138,000 – to buy a typical home worth £558,000 in 2020, homeless charity Shelter is predicting. Shelter's calculations are based on people typically needing to put down a deposit in the capital of 24.8% of the property's price.
Evening Standard (13/04/2016)
8th April 2016
City AM looks at the rejuvenation of Woolwich; perennially labelled “up-and-coming”, its rejuvenation has been kick-started by Berkeley Homes’ Royal Arsenal Riverside Development, and the arrival of the Elizabeth Line in 2018. The £1.2bn, 88-acre Royal Arsenal holds 5,000 new homes, along with new retail facilities and a host of open park spaces, all set along almost 1km of riverside frontage. Once the Elizabeth Line opens, the same year as the development is set to complete, the area will be one of just two stations south of the river linking to Canary Wharf in eight minutes, and central London in just 22.
8th April 2016
Fifty-six per cent of those polled by ComRes have said housing is now one of the most important challenges facing London. The survey also indicated the average price considered affordable, for buying a two-bedroom house in London, is £208,000, with the average price considered affordable for renting £646 per month. BBC News notes that figures from the Valuation Office Agency show the median monthly rent in London was £1,400 in the year 2014/15.
8th April 2016
An £80m aparthotel on the Commercial Road is set to go ahead, with funding from Osprey Equity Partners. The 178-unit, 21-storey tower is being developed by Reef Estates and the Sharma family. Simon Lee, co-founder of Osprey, said: “the London aparthotel sector…remains materially under supplied relative to other gateway cities and significantly undervalued in comparison to the student and PRS sectors”.
8th April 2016
Residential property prices in East London grew 7% in the year to March, according to research published earlier this week by JLL, offsetting weaknesses in other parts of the capital. Prices in the Stratford environs increased 7%, outstripping the West End and Central West areas, where prices fell by 2.9% and 5.3% respectively.
8th April 2016
London mayoral candidates Siân Berry (Green Party), Zac Goldsmith (Conservatives), Sadiq Khan (Labour) and Caroline Pidgeon (Liberal Democrats) reveal their housing policies for the Guardian. Mr Khan says he will encourage big business to invest in London’s housing market and ensure that residents come first in the housing queue, while Ms Berry wants to see more cooperatives and self-build to tackle the capital’s housing crisis. Mr Goldsmith wants to improve areas without locking out residents, and explains why he welcomes overseas investment in housing; Ms Pidgeon explains her plans for rogue landlords, and pledges to create a city-wide construction academy for housebuilding.
The Guardian