020 7538 0102
16th September 2016
Home-owners borrowed £10.6bn in July, 13% less than they did in June, according to the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML), which shows the total number of loans fell by 14% to 58,100 in the first full month since the Brexit vote. First-time buyers borrowed a total of £4.4bn in July, with 28,200 mortgages taken out – a 19% month-on-month drop-off. Lending to home movers, at £6.2bn, fell 9% compared with June and 16% compared with July 2015.
The Daily Telegraph (15/09/2016
9th September 2016
China’s Greenland Group has launched one of the most ambitious housing-project commitments in the UK since the Brexit vote, with the tallest residential tower in Europe. The launch of the £800m, 67-storey, 235m-high Spire London tower, in West India Quay, comes despite market concerns over a glut of homes in parts of the capital. The first of the 861 apartments go on sale next month, with one-bedroom properties starting from £595,000. Communal facilities include a crèche, meeting rooms, games room, and a “music/learning/cultural space”; other attractions include a gym, cocktail bar, and an infinity pool promising spectacular views over the capital. Construction is set to be complete by 2020.
The Guardian (05/09/2016) Evening Standard (05/09/2016)
9th September 2016
Apartments at the tallest tower at London City Island have gone on sale, with prices starting at £365,000. Caledonia House contains 217 homes made up of suites, one, two and three-bedroom apartments, and is part of a wider 12-acre island development from EcoWorld Ballymore featuring 1,700 homes, linked to the “mainland” by a 260ft red footbridge across the Lea.
The Wharf (02/09/2016)
9th September 2016
While the market for London’s top-end homes was already slowing before the Brexit referendum, analysts at UBS believe the vote has dented confidence further. A year ago there were roughly four-and-a-half times as many such homes on the market as there were homes sold subject to contract. The ratio is now at a new high of more than 7.5 times. By contrast, ratios for homes costing below £150,000 and between £150,000 and £250,000 – predominantly outside London – have remained just below one-times since February. UBS analysts expect the number of transactions in the capital to fall by 6% in 2016 and 10% in 2017, causing house prices in London to fall by 10% by the end of 2017..
The Daily Telegraph (06/09/2016)
9th September 2016
House price growth slowed in August but buying a property was still 6.9% more expensive than a year ago, according to the Halifax, which put the average home in the UK now at £213,930. Prices in the three months to the end of August were 0.7% higher than the previous quarter, marking a slowdown in the pace of growth, and property values fell by 0.2% in August compared with July.
City AM (08/09/2016)
12th September 2016
Lincoln Plaza, a 31-storey luxury residential tower block near Canary Wharf, has been awarded the 2016 Carbuncle Cup by Building Design magazine, which labelled it a "brain-numbing jumble of discordant shapes, patterns, materials and colours”. A spokesman for developer Galliard Homes said the “scheme sold out to buyers, so clearly the project is liked by the purchasers”, adding that "the London Borough of Tower Hamlets appointed a design committee to review the architectural plans for this site, and the design committee loved the project and its design”.
BBC News (07/09/2016) Business Insider UK (08/09/2016)