Docklands News

Developer Lendlease has submitted a hybrid planning application covering a near-50-acre site at the Royal Docks in Silvertown. The scheme would create around 6,500 homes, 50% of them affordable; it would also include refurbishing the long-derelict Millennium Mills building, where more than 780,000 sq ft of "next generation work and creative spaces’ would be created alongside a surrounding ‘employment quarter". Lendlease says the development would “embrace its dockside location” and benefit from the Custom House station on the Elizabeth Line. The developers said they will create one of the greenest new neighbourhoods in London, with all homes and commercial spaces supplied with hot water and heating through a zero-carbon district heating system.

Property Week (18/01/2023)  

London homebuyers have historically paid a premium to be near the a train station, but new figures show that the further away a home is from a train station, the faster its price is growing. In 2019, once 600m from a station the average price would start to fall. However, three years and a pandemic later prices for London homes further away from stations have grown so much that they are catching up with those for better connected properties. However, buyers in the home counties still pay more for bigger properties further from a train station, but homeowners who live near a station have seen their house prices increase the most since the pandemic. Much of this uplift can be attributed to Londoners moving out of the capital but still wanting a connection into the city.  

The Sunday Times (15/01/2023)  

Office for National Statistics data showed on Wednesday that UK house prices fell 0.3% between October and November, their first monthly fall in more than one year. This brought the annual growth rate to 10.3% in November, down from 12.4% in the previous month. The average UK house price was £295,000, slightly down on October’s record high of £296,000. Average house prices increased 10.9% over the year to £315,000 in England, 10.7% to £220,000 in Wales, 5.5% to £191,000 in Scotland and 10.7% to £176,000 in Northern Ireland. Prices fell most sharply in regions where they had risen the most over the course of the pandemic. For example, average prices in northeast England fell by 2.6%. At £163,000, the northeast also continued to be the location of the lowest average house price in England. London remains by the most expensive place to buy a house, with the average home worth £542,000 in November. That is only 6.3% more than the average value a year before, the lowest rate of annual inflation of any region. 

City AM (18/01/2023)   Daily Mail (18/01/2023)   Financial Times (18/01/2023)   The Times (18/01/2023)  

High street lenders are slashing mortgage rates with HSBC reducing rates on 100 of its deals by up to 0.1 percentage points on Tuesday. Yorkshire Building Society cut its fixed-rate mortgages by up to 0.75 percentage points while Santander also slashed some of its fixed-rate mortgages by up to 0.59 percentage points. The bank also launched a new two-year deal at 4.84%, one of the cheapest on the market. Borrowing costs rose dramatically after the mini-Budget at the end of September, peaking towards the end of October, before gradually falling to today’s three-month low. The average two-year fixed rate now stands at 5.58%, down from its peak of 6.65%, while the average five-year rate has dropped to 5.39%, the lowest level since the start of October, when it was priced at 5.23%. 

The Daily Telegraph (17/01/2023)  

This Spring will see the launch of British Land's new development at Canada Water, located among 160 acres of woodlands and parks. The Founding includes one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments with views across London and private balconies. Each of the homes include bespoke interiors designed by Conran and Partners. "The apartments are in a prime location within the wider scheme, minutes from Canada Water station, overlooking Canada Dock and positioned at the start of Canada Water’s new high street", said Emma Cariaga, head of residential and co-head of Canada Water at British Land. "These three elements represent the key appeal of Canada Water, an area that is surrounded by green space and water, yet moments from central London".

Property Investor Today (12/01/2023)  

Analysis reveals that property makes over 50% the wealth of estates in London paying inheritance tax (IHT) – around twice as much as most other regions - with an average value of over £820,000. Retirement specialist Just Group revealed that in 2019-20, the latest financial year of available data, the average estate value in the capital was over £1.4m, nearly £200,000 higher than the South East which was the region with the second highest average estate values. The proportion of housing wealth in IHT-paying estates dropped to 39% in the South East, at £604,000, 36%in the East of England (£524,000), 32% in the South West (£474,000) and 31% in the West Midlands (£398,000) but then falls to a quarter or less in all other regions. 

City AM (09/01/2023)