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Entries in November 2010
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Valuations have begun, according to rumours, with the ultimate aim to sell the site for redevelopment. Opened in June 1960, it was one of the world's first purpose-built broadcasting centres. Whatever "redevelopment" is considered, its Grade II listing will hopefully save it from anything disastrous. Personally - though - as a 20th Century nostalgist, I'll be sad. More here.
Technorati Tags: property, real estate
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In a fascinating Q&A with Forbes, Wikileaks' Julian Assange looks forward to the first great leak of 2011 and promises a Wall Street exposé shocking enough to "take down a bank or two".
He likes surprises, so he won't be drawn on details, other than to expect another large scale "megaleak" of material relating to a major US bank. Expect evidence of "flagrant violations", "unethical practices", something on the scale of Enron, he says. Read the full interview text here.
Technorati Tags: property, real estate
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Some interesting number crunching by Henry Pryor here, examining the property market's contribution to the public purse, and its importance to the state, particularly as VAT and Stamp Duty on £1m+ homes rise in the new year. But - he warns - for the contributions to continue, there has to be a market to start with.
Fees and taxes mean that some people will be paying nearly 10% of the value of their home just to move at a time when many commentators predict property prices will fall by this amount.
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Following news that Sotheby's was opening a London lettings division, the story here is that they're also planning a big presence in new London developments... a division headed by ex-Savills and DTZ Russell Taylor. The idea - again - is to leverage their international presence to place London property in front of foreign buyers.
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More in this Category - Linkage
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I spent most of the day in traffic... in snow.
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The proposed closure of more than 54 county courts is expected to do little to help a creaking, over-worked system. Nor will repercussions from an innocuous-sounding, but potentially alarming, case in Manchester.Manchester City Council vs Pinnock began as a fairly typical nuisance and anti-social behaviour case, the council seeking either possession or a demotion order (the temporary removal of the tenant’s right to secure tenancy). They were granted the latter. But Mr Pinnock continued to be a nuisance to his neighbours, and found himself back in court shortly afterwards. This time, the council sought nothing short of a possession order, which was granted by the county court, and upheld in the Court of Appeal.
Mr Pinnock – nothing if not persistent – appealed to the Supreme Court, where both parties, ultimately, managed to lose. The court upheld the decision to evict Mr Pinnock, but not before throwing a giant spanner into the works, concluding that – on the basis of European case law and the Human Rights Act – the courts should be able to test a decision to evict on proportionality, too.
According to Paul Hayes, head of housing litigation at Lewis Silkin, the judgment specifically states councils and housing associations will now have to deal with this extra hurdle when attempting to evict a tenant, and left open the possibility of it applying to private landlords, too.
A new case suggests landlords with tenants in arrears may face a new obstacle on the already rocky path to gaining an eviction order. Our publisher explores the issues in his guest column for Citywire.
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If you haven't seen it, head over to the BBC's news site for a closer look at what promises to be Europe's tallest building, when it's completed in 2012.
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I know... you're going to need help. The average time between a contender leaving the TV show in a blaze of outrage/celebration and the viewer completely and utterly forgetting they ever existed is around 90 minutes in my experience. It's the nature of reality TV. So here's a little hint. Gable Lodge - a modest seven-bedroom place on The Bishop's Avenue - is listed at £11m... about twice as much as it was worth when the contestants were stinking it up in 2006. Particulars here.
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He's a lone voice, but external member of the Monetary Policy Committee Andrew Sentance repeated calls last night to raise interest rates as a way of tackling inflation. He was speaking at a Bank of England-sponsored event in Belfast. He's voted for a 0.25% increase each month since June, but he's singularly failed in gathering support, as his colleagues - he argues - fixate on more immediate downside risks, rather than upside risks from increasing demand as the world economy improves. He appears to suggest there's a historical precedent showing recovery often occurs quicker and more dramatically than is forecast. More here and here.
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More in this Category - _Other
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According to this, Nicole Bisson (who launched Foxtons International and more recently worked in lettings at Henry & James) has joined Sotheby's International Realty (now owned by Countrywide), where she'll be launching a tenancy division aimed at matching high-end international tenants with high-end London property.
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HBOS has been criticised by Which? for offering "misleading" information to first-time buyers. The offending statement can be found on their mortgage page, aimed at first-time buyers.
What - exactly - are the chances of interest rates going down, from their existing 0.5%? ask Which?. Fair? The text isn't, technically, inaccurate, but it does seem dated. Nor are Tracker rates pitched higher than comparable fixed rates. HBOS tell This is Money - here - that they're considering amending the page.
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We have noticed increasing numbers of labourers eschewing fry-ups and tea for cappuccino and croissants – or even healthier options. We have seen a builders van using a cheekily-appropriated D&G logo from the Italian fashion house. We have even heard tell of sunbed use. We are not saying builders are the new hairdressers, but we do believe that a faction is peeling away to join the expanding, though squeezed middle classes. Is your builder a New Labourer?
Put your labourer to the test, here.
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More in this Category - Linkage
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It'll be called 1 Merchant Square, it's planned for the ongoing Paddington Basin development, and if it gains Westminster Council approval it'll bring 222 flats and the 17th tallest peak to the London skyline, at 460ft. They're already calling it the Cucumber. More here.
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Landlord Action's petition to change the rules to make it easier for landlords to evict non-paying or anti-social tenants has been handed in to Downing Street with 5,000 signatures. With the private rented sector increasingly picking up the slack where social housing isn't meeting demand, there's a feeling among landlords that something needs to be done to protect their rights as much as the tenants'. I'm kind of surprised this has arrived at DS with just 5,000 names. More here.
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It's in Forest Hill, and it's a three bedroom terraced house by architect Norman Starrett, part of the underrated Hyndewood development. It looks like the property might need a little work, but the good news (for fans of mid-century modern) is that many of the original features are still there... including the parquet flooring, the windows, even some of the original kitchen units. It's with The Modern House estate agents, with a guide price of £345,000, particulars here. For some scans of an original article written about the Hyndewood development from around the time it was built, go here.
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Test your skills with this crossword, courtesy of MoneyMadeClear.org.uk.
[via Sarah Beeny on Twitter]
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More than two-thirds of 30 analysts polled by Reuters in the past week predicted a house price double dip, with the median predicted fall 5%. Restricted lending, higher unemployment are inevitably going to stifle markets, according to those polled. More here.
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His Italian chef and girlfriend tenants are said to have failed to pay rent for seven months, before scarpering on the eve of the bailiffs' arrival, and taking the Pimlico flat's furnishings with them. Crockery, furniture, bed linen... all gone. There's a piece - here - in which Moss's daughter, who manages her father's portfolio, describes her initial concerns:
Alarm bells did ring when I first met him, because he had tattoos on his neck.
Seriously, though... I wonder whether a high-profile case like this will do anything to add to the pressure to change a system that forces landlords to affectively offer half a year's free accommodation to any tenant who just doesn't fancy paying?
[photo by Franca]
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The National Association of Estate Agents has launched its own voluntary licensing scheme today, open to any member who is qualified, insured, properly audited and takes 12 hours of training annually. Cynics point to the relatively clean bill of health given the industry in the recent Office of Fair Trading report and suggest the NAEA appetite for regulation is more about its own position in the industry. More here.
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According to this she's looking for a London base. Husband Wayne, nor son Kai, should necessarily expect an invitation.
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If anyone needs any general advice from an experienced property lawyer, drop me a line. We've a lawyer on hand who's offered to turn enquiries into blog posts... should be interesting.
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Government figures show a fall of 0.7% in the three months to September, following a rise of 1.6% in the preceding three months. It appears to be September that did the damage, with a 0.8% fall in the month alone. September-to-September, house prices are still in the black, by 6.1% (down from 8.1%).
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"Best Estate Agency London", "Best Lettings Agency London" and "Best Estate Agency Website UK", no less, at the UK Property Awards all go to Foxtons. This follows their "Outstanding Real Estate Website" win at the 2010 Web Awards.
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Ron Adams is 72, he's lived in the same council house since he was 8, but his council want him out. More than a thousand local residents have signed a petition demanding he be allowed to stay, but the three-bedroom flat is apparently "under-occupied" since the death of his mother and brother, and Ron - despite suffering from depression and panic attacks - can expect the bailiffs. More here.
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Put like that, it's not much of a story, especially when you learn it's not actually notorious hook-handed hate-preacher Abu Hamza's house, but a property providing a home to his estranged family. (Hamza is currently at home at Belmarsh.) It hasn't stopped the Daily Mail, though, from getting hot and very bothered about the idea of the Hamzas not only living at the taxpayers' expense in a giant house in Shepherds Bush ("an area popular with bankers"... because they're very deserving, aren't they?), but also having their home underpinned, insulated and "painted an elegant cream", the bill handed to hard-working families. Hammersmith and Fulham Council respond that they have a responsibility to future tenants and taxpayers to keep fix the subsidence. More here.
The Abu Hamza property trail [January 19, 2007]
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The latest figures, published by the Department for Communities and Local Government, disclosed that almost 249,000 people over state pension age had a home loan. A further 1,071,000 people aged between 55 and 64 still had mortgage debts.
The Telegraph worries about pensioners, interest rates, and the prospect of a generation of borrowers hitting retirement age with little more than a dodgy endowment policy to pay off the home loan. The readers ask: are we bothered?
Boo hoo. They've had it easy compared to us.
Some pensioners have a mortgage in UK to pay for their homes in Spain.
Raise the pension age: problem solved!
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A big "thank you" to our sponsor, Primelocation.com. Remember, Primelocation.com isn't just about searching properties listed by 4,000 leading estate agents, the website's a mine of useful advice, information and links. An example? Go here to search up-to-date real life completion prices for UK property. Snoop on your neighbours. Do the maths before making an offer. It's useful, it's free... you need to register, but it's quick and easy. If you've feedback, let us know and we'll pass it on with pleasure.
And don't forget Primelocation's very popular iPad app, which offers just about the most fun it's possible to have searching for a property with your clothes on.
If you want to know more about advertising opportunities on the Rat and Mouse, drop me a line. Or if you just want to chat with the Rat, we're on Twitter here, or email us tips here.
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More in this Category - Linkage
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Something extraordinary has just happened. The phone rang. I picked it up and found myself talking to an estate agent...
Yeah I get that a lot. Don't tell me... she's calling to say the lawyer's drawing up a cease-and-desist?
... an estate agent who had just taken on a house she thought I might be interested in. You might think that is of no interest whatsoever – after all until a few months ago we were in the market for a house. But it is interesting simply because when we where looking no one ever called us with a house. Not only did estate agents not bother to call us after a viewing to see what we thought, they didn't bother to call us when something new came on the market. They waited until we saw it on the property websites or in the paper and called them.
Right.
Merryn Somerset Webb discusses the repercussions of supply outstripping demand, in MoneyWeek.
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The ongoing embarrassment that is south west London's historic Battersea Power Station site entered a new stage yesterday with council approval for a £5.5bn project, promising two new Northern Line tube stops, shops, office space and 3,400 new homes, 517 of which will be affordable housing. The original building will be protected (although the chimneys are apparently "beyond repair" and will need to be demolished and rebuilt). Interestingly, the plan includes using the chimneys and power plant to drive a green energy project, run by bio-fuel... which somehow manages to just add another layer of implausibility to a project that follows countless others that have ultimately come to nothing. We hope we're wrong... but I'm sure we're not alone in taking all this with a pinch of salt, especially in the current economic climate.
Read some background to the whole Battersea Power Station fiasco here.
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Sponsored by a Louisiana-based US architecture firm, the 2010 Zombie Safe House Competition features four homes designed to be safe from a zombie attack (something which the Home Information Pack never really explored, but if you're concerned you could always ask your surveyor). There are four designs to choose from. Go and vote... your future may (or may not) be at stake.
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According to this report in Bloomberg, Londoners are already looking to secure 2012 tenancies in the Olympic region, and are looking at up to 70% more than normal rents. Hotel rates are expected to double, and it looks as if there's going to be a giant shortfall in accommodation anyway. A couple of estate agents are quoted suggesting that landlords who wait until the very last moment will be able to pretty much name their price.
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Topped by Australia, Hong Kong, Sweden, France and Spain, the UK slips to sixth in the Economist's over-priced homes league. Bargains include Japan and Germany, while the US appears to have reached something like parity.
[via arabianmoney]
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Communities Secretary Eric Pickles' decision to scrap regional housing targets has been ruled unlawful in the High Court. Pickles had written to local councils warning them to sit on local developments in lieu of legislation due next autumn. Developers criticised Pickles for leaving a planning vacuum, and it appears the courts agree. Most agree, however, that this is a delay, rather than a scrapping of the policy. More here.
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More in this Category - Linkage
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And I'm not surprised. It's a nasty neo-classical faux-everything monstrosity, designed by Robert Adam for Kuwaiti billionaire Naseer Al-Kharafi for a site where Victorian Athlone House currently stands. Local celebrities are up in arms. Interestingly, Robert Adam is a favourite of Prince Charles, arguably the worst architecture critic in the country and yet one with increasing and worrying influence. So... is this closer to PC's vision of contemporary building in London than the Candies' Chelsea Barracks plans? More, including pictures, here.
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She's a 44-year-old woman who's rented council house was taken over by contractors and eventually turned into a site office while significant work was carried out on a neighbouring leisure centre. In the meantime (a long meantime, it turns out, of about two years) the woman and her family have been housed in a Grade II listed Victorian lodge by James Pennethorne, in a neighbourhood inhabited by the likes of George Michael and Sting, on the edge of a 29-acre park. The press is enjoying pointing out that this is a £2.5m property which would cost in the region of £2,000 a week to rent. What's an ordinary person like this - who hasn't even made a single hit record - doing in it? The council responds that the property was empty, and it would have cost more to house her in a B&B. Okay, she's been living rent-free, but let's consider the fact she's been put to considerable inconvenience. She'll be back in her council house just as soon as it's been restored to a habitable state.
Mother lives rent free in Britain's costliest council house
Family lives rent-free in £2.5m home
Mum gets £2.5m council house rent-free for 2 years
etc etc
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All the usual provisos... this is the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors report and there's nothing scientific about asking a few estate agents to lick their fingers and stick them in the air... but here it is: Pessimism rules, new enquiries dropped for a fifth consecutive month, and price expectations worsened (the % number of agents expecting falls compared to rises) for a fifth consecutive month, too. More here.
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A fascinating post over at Prime UK... the writer visits No. 47 Park Street and learns about Marriott Hotels' interesting posh-timeshare plan for the development. There are 49 one and two-bedroom apartments, "for sale" at between £111,000 and £260,000, and the prize is three weeks (or 21 nights) of use a year. The argument is a cost-effective alternative to staying at a hotel. I don't know... throw in the £6,100-a-year service charge and you'd be looking at one hell of a hotel (even over five years of ownership, at more than £2,500 a night). Read it here.
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It's a Liverpool, not a London story, but it's horrifying...
YOBS were caught stripping a Merseyside house of wood to make a bonfire.
They apparently got away with floorboards, doors, kitchen units, the staircase and the garden fence... plus the boards that had been securing the property after a previous break-in targeting copper pipes. The tenant had only moved out a fortnight earlier.
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No danger of ultimate disappointment, then, for Robert Downey Jr.
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A crazy survey by Santander suggests those living in the east of the country are the most loyal to their areas. What the hell does that mean? Santander apparently equated loyalty with community spirit (local politics, community groups, local sports teams etc). Fifty-three per cent of those living polled living in the east of the country apparently involved themselves in the local community in one way or another. London came third, with 48%, the same figure as Scotland. At the bottom... the north east, with 38%. What does this all signify? Nothing, probably.
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A report released today by Savills predicts a long wait until house prices return to the peaks seen in 2007. It also predicts a highly "tiered" market, in which luxury or one-off homes are likely to perform very differently to, say, properties in areas highly reliant on public sector jobs, or areas with higher reliance on mortgages and so greater sensitivity to interest rates. The prospects for Prime London (although the report suggests that very term may soon belong to the past, as a "new model for evaluating UK residential property" may be necessary, remain strong. Read the actual report here.
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More in this Category - Linkage
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Halifax are claiming a 1.8% rise in house prices during what most people agreed was a dreary October. A few days ago, Nationwide's October survey showed a fall of 0.7%. I'd argue that apparently volatile indices and disagreements between measures can be read as a sign of a market on the turn (we've seen this before). The (much more meaningful) three-month average measure by HBOS is down 1.2%. Month-on-month, the annual change is a rise of 1.2%. If you fancy by-passing the press and going straight to the Halifax page they're getting their own information from, click this. Technorati Tags: property, real estate
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Ex-BoE and currently Fathom Consulting Danny Gabay is quoted in the Mail warning of "the ‘zombie households’ which could be tipped into financial oblivion when interest rates rise." Not content with calling borrowers zombies, he also calls them greedy.
"It is very politically convenient to believe that the crisis was caused by greedy bankers but nobody made people take out mortgages of five times their income. Lots and lots of people borrowed too much."
His solution? A Government-backed "bad bank", to buy up all the bad debt and get it out of the system so that the UK economy can move on.
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According to David Cameron and George Osborne, this is a common-sense measure, aimed at ending housing benefit as a lifestyle choice that puts scroungers in £104,000-a-year luxury lets at your expense and mine, and regularly lifts the lowest earners out of having to make the kinds of sacrifices (location, first-and-foremost) that only slightly higher earners (nurses, the police, firefighters) have to make when finding a place to live. Most tenants will be unaffected, they argue, or affected so slightly they should be able to make up the shortfall.
Not, however, according to a new study by YouGov, for the TUC and Fabian Society, which showed that any drop in income would force as many 66% of social renters into making difficult decisions.
Our publisher looks at controversial plans to overhaul Housing Benefit and asks whether it's actually possible to predict an outcome, in a his guest column for Citywire.
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We'd embed it, but we're not allowed. So, go here. And we're intrigued by the BBC spin... a threat to lettings agents? A place were prospective tenants meet landlords? We always thought this was about tenants finding other likeminded tenants to fill an empty room in a shared house. As in... here.
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More in this Category - Linkage
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The Association of Residential Lettings Agents reports a return of the reluctant landlord - the vendor who needs to move but can't "vend", and so lets instead. The figures are waited toward areas with the sickest (in the conventional sense of the word) property markets. In the North East, 58% of agents reported a rise in the phenomenon, compared to just 15% in London. Landlords shouldn't allow this news to panic them, however. Any claims of increased competition or over-supply in the lettings market overlooks the fact that reluctant landlords have to live somewhere, and unless they've huge reserves of cash they're unlikely to find the finance to buy, and so will be looking to rent, themselves.
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A big "thank you" to our sponsor, Primelocation.com. Remember, Primelocation.com isn't just about searching properties listed by 4,000 leading estate agents, the website's a mine of useful advice, information and links. An example? Go here to search up-to-date real life completion prices for UK property. Snoop on your neighbours. Do the maths before making an offer. It's useful, it's free... you need to register, but it's quick and easy. If you've feedback, let us know and we'll pass it on with pleasure.
And don't forget Primelocation's very popular iPad app, which offers just about the most fun it's possible to have searching for a property with your clothes on.
If you want to know more about advertising opportunities on the Rat and Mouse, drop me a line. Or if you just want to chat with the Rat, we're on Twitter here, or email us tips here.
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It's all been quiet on the squatting front for a while, but now there's news that a group of eco-campaigners have moved into the historic Home of Compassion in Thames Ditton. The squatters say they want to turn the building into community hub and charity shop; but Caring Homes - which owns Home of Compassion - has served an eviction notice (I know, you couldn't make this stuff up). More here.
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According to this, she's already looking at apartments.
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It's Hometrack, this morning, and the largest monthly fall in their index since January 2009... 0.9% in October, the fourth consecutive month in a downward direction. Accompanying comment points to conventional supply-and-demand issues. More here.
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