On the 1st of November 2017, the Bank of England voted to raise interest rates for the first time in more than ten years. After such a long period without any increase, this news inevitably grabbed the headlines but the new rate of 0.5% still remains the second lowest on record.
How technology is shaping city planning
Road, Street, Close or Square – which is the most popular and does it affect price.
A combination of policy changes and a weaker sales market may have created the right conditions for institutional investment to finally flourish in the UK.
As the new school year gets underway, it seems timely to revisit the well-oiled notion that schools are an instrumental driver of local house prices.
In the same week as the terrible fire in Grenfell Tower, a report slipped quietly out from the Mayor’s office on the role of overseas investors in the London new build residential market[1]. The research was undertaken by the LSE, on behalf of the Mayor, to address an issue that has nagged at the London residential market for years. Given the timing of the publication, most journalists shied away from writing about it and some of those who did, chose to take a swipe at the paucity of hard data rather than to reflect on the key messages.
The UK is experiencing a ‘housing crisis’ the political parties say, with all promising to deliver an additional million homes by the end of 2022. But what homes are needed and for whom?
The long run average over the last 50 years has been around 190,000 per annum, with the highest numbers being achieved at the start of this period and the lowest in the immediate aftermath of the global financial crisis of 2007/08. Over the last few years government initiatives, including the Starter Homes Fund, Housing Zones and Get Britain Building to name a few, have been launched to help stimulate the house building industry. This plus a recovery in the housing market has resulted in a pick-up of supply taking both starts and completions in line with each other at about 150,000 in 2015/16.
There are more first-time buyers (FTBs) finding a way to get a foot on the property ladder than at any time since the Global Financial Crisis in 2008. Since 2011, the number of loans to this group has risen by over 75% and, in the last year alone, over 339,000 loans were issued to FTBs, according to the Council of Mortgage Lenders.
Not many of us have a multi-million property portfolio, so the results of the MSCI / IPD UK property index for the last quarter of 2016, may have passed you by. The results are interesting though and certainly a good story for residential investment over the last year - the sector did better than retail industrial, leisure or office property.
The chronic shortage of housing supply in the UK relative to demand has been a national issue for decades. The Government are committed to delivering a million new homes by 2020. Yet with limited land availability, rising costs and shortage of skilled labour the government and the house building industry need to become innovative with regards to how housing is built if those targets are to be met.
While we would expect to see differences in the provision of flats and houses across the country due to the dynamics of the local population, the size and setting of localities – cities versus villages, suburbs versus regeneration zones - and the opportunities available for development, it is perhaps surprising, that the balance of flats and houses swings so distinctly and dramatically over time at a national level.
There is no doubt that 2016 managed to catch the world by surprise more than once – so will 2017 be equally unpredictable, or can we expect a calmer more measured year ahead?
London Mayor, Sadiq Khan’s aim of creating a 24 hour city is one step closer with the appointment of London’s first Night Czar, Amy Lamé.
Dataloft regularly analyse mortgage affordability and how much of our earnings are typically spent on meeting mortgage payments. Mortgage affordability tells us a lot about the future direction of the market
It’s not just numbers at Dataloft HQ, our brainstorming session took some of the team to King’s Cross this week for some real-life bricks and mortar. Dataloft day-out photos.
The growing size and scale of the private rented sector is not new news. Headlines shout about the changing profile of the housing market and, since the millennium, the proportion...
If the UK is heading for a ‘hard Brexit’ what could it mean for housing markets? Politicians flex their Brexit muscles at Tory party conference On 2nd October at the...
London housing is expensive; very expensive. That is hardly a shock, but it is also not really the point. Price is a one-dimensional metric. What matters is that London is…
We regularly analyse a range of factors which help us build a picture of housing and rental demand across major town and cities in the UK. Examining real (inflation adjusted)…
