Savills forecasts property price growth in most prime global cities
Of the world’s major prime cities, Seoul, Berlin and Sydney are set to see the highest rates of luxury property price inflation in 2021, forecasts Savills.
Buy-to-let incorporations reach an all-time high as tax changes bite
The latest Hamptons index tells us that the national rate of rental price inflation ticked up sharply towards the end of 2020. The annual rate jumped from 1.4% in October to 4.1% in December. This is the fastest pace of rental growth recorded in more than four and a half years, since July 2016.
SDLT deadline is ‘damaging Londoners’ health & wellbeing’, warns Dexters
‘It can’t be right to have house movers and their removals vans queuing up in March trying to beat the deadline in the pandemic lockdown’, says CEO Andy Shepherd, as the the agency puts forward a ‘practical solution’…
‘No radical change to property taxes’ expected in the March Budget
But major property tax reforms are on the cards longer-term… “Ministers and officials are looking at the tally of winners and losers from the abolition of council tax and stamp duty,” reports the Sunday Times. “They would be replaced with a proportional property tax, levied on the existing values of homes.”
MPs to consider SDLT holiday extension
Mixed messages from Whitehall on an extension to the Stamp Duty holiday, as a popular petition forces a debate in the House of Commons.
10% more property sales were agreed in 2020 than in 2019
The sales market has seen a busy start to the year, although asking prices have dipped in the last month as vendors price competitively.
Land Registry data reveals ‘shocking’ fall in flat sales
48% drop in transactions marks ‘first official confirmation that fears over unsafe housing are freezing the market’
Buyers & sellers ‘remain largely undeterred’ by lockdown, but half do not feel safe on physical viewings
A third national lockdown has deterred just 14% of buyers and sellers from a purchase or sale in 2021, according to a survey of over 10,000 people, with 81% planning to carry on as they planned.
Planning clampdown stamps out PCL’s mega-basement boom
New figures show a massive decline in basement-related applications across RBKC & Westminster since the introduction of stringent rules designed to prevent over-development.
What has Brexit done to house prices?
The pace of property price inflation in the UK has slowed sharply since the EU Referendum. 14% growth since 2016 compares to 28% – double the rate – in the equivalent time period prior to the vote. London has seen an even more dramatic slowdown.
Architecture sector rallies with ‘fragile growth’, except in London
“It is a mixed and changing picture but with an overall growth in confidence,” says the RIBA. “Whilst this confidence is likely to falter in the current lockdown, there is hope that it will return, once restrictions are eased.”
Savills reports ‘an extraordinary rebound’ in prime resi activity
“The volume of activity in prime residential markets [outside London] for [2020] as a whole was the strongest since before the global financial crisis,” says Savills.