Location: London

Jessica Simpson is joining Strutt & Parker's independent buying arm Private Property Search from Savills.

A new development finance provider, catering specifically for developers of top end residences in the most expensive bits of Surrey, has just opened its doors in Leatherhead. Harry Turnball

Property market cooling measures across Asia are driving a new wave of investors overseas, says Andrew Batt from Singapore.

Demand for luxury stock in London's prime areas continues to surge and developers remain keen to capitalise.

Sharia investment is booming around the world but the UK's 10,000 Muslim millionaires "are still limited in their options," says prime central London property investment house LCP.

London uber-developer Capital & Counties, the property company behind Covent Garden and Earls Court, is launching its first new-build residential development, Lillie Square in Earls Court, on Thursday.

House prices across the UK rose by 0.6% in February, taking the annual rise to 9.4% says Knight Frank (using Nationwide's data). In London, prices rose for the 40th month in a row. February's 0.

Developers may be "exceptionally keen" to get on site, but how much of this enthusiasm is translating into completions? JLL takes the temperature of London's development market...

Localism - a cornerstone of the Government's planning reformation - is big in the affluent South, but lacks traction in the rest of the country according to research by Turley.

Rents in prime London nudged up by the smallest of margins - +0.1% - in Q1, according to Savills. But that's still an improvement on last year's gentle decline; rents are now -0.

That's 12 in a row for Knight Frank and Markit's House Price Sentiment Survey; the Index has risen again to hit another record high in March.

Values across prime central London have increased by 8.7% over the last 12 months, according to acquisition firm Huntly Hooper, with W14 seeing the biggest price per square foot boost of all.