Sunday 31 March 2019

England recorded its first annual house price fall since 2012, Nationwide finds




London’s weak property market continues to drag on house price growth in other parts of the UK, with the capital recording its biggest price falls in a decade, according to Nationwide.

Its latest house price index found London prices slumped 3.8pc in the first quarter of the year – the fastest pace of decline since 2009 and the seventh consecutive quarter in which prices have declined in the capital. The average property price in London stands at £455,594.

Nationally, prices were 0.7pc higher in March than in the same month last year, and a modest 0.3pc rise from February, pushing up the average UK house price to £213,102.

Meanwhile, England recorded its first annual price fall since 2012, with prices in the first three months of the year down 0.7pc from the same period in 2018, driven by declines in the South East.

Robert Gardner, Nationwide’s chief economist, said London's drop was not entirely unexpected, given house prices in the capital have been inflated for some time.

“Policy changes that have impacted the buy-to-let market in recent years are also likely to have exerted more of a drag in London, given that the private rental sector accounts for a larger proportion of the housing stock in the capital than elsewhere in the country,” he added

Guy Gittins, managing director of Chestertons, one of London’s largest estate agents, said the firm had experienced an “incredibly busy start to the year, with a sharp increase in buyer registrations, viewings and offers throughout the first quarter, which reflects pent-up demand and suggests that prices are now at a level that buyers are comfortable buying. 

“I therefore see this drop as a temporary blip, and expect prices to recover once the market has more clarity on Brexit.”

Samuel Tombs at Pantheon Macroeconomics said the steady level of mortgages approved this year showed that demand had proven quite resilient despite Brexit uncertainty.

“With the tight labour market suggesting that 3pc year-on-year growth in wages is sustainable and mortgage rates likely to rise only gradually ... we still expect year-over-year growth in house prices to recover to about 2pc by the end of this year.

”Russell Galley, of rival Halifax, has said he expected UK house prices to rise between 2pc to 4pc this year if a Brexit deal is struck.

Stephanie McMahon, of agent Strutt & Parker, forecasts UK growth of 2.5pc this year.





Monday 18 March 2019

Usual spring housing market buoyancy weighed down by Brexit uncertainty

The average residential property asking price in Britain increased by just 0.4% this month as Brexit uncertainty ate into the start of the traditionally busier spring housing market, according to the latest index report.
It is the lowest average monthly rise at this time of year since 2011, and considerably lower than the 0.9% average over the last seven years, with London being the main drag on the market, the report from property portal Rightmove shows.
Asking prices remain more buoyant outside London with nine out of 11 regions seeing a rise but overall more buyers are hesitating due to an increase in Brexit uncertainty and the number of sales agreed by estate agents in February was 7% below the same period in 2018, compared with the 4% annual fall recorded in January.
The data suggests that the market is weakest in the south of the country. Asking prices in London fell by 1.1% month on month and were down by 3.8% year on year to £607,557 while in the South East they fell by 1.5% year on year but increased on a monthly basis by 0.7% to an average of £398,184.
In the South West of England asking prices increased by just 0.1% on an annual basis and by 1.6% month on month to £302,149 while in the East of England they fell 0.7% year on year and increase by just 0.6% month on month to an average of £349,022.
Further north the weakest market is the North East with asking prices up by 0.5% year on year but down by 1.3% month on month to an average of £149,398. The strongest market in England was the North West with an annual rise of 3.4% and a monthly rise of 2.2% to £196,350.
In Yorkshire and the Humber prices increased by 3.4% year on year and 1.3% month on month to £190,164 while the market is resilient in the Midlands, up by 2.8% year on year and 1.5% month on month to £226,028 in the West Midlands and up 3.1% year on year and 0.6% month on month in the East Midlands to £224,725.
The market was strong in Scotland and Wales. In Scotland asking prices increased by 2.5% on an annual basis and by 3.1% month on month to an average of £153,174 while in Wales they increased by 3.8% year on year and 1.5% month on month to £194,842.
‘While March marks the start of spring, temperatures have yet to rise in the housing market. Buying activity remains cooler than usual, with hesitation as some buyers await a more settled political climate,’ said Miles Shipside, Rightmove director and housing market analyst.
‘There’s greater resilience the further away you get from the London market, and there’s a sound bedrock of demand for the right property at the right price, reinforced by ongoing housing needs combined with cheap mortgage borrowing,’ he pointed out.
He also pointed out that London prices are still 68% higher than 10 years ago and buyers looking for prices to settle while in contrast, the North East has seen new seller asking prices up by just 8% in the same time span.
‘London and some of its commuter belt are suffering from a post-boom hangover, with prices now having to be far more sober to attract buyer interest. In contrast, North East prices never had the opportunity to become intoxicated by the capital city’s heady mix of high demand, low interest rates and higher salaries,’ he added.
The report also shows that search activity on Rightmove remained steady, with the number of visits to the website staying level in the year to date. Shipside believes that this indicates that home movers are keeping a watching brief which could lead to an eventual bounce if and when the uncertainty abates.
‘The closer you get to the wire without the clarity of an agreed way forward, the greater the propensity for buyers to wait and see rather than acting now. This could be a temporary pause, and indeed market slowdowns at election time and around the original referendum result bounced back pretty quickly,’ said Shipside.
‘Markets and people do not like uncertainty, though while sales agreed numbers are down by 7%, that means they are still running at 93% of last year’s levels. Most potential buyers are getting on with their lives or seeing a price lull as an opportunity to get onto the housing ladder or move to the next rung, with average national asking prices being 0.8% cheaper than a year ago,’ he added.

Friday 15 March 2019

Chancellor aims to boost housing market with new funding and planning reform

Funding is to be made available to boost the number of affordable homes being built in the UK and a new green paper will be published to accelerate the planning process with builders encouraged to build a more diverse range of properties.
Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond did announce in his Spring Statement that £717 million from the £5.5 billion Housing Infrastructure Fund will be used to unlock up to 37,000 homes at sites including Old Oak Common in London, the Oxford-Cambridge Arc and in Cheshire.
He said that through the Affordable Homes Guarantee Scheme, the Government will guarantee up to £3 billion of borrowing by housing associations in England to support delivery of around 30,000 affordable homes.
He also said that new planning guidance will be announced to support a more diverse mix of housing on large plots in line with the conclusion of the Government commissioned Letwin review that greater differentiation of housing types and tenures will boost build out rates on such sites.
This will include introducing a package of reforms to allow greater change of use between premises, and a new fast track permitted development right to allow upwards extension of existing buildings to create new homes.
A new green paper setting out proposals on how greater capacity and capability, performance management and procedural improvements can accelerate the planning process.
Hammond also announced moves to promote greater sustainability in the built environment. These include a new Future Homes Standard requiring from 2025 that all new build homes will have to be fitted with low carbon heating and ‘world leading’ levels of energy efficiency.

The funding for affordable housing met with praise. ‘The £3 billion allocated to the Affordable Homes Guarantees Programme will enable Affordable Housing providers to boost their output by reducing their cost of borrowing,’ said Patrick Gower, residential research associate at Knight Frank.
‘The funding is welcome, because the government must look to a diverse range of housing providers if its ambitious target of 300,000 additional homes every year is to be met. This means looking not just to the volume housebuilders, who provide a significant amount of the country’s housing supply already, but also to Affordable Housing providers and developers of alternative tenures, such as Build to Rent, student housing and senior living,’ he added.
But builders are not keen on the biodiversity targets. Brian Berry, chief executive of the Federation of Master Builders (FMB) said that they appear to be burdensome and poorly thought out which can only result in more costs and more delays for builders.
‘Just as the environment for SME house builders starts to improve, these measures could end up stalling our progress. The Government wants to make developers, large and small, increase the biodiversity on their sites by a 110% and for an average site of 10 units, the additional cost could be in excess of £2,000.
‘Needless to say, this would also create delays to projects by adding additional hurdles for builders to negotiate during the already bureaucratic planning process. Rather than hampering the building of new homes, if the Government wants to be more green, it should focus instead on retrofitting the more than 24 million homes that have already been built and which account for around one fifth of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions. This will not only help reduce the UK’s carbon footprint but will also tackle the scourge of fuel poverty,’ he added.
According to Matt Hare, associate planner partner at Carter Jonas, the Chancellor could support the delivery of new homes with other simple yet effective measures. ‘At present, the planning appeals process is often too slow, which is perceived to be, in many instances, due to a lack of resources within the Inspectorate,’ he said.
‘At the same time, the role of the Inspectorate is being expanded in some respects, adding more burden. Without a sufficient number of appeal inspectors of appropriate experience and qualification, the delivery of much needed housing is operating at a slower rate,’ he pointed out.
‘For all parties involved, including developers, councils and local communities, swifter resolution on appeals would help to alleviate uncertainty, which can only be a good thing. Carter Jonas would like to have seen further commitment from the Government to assist the Planning Inspectorate in recruiting and retaining appeal inspectors,’ he added.
Ian Fletcher, director of real estate policy at the British Property Federation, said that speeding up planning will require additional capacity and capability within local authority planning departments.
‘The development sector has tried to help meet this shortfall through higher planning application fees, which came into effect at the start of 2018, but it is also important that local government is properly funded and it desperately needs a more sustainable funding settlement as part of the forthcoming Spending Review,’ he explained.
Paul Hackett, chair of the G15 and chief executive of Optivo housing association, said that it was a missed opportunity in terms of longer term funding for affordable housing.
‘The new funding for the affordable homes guarantee programme is welcome, but our sector’s cross subsidy model of delivering affordable housing is broken and a new funding deal is imperative if the Government wants to hit its target of 300,000 new homes a year,’ he explained.
‘The Government must invest in this essential infrastructure to give the country the high quality, genuinely affordable homes it needs,’ he added.

Tuesday 12 March 2019

Bosses at Rightmove handed £2m share options in bonuses and incentives

The CEO and chief finance officer of Rightmove have been given share options to reward their performances last year and to incentivise them further.
At yesterday’s share price of around 495p, the options are together currently worth around £2.2m.
Peter Brookes-Johnson, 46, has been awarded 56,498 deferred share options as a bonus. He can exercise this option for 12 months from March 6, 2021.
He has also been awarded 204,746 share options which can be exercised over a period of two years from March 6, 2022, provided certain targets have been met.
Financial officer Robyn Perris, 45, has been awarded 40,579 deferred shares as a bonus, plus a further 147,056 deferred shares.
Last year, profits and revenue both increased at Rightmove, with the average monthly subscription per branch going over £1,000 for the first time.

Friday 8 March 2019

A virtual tenant:flat viewings via Facetime are fine — but some deals still can't be done without old-fashioned paperwork


My funniest ever viewing was with a prospective tenant who was still in his pyjamas, having just got out of bed.
Not that he turned up at the flat in his PJs, he sent his girlfriend, who Facetimed him while she “walked” around.
I could see him on her iPhone screen, sitting at his kitchen table, dipping toast into his egg.
He was speaking from Los Angeles, from where he was relocating to the UK, so his bubbly girlfriend took him from room to room on her phone, while providing him with a running commentary.
“This is the bedroom babes, wow, you probably can’t tell, but it’s huuuuge.”
I was busy with another couple when his girlfriend arrived, so I left her to show herself around, but every so often she’d shout questions, such as: “Are the windows double-glazed?” then relay him the answer: “No, babes, but I don’t think it matters.”
“Do you get much traffic noise?” “She says yes, babes, but I think you’ll get used to it.”
Eventually, when the other couple left, I thought it would be easier if I accompanied the girlfriend and spoke to “Babes” in person.
We “walked” him through the bathroom, living room and kitchen. I turned on the shower while the girlfriend held her phone to demonstrate the water pressure, then I held the phone while she bounced on the sofa.
We both started to get a little giggly and began putting him inside all of the appliances one by one, and then we left him shut inside a cupboard for a few seconds.
Eventually, when we got bored with this game, she suggested he make me an offer. He said he was happy to pay the full asking price and move in as soon as the property was vacant, but sadly I wasn’t able to accept.
As he was American, he needed a visa to live in the UK and, as a landlord, I was legally obliged to check both the visa and his photo ID as part of the Right to Rent checks introduced a few years ago.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to show me either as his passport was still with the British Embassy in the States.
I really liked his girlfriend so I was tempted to let him take the flat on condition that he showed me the visa and photo ID when he arrived in the UK.
However, my head was telling me not to be swayed by my emotions. I knew there was a big risk that his visa would be refused, then I’d have to find a new tenant. I decided to reject his application.
His inability to show me a valid visa wasn’t my only concern. I was also worried that I wouldn’t be able to run a credit check on him as these are only possible on applicants who have been living in the UK for at least the previous six months.
Also, I’m never keen to let to tenants who haven’t actually seen a property in person, just in case they find they don’t like it after all.
Fortunately, I had several other offers so I picked the one that seemed the most straightforward.
I felt bad for his girlfriend, but I was sure she’d find “babes” somewhere else, as soon as he sorted his visa.

Monday 4 March 2019

Is co-living the new Airbnb for millennial nomads?

Is co-living the new Airbnb for millennial nomads?



Digital nomads in cities around the world are finding a way to live and work on the road


My housemates don’t hang around for long in the seven-bedroom loft I’m sharing in Brooklyn, New York. Matthew MacIntosh, a 44-year-old digital copywriter from San Francisco, leaves three days after I arrive on a miserable wet Saturday afternoon in November. Two twentysomething Americans who work in marketing and social media respectively wheel out their suitcases just 48 hours later. There’s no mouse problem, or squalid living conditions and, on this occasion at least, it has nothing to do with my washing-up skills. Instead, this revolving door of housemates is the norm at Outsite, a co-living company aimed at remote workers, freelancers and entrepreneurs – or to use the more frequently used but slightly nauseating term – “digital nomads” – those who aren’t restricted to a physical location and can stay just for two nights or for as long as three months.
With more people working remotely in roles varying from software developer to photographer, co-living is on a rise, with this kind of fluid house share cropping up in all corners of the world, whether Miami, Dublin, Bali or Berlin, and catering to those who want to mix up their backdrop while they work – and, let’s face it, play as well.
So after staying with friends in Brooklyn, I lug my suitcases over to Outsite’s Williamsburg outpost, a one-floor white minimalistic loft with seven bedrooms, three bathrooms, and an open-plan living space with everything your modern millennial may desire: a coffee machine, blender, rooftop, silent washing machine and dryer, and of course, fast wifi. My room Boerum Hill (all rooms are named after Brooklyn neighbourhoods) is spacious, clean and screams Ikea, with a small white desk, chair, white rail and bedside table. Prices start at about $500 (£357) a week.
Sitting in the open living area, it’s not long before I’m surrounded by folk from around the globe who, like myself, often take off for spells abroad, or move from one exotic location to the next. There’s Chris, a Canadian who runs a tequila brand and bases himself at Outsite when he’s in New York; Kat, a 28-year-old software developer from Peru working on creating a platform for finding wellness classes; and Alison, in PR, from Washington. Apart from bumping into people while they’re sorting out their washing or cooking dinner, Outsite organises social activities to create a mini community – even if people are there for only two days. During my stay there’s a cheese and wine night and a friends-giving dinner. The upshot is that if you’re in a city where you don’t know anyone, co-living gives you a gang to hang out with (well, that’s if you like them, of course).
Another benefit is the skill sharing, which kind of just happens naturally. One evening when I mention an issue with my website, Andres Cajiao, a Columbian who works in marketing, jumps on my laptop and within minutes is fixing the problem. I return the favour by pouring us large glasses of red wine. And Matthew, even after he’s left, emails me some work advice and adds me to useful Facebook groups.
This is the result envisaged by Belgian Emmanuel Guisset, 35, who set up Outsite, which now has 17 properties in cities such as Lisbon and Los Angeles. “I was staying in Airbnbs but it wasn’t great for consistency in terms of experience, or getting good wifi,” he says.
“If I stayed in hotels, some were impersonal and expensive for extended stays and there was a feeling of loneliness. A lot of hostels were not my vibe. Then I discovered co-living in San Francisco, and it felt like a community.”
The Outsite spaces vary widely in size with 25 bedrooms available in its Lisbon property while New York offers the lowest with just seven.
MacIntosh, who has become nomadic since March after living in California for 12 years, says he was inspired to stay at Outsite after meeting a digital nomad from Germany who raved about its Venice Beach outpost. “I tried to go in without many expectations, but I was hoping to connect with interesting people doing fascinating things with their lives,” he says.
“When I first moved in, there wasn’t much social interaction – people were mostly out and about – but toward the end of my stay new people arrived who were more interested in connection. I’ve been told that the Brooklyn location isn’t as social as other Outsite locations because there are fewer rooms and a lot of people are in New York for meetings, but I think there’s some randomness to it all. After all, the house is constantly in flux.”
Admittedly, some parts of the set-up don’t work for me. As someone who lives on their own, sharing with seven people living and working from one loft can feel slightly claustrophobic at times. Some of my housemates like to have loud conference calls from the sofa or think nothing of having conversations on loudspeaker. For someone who requires some level of quietness when working, having just one communal table to work from which is both next to the kitchen and close to the TV makes it hard to concSometimes I take my laptop into my room but it’s no quiet haven either. It is of course New York, the city that never sleeps, and I soon discover that I too do not sleep. Outsite is located on a very busy main road, and my room is next to a set of traffic lights, and at times there’s unbearable honking traffic.
The other downside is that we each have only a small section in the fridge, meaning I have to limit myself on groceries. As my shelf is only about 15cm high, when I spend the evening knocking up a butternut squash soup and leave it on a shelf it can fit on, the next day I discover that it has disappeared.
By the time I check out, I have mixed feelings about leaving. I’ve met and swapped details with a bunch of interesting people from around the world that I wouldn’t have had the chance to engage with. Would I do it again? Yes, but I’d be tempted to stay in locations and spaces where the living and working space wasn’t squeezed on to one floor – and of course, ensure that this light sleeper doesn’t have a room next to a busy road.entrate.

NatWest scraps

.NatWest scraps ‘no DSS’ policy
NatWest scraps ‘no DSS’ policy

NatWest has bowed to growing industry pressure by lifting restrictions on buy-to-let landlords renting to tenants in receipt of housing benefit.
In October, NatWest's lending practices came under attack after the bank told one landlord that she would either have to evict her tenant of two years or take her mortgage business elsewhere, after a blanket ban by the bank on benefit claimants.
The bank’s own buy-to-let eligibility criteria noted: “We will not consider multiple tenancies, Homes of Multiple Occupancy, bedsits, DSS tenants or 'Related Person' tenancies.”
The landlord, Helena McAleer, who let out a home in Northern Ireland, refused to evict her tenant, a vulnerable older woman who always paid the £400-a-month rent on time for more than two years, after being denied a remortgage by NatWest and instead moved her loan to another provider. She launched a petition that has attracted more than 5,200 signatures supporting an end to such discrimination.
The Residential Landlords Association (RLA) has since raised serious concerns that the majority of buy-to-let lenders are preventing landlords renting property to some of the ‘most vulnerable in society’.
The RLA has been lobbying the government to tackle discrimination against benefit claimants by mortgage providers after research late last year by the landlords association found two-thirds - 66% - of lenders representing 90% of the buy-to-let market refuse a loan where a tenant is on housing benefit.
The Work and Pensions Committee has now written to a number of mortgage lenders about potential DSS discrimination clauses in their lending policies.
Ian McLaughlin, managing director of Home Buying & Ownership at NatWest, said: “I am pleased that we are introducing these changes and extending our policy to support smaller landlords in this segment of the market.
“We would like to thank Shelter and the Residential Landlord’s Association for their thoughtful and thorough contributions to the review, to help us better understand the market in this area and bring our policies in line with those in our commercial segment.”
Natwest has also extended the maximum length of time of assured shorthold tenancy from 12 to 36 months, which allows landlords to offer tenants the security of longer tenancies.
John Stewart, policy manager for the RLA, commented: “We warmly welcome today’s announcement from NatWest.
“Around 20% of all private sector tenants are in receipt of benefits and we need to do all we can to support them to find the homes they need.
“NatWest’s decision will make it easier for landlords to rent to benefit claimants, and agree long term tenancies where suitable. We urge other lenders to follow this lead.”

Friday 1 March 2019

Outrage as help-to-buy boosts Persimmon profits to £1bn

Builder condemned for making massive gains from taxpayer-funded programme



Housebuilder Persimmon made a record-breaking £1bn profit last year – equal to more than £66,000 on every one of the homes it sold – with almost half of its house sales made through the taxpayer-funded help-to-buy scheme.
The York-based builder, which sparked widespread public and political outrage for attempting to pay its former chief executive Jeff Fairburn a bonus of £110m, posted pre-tax profits of £1.09bn.
The huge profit – the biggest ever made by a UK housebuilder – means Persimmon banked £66,265 from every one of the 16,449 homes it sold last year. The average selling price was just over £215,000,
The profit from each house it sells has nearly tripled since 2013, when the government introduced the help-to-buy scheme in an attempt to help struggling families buy their first home. Last year the company paid an average of just £31,536 for each plot of land, and spent £112,295 on actually building each home.
Vince Cable, the Liberal Democrat leader, accused Persimmon of “pinching their profits from the public purse”, adding: “Far from benefiting first time buyers, the major effect of help-to-buy is to drive up demand while having no effect on supply. The result is not help for those who need it, but a boost to the profits of big developers.”
Cable demanded that the government immediately end the help-to-buy scheme and take action to crack down on “outrageous” executive pay. “This greed is coming at the expense of the public purse through the subsidies in help-to-buy,” he said. “Help-to-buy is a scam, enriching developers while forcing buyers off the ladder by pushing up prices.”
Greg Beales, the campaign director of the housing charity Shelter, said: “Persimmon represents everything that is wrong with the housebuilding system. The firm has generated huge profits from taxpayer subsidies whilst doing very little to help solve the housing crisis we face.
“Piecemeal schemes such as help-to-buy have made the situation even worse by inflating house prices and giving big developers a leg-up – while doing next to nothing to help those most in need of a genuinely affordable home.”
Many Persimmon customers have complained that their homes are poorly built, with pipes springing leaks and windows cracking just days after they moved in. Persimmon has been awarded only a three-star Home Builders Federation customer service rating every year since 2014, compared with four and five stars for its major rivals.
Victoria Baker, who bought a £380,000 five-bedroom Persimmon house in Ingleby Barwick, near Stockton, last year described the building work on her home as horrific. “We noticed leaks straight away as we were putting things away under the sink; there was a pool of water under the sink in the kitchen,” she said. Baker, who lives in a home built by Charles Church, a brand owned by Persimmon, said numerous other leaks later appeared. She is part of a Facebook group called “Charles Church (Persimmon) Homes From Hell”.
Persimmon has made so much money in recent years that it triggered a near-£500m bonus bonanza for its 150 most senior bosses. The company’s former chair quit when he recognised that the huge bonuses were wrong, but was unable to prevent them being paid out.
Persimmon’s former chief executive Jeff Fairburn was eventually persuaded to give up part of his payout but still walked away with £75m. His replacement, Dave Jenkinson, collected more than £40m.
The company’s huge gains from the help-to-buy scheme, in which the government provides a guaranteed interest-free loan, have sparked a ministerial review. James Brokenshire, the housing minister, is said to be “increasingly concerned by the behaviour of Persimmon”.
A source close to the minister said: “Given that contracts for the 2021 extension to help-to-buy are being reviewed shortly, which overall is a great scheme helping hundreds of thousands of people into home ownership, it would be surprising if Persimmon’s approach wasn’t a point of discussion.”
A government spokesman said officials would “carefully” examine the vast profits made by Persimmon and other housebuilders. “Help-to-buy will look different,” the spokesman said. “We’ve already said it will look only at first-time buyers and we will definitely not be funding leasehold properties. We will look carefully at developer performance over recent years.”
Jenkinson, who was appointed Persimmon’s new chief executive on Tuesday, defended the company’s use of the help-to-buy scheme, saying the company had “helped hundreds of first time buyers” and “given them the opportunity to own their own home”.
He said the help-to-buy scheme was just one element behind the firm’s financial success and the government had not contacted the company with any concern about its use of the help-to-buy scheme.
Jenkinson said his £40m bonanza “isn’t distracting [him] – I’m incredibly focused”. He said his bonus payment was tied up in Persimmon shares, which he had no intention of selling soon. He was not paid a bonus in 2018 and will not receive one in 2019. His basic pay is £518,000.
More than a year ago, Fairburn pledged to set up a charity with a “substantial proportion” of his bonus but has so far failed to do so. He has not registered a charity with the Charity Commission or made any inquiries about how to set one up.
Independent property expert Henry Pryor said: “There is no doubt that help-to-buy has been the crack cocaine of the housing industry. Listen carefully and you can hear the housebuilder bosses chortling into their cornflakes as taxpayers pump up the executive bonus pool.
“With 100,000 kids waking up in B&B accommodation this morning, it’s a national outrage that the government is still pouring accelerant on to the smouldering housing market. Bosses who have trousered the profits from selling to taxpayer-supported buyers have taken the place of bankers on my dart board. They have a business model, thanks to successive governments, that would make Al Capone blush.”

Revealed

  • Revealed: how the cost of renting a room varies across London

    • Revealed: how the cost of renting a room varies across London

      • A growing number of young professionals and students are choosing to house share, driving up the average cost of renting room in the capital, according to new research.
        Fresh data from room share platform, ideal flatmate, shows that the cost of renting a single room in the capital has already increased by 2% in 2019, having jumped up by 13% between 2017 and 2018.
        Between 2017, the average price of a room listed to rent on ideal flatmate was £781 a month, increasing 13% to £855 a month in 2018. With a continued lack of suitable stock and a reduction in buy-to-let investors, this figure has already climbed to £902 a month just two months into 2019, the figures show.
      • Westminster is currently the most expensive borough to rent a room at an average of £1,045 a month, followed by Camden at £999 per month on average.
      • When looking on a more granular level it’s Nine Elms that currently tops the table with an average monthly rent of £2,123 a month.
        Other areas to see some of the highest rents for just a single room are Covent Garden, Upper Clapton, South Kensington, Knightsbridge, Church End, Bayswater, St James’s, North Finchley and Millbank – all at £1,200 or above.
        North Woolwich was identified as the cheapest destination to rent a room at an average £350 a month, with Abbey Wood, Manor Park, Hither Green and West Norwood also some of the lowest.
        Co-founder of ideal flatmate, Tom Gatzen, said: “Despite room sharing remaining the most affordable way of finding a place to live in London, it too is seeing prices increase as the capital’s rental market continues to strain under the pressure of a supply and demand imbalance.
        “We’re currently seeing the price of room rentals in London increase at a rate of at least one per cent a month on average which is pretty significant for those already struggling to afford the overall cost of living in the capital.
        “This cost increase has largely been driven by a reduction in the number of landlords and letting agents with rooms to rent as a result of the stamp duty shake-up, changes to tax thresholds and the impending ban on letting fees. Unless more is done to address this, we will continue to see the cost of renting lift across the board with the capital’s tenants ultimately the ones paying the price.”