Wednesday, 4 December 2019

New homes in London:number of new-build starts drops to almost half pre-Brexit level as uncertainty bites



https://www.primelocation.com/for-sale/property/london/


Brexit uncertainty is still holding back private developers’ plans, with the number of new London homes down more than a fifth in the first nine months of the year. Work began on 13,843 flats and houses between January and September — 21 percent fewer than the 17,604 total for the same period last year, according to the latest figures from analysts Molior London.
In 2015, the year before the EU referendum, work started on 25,470 homes in the first nine months, close to double the current rate of the building.
This year’s fall was particularly marked in Zone 2 where there were just 1,868 starts, and in the suburbs.
In Zones 3 to 6, there were 9,533 starts, down 20 percent on the same period last year.
The good news is that sales figures suggest buyers are returning to the market.
Across London in the third quarter of the year, private house sales by developers topped 5,000, for the first quarter since the start of 2018.
Savills and Dexters are among the top London estate agents who can confirm this welcome surge in sales towards the end of this year.
Chelsea Waterfront, the redevelopment of the former Lots Road Power Station, reports huge sales activity, with 50 percent of buyers being British.
Robin Gevell, senior marketing manager at the Hutchison Property scheme, said flats worth a total of £250 million have been sold at the site, with almost four times as many deals struck since September as in the preceding nine months.
Mr. Gevell said: “The Brexit cloud hanging over the market has meant that sales over the last two years have been slow.
However, over the last three months, the situation has changed completely and we’ve seen a big hike in sales at our Chelsea development.
“More interestingly still, this isn’t just overseas investors taking advantage of the weak pound, but a variety of British buyers looking for a unique property with a renowned postcode.
“We anticipate sales to continue to flow as the industry gains its confidence back, and we’re looking forward to seeing the year out by welcoming residents into their new homes.”
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Wednesday, 27 November 2019

London house prices:average cost of a home continues to drop at a slower rate as Brexit and General Election turmoil drags on



https://www.londonperfect.com/investors/buying-a-property-in-london

Property prices in London fell for the 19th month in a row, although at a slower pace than during the summer as home buyers started to sense “the end of the beginning” of Britain’s political turmoil.
The average cost of a home in the capital fell 0.4 per cent to £474,601 in the year to September, according to the latest figures from the Land Registry. The last year-on-year rise in London house prices was in February 2018.
“A surprising aspect perhaps of these figures is that there hasn’t been more of a reduction in view of the recent political turmoil,” said former Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors Residential Chairman, Jeremy Leaf.
“But what we are finding on the ground is relief that the end of the beginning at least may soon be in sight for Brexit uncertainty. This is resulting in more realism and release of some pent-up demand in expectation of some post-election improvement in activity.”
House prices fell in 20 out of 33 London boroughs, with the biggest drops seen in the two most expensive boroughs — City of Westminster (12.3 per cent), where the average house price is now £897,000, and Kensington & Chelsea (11.4 per cent) where prices fell to £1.23 million.
First-time buyers bought the biggest proportion of homes, reflected by homes in the sector seeing the smallest price falls of 0.1 per cent, bringing the average price paid for a first home in London to £415,618.
However, property experts pointed out that, despite many months of falling house prices, homes have not necessarily become significantly more affordable for many, with high prices underpinned by high demand and lack of supply.
“More subdued numbers from the Land Registry come as no surprise, given the political uncertainty which continues to rage, and values are holding up remarkably well considering,” said Mark Harris, chief executive of mortgage broker SPF Private Clients.
“London is still seeing the lowest annual growth in prices as the capital falls more into line with the rest of the country. While this is welcome for those trying to buy in the capital, let’s not get carried away as it is still difficult to afford property in London and the South-East.”
Josef Wasinski, co-founder of Wayhome home ownership consultants, said: “For many aspiring homeowners, the dream of buying a home is increasingly out of reach. Even if you have a salary that sits above the national average, the gap between that and house prices just remains too wide for some.”
The biggest increase was in the City of London where house prices rose 12.1 per cent, although the low number of residential transactions in the borough means average figures are often skewed by one or two sales.
The other biggest rises were in Hounslow (6.1 per cent), Hackney (5.4per cent), and Newham (4.1 per cent).
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Tuesday, 5 November 2019

Peckham takes top spot:house price growth in London's hipster hotspot outpaces every UK district



https://www.primelocation.com/to-rent/property/peckham/

Twice Peckham has been named London’s coolest neighbourhood and this month came 11th in a survey of the best urban districts in the world.
Forty years ago, Peckham was one of Europe’s most deprived inner-city areas. Today, as exclusive research for Homes & Property reveals, house prices there have outpaced every district in the UK, scoring the greatest price growth since records began in 1995.
The study by Knight Frank and its head of research, Tom Bill, trawling through nearly 25 years of Land Registry figures, shows SE15 values have exploded by 1,082 per cent.
The high cost of property in the capital has pushed demand into south-east London, “driving the rejuvenation of areas like Peckham and beyond as house price growth ripples outwards from the centre”, explains Tom Bill. 
For generations Peckham had a reputation for poverty, crime and high unemployment. Yet in 20 years it has become a hipster hotspot, attracting artists and musicians to its hot nightspots.
Twice it’s been named London’s coolest neighbourhood and this month came 11th in a survey of the best urban districts in the world.
Journalist and author Liz Hoggard bought the “smallest and cheapest flat” she could find when she moved to Peckham in 1999.
Her street, Bellenden Road, has transformed since then and now has a grocers where the produce is arranged like a still life, a butchers and an independent bookshop, Review. It’s frequently dubbed “artisanal heart of Peckham”. 
When Hoggard moved in, the council was part way through a regeneration which included the futuristic Stirling Prize-winning public library designed by Will Alsop.
Part of that focus was also on improving street furniture so they harnessed local talent, asking renowned artists Antony Gormley and Tom Phillips to design the traffic bollards and lamp posts.
Today, there are art galleries galore. “It’s very entrepreneurial too,” adds local resident, Holly Kirkwood. “From microbreweries to independent shops which everyone supports, Peckham is a self-sufficient community which is very live-and-let-live.” 

Passionate campaigning

Credit for this reincarnation goes to the community. Eileen Conn is the founder of Peckham Vision, a group that rescued key buildings and spaces around Peckham Rye station.
They include the Bussey Building; the Old Waiting Room; Peckham multi storey car park with its popular rooftop bar Frank’s Café and Peckham Levels, and PeckhamPlex — all of which contribute to Peckham’s special identity.
When many of these buildings were earmarked for demolition, Conn challenged Southwark council to rethink its plans.
Standing in busy Copeland Park — an industrial site that was set to be flattened for a tram depot but is now home to local businesses and pop-ups — she says: “Since 2005, the group have campaigned to highlight reuse and restoration. Existing buildings are a record of the local social and visual history — they affect the sense of place and identity of an area.”
Peckham Vision’s methodology is to underline that demolishing buildings produces hundreds of tons of waste and carbon emissions.
“We’ve proved it’s possible to find new, economically vibrant purposes for existing buildings. ”
Price pressure
Many original families have capitalised on their soaring property values and moved out.
“Few young people today can afford to rent, let alone buy a house,” laments Conn. The average price of a property is just under £550,000 according to Rightmove.
Accessibility has been key. The Overground’s arrival in 2012 linking Peckham to Surrey Quays encouraged an influx of successful professionals and young families, pushing up standards in local primary schools.
“Million-pound houses sit cheek-by-jowl with council estates, but communities interact through events,” says Zohra Huda of local estate agents Gareth James, who adds the next area to be “revamped” will be north of Queens Road Peckham.
Alongside the sourdough bakeries and trendy eateries are long-standing markets, cafés and Peckham stalwarts Khan’s Bargain and M.Manze pie and mash shop.
Last year, London’s first dedicated Afro hair and beauty hub, Peckham Palms, opened in a space for firms relocated during the station renovation.
“It’s essential everything is done to protect and preserve this mix and diversity,” says Liz Hoggard.
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Monday, 28 October 2019

How has Brexit affected London house prices?New builds are the only home type with rises in every borough since 2014




http://www.lowcarbonbuildings.org.uk/property-market-and-finance/03/2018/upmarket-london-properties-renting-for-record-highs/636/

New homes have risen more quickly in price than existing properties in every borough in London over the past five years, new analysis reveals today.
It shows that across the capital as a whole, new builds have gone up in value by an average of 25.3 per cent since 2014, while older “second-hand” flats and houses have increased by 20.6 per cent.
The findings suggests the “premium” buyers expect to pay for newly built properties remains intact, even after they have been lived in for several years.
The biggest gap is in the City of London where new-build prices have gone up 12.5 per cent more than those of existing stock.
The next biggest new-build gaps are in Redbridge, Camden and Lambeth. The smallest gap over the five-year period is in Kingston, at only 3.1 per cent.
The pattern is broadly the same over a 10-year period, with new builds outperforming older stock in all but five boroughs and by six per cent across London as a whole.
Since the EU Referendum in 2016, prices of existing properties have fallen by 2.1 per cent but new builds have edged up by 1.6 per cent.
The new-build property market has been hugely boosted by the Government’s Help to Buy scheme, which provides interest-free equity loans of up to 40 per cent on new properties worth up to £600,000. However, today’s findings raise fears that prices have been artificially elevated and could slump after Help to Buy is phased out between 2021 and 2023.
Michael Stone, founder of London agents Stone Real Estate, which carried out the analysis, said: “While new-build homes often come under fire due to the price premium involved, it’s abundantly clear that they have proven to be the best bricks-and-mortar investment option over the past 10 years when it comes to holding value.
“Despite the bumpy ride of Brexit uncertainty over the past few years, new-build property values have increased in every region of the UK, while existing stock has failed to keep pace, or in some cases, even seen a decline.
“This is largely due to build quality and condition. With new builds you can be sure the property is modern, structurally sound and energy-efficient, which are all features a buyer will look for.”
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Monday, 21 October 2019

London house prices:property market drops for the 18th month in a row wiping £7,000 off average home in the capital


Traditional London terraced houses
London house prices have fallen for the 18th month in a row, wiping nearly £7,000 off the value of the average home in the capital.
The property market dipped by 1.4 per cent in the year to August, leaving the average price at £472,753, according to Land Registry figures.
Prices are nearly £3,000 below where they stood in July 2016, the month after the EU referendum. In September 2017, they peaked at £488,527.
House prices fell in 21 of London’s 33 local authority areas, with the biggest drops in Kensington & Chelsea (down 9.1 per cent) and Brent(8.7 per cent lower).
They were down one per cent in inner London and 1.7 per cent in outer London.
The fastest-rising prices were in Hackney, where they went up 5.4 per cent, and Lewisham, which recorded a 3.9 per cent rise.
Jonathan Hopper, managing director of buying agency Garrington Property Finders, said: “While the capital still has the unwanted honour of being the region where prices are falling fastest, prices in the inner boroughs are beginning to settle and historically this is often seen as a precursor to a wider recovery across London.”
On the high street prices rose 1.7 per cent in September, according to the headline measure of inflation, the Consumer Prices Index. This was unchanged on August.
Howard Archer, chief economic advisor to City forecasters EY ITEM Club, said: “If the UK leaves the EU without a deal we believe house prices could quickly sink and drop around five per cent.”
It came as sliding fuel and second-hand car prices kept UK inflation at its lowest for almost three years in September.
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Friday, 4 October 2019

New 'affordable' homes in Bermondsey:Duke of Westminster's property company resubmits plans for custard cream factory conversion

The Duke of Westminster’s family property company, Grosvenor, got a rap across the knuckles for ‘‘not being good enough” when it submitted plans for its first major London development outside Mayfair and Belgravia and Southwark council threw them out.

https://www.christiesrealestate.com/eng/sales/chelsea-london-lv-eng



Now Grosvenor’s new £500 million masterplan for the former Peek Freans biscuit factory in Bermondsey has more and cheaper “affordable” housing and will be car free.

The original scheme was decisively rejected by the local authority in February when it said couples would need to earn around £30,000 each to afford the lower-cost flats on offer.

In May, however, Sadiq Khan used his powers as London Mayor to consider the scheme, saying it had “potential to make an important contribution to housing and affordable housing supply”.

The developer, best known for owning 100 acres of Mayfair and 200 acres of Belgravia, has increased the proportion of lower-cost housing from 27 per cent to 35 per cent and the average market rent discount from 27 per cent to 46 per cent.

Under the new plans 30 per cent of the affordable homeswill be at social rent equivalent, with a typical discount of 70 per cent to open market levels. The rest will be at discounted market rent with an average discount of 39 per cent.

Simon Harding Roots, executive director, Grosvenor Britain & Ireland, said: “Bringing about positive and lasting change for Bermondsey has always been our focus. However, our original planning application was not good enough. We acted in good faith but it didn’t meet the council’s expectations.

“Since then, we have worked hard to address the clear call from the community, council and Mayor to deliver more affordable housing whilst ensuring the project, and its many other benefits, can become a reality.”

The plans for the factory where Bourbons and custard creams were made for decades, now include 1,548 new homes, up from 1,342 in the original plans and include around 482 lower-cost homes.

However, the requirement for more affordable homes has meant an increase in height of between one and seven storeys for seven of the blocks in the scheme and a reduction in the amount of retail space in order to be profitable, according to Grosvenor.

Phase one of construction would include 359 rental homes, of which 35 per cent by habitable room would be affordable, as well as the delivery of a new 600-pupil secondary school and 8,155sq ft of employment space.

The new plans are now the subject of a consultation lasting until 28 October.


https://www.homesandproperty.co.uk/property-news/new-affordable-homes-in-bermondsey-duke-of-westminsters-property-company-resubmits-plans-for-custard-a133826.html
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Wednesday, 25 September 2019

Best areas for east London new home buyers:price growth tipped for fast-rising hotspots outperforming central London



House prices in east London have risen 37 per cent in the past five years, shielded from Brexit by long-term transformation and an unwavering desire to live in the coolest part of town. 
Property values in eastern boroughs have outperformed the rest of the capital since the peak in 2014, according to new analysis by CBRE. The cost of the average house in central London, for example, has edged up just nine per cent over the same period. 
Despite an inevitable cooling-off period in the hot London housing market, compounded by prolonged political uncertainty, homes in the East End continued to “outsell” the rest of the capital, explains Alexandra Cook of Savills.
The top five boroughs by five-year house price growth are all in the east: Barking and Dagenham (51 per cent), Newham (49 per cent), Waltham Forest (44 per cent), Bexley (42 per cent) and Redbridge (41 per cent). Prices have fallen two per cent in Hammersmith and Fulham in that time and nudged down one per cent in Kensington and Chelsea. 
“Buyers get much better value for money in east London and it’s a really accessible market for first-time buyers using Help to Buy,” says Cook. 

Top east London areas for homebuyers

Since the end of the Second World War the bombed-out East End, with its disused docklands, has become the epicentre of London’s regeneration. Sixties housing estates were followed by far grander schemes: the transformation of the Isle of Dogs into Canary Wharf, the construction of London City airport on the Royal Docks and the redevelopment of run-down Stratford to host the 2012 Olympic Games. But it’s still got a long way to go. 
Of the 541 tall buildings in the pipeline for London, according to New London Architecture, the bulk are in Tower Hamlets and Greenwich, while part of the Royal Docks is being turned into the Asian Business Port, which will generate 30,000 jobs and add £6 billion to the UK economy.
House price growth in this neck of the woods is therefore set to continue, outstripping the rest of the capital, says CBRE. Values in the east — defined as Barking and Dagenham, Bexley, Greenwich, Hackney, Havering, Lewisham, Newham, Redbridge, Tower Hamlets and Waltham Forest — will climb by 11 per cent over the next five years, the greatest increase forecast for any London region. 

A Crossrail upgrade for Ilford

House price growth in Redbridge is expected to outpace all other boroughs at 17 per cent as the Olympic effect and regeneration of Stratford spreads. Ilford is being upgraded as part of Ilford station’s redevelopment into a Crossrail hub. A total £7 million is being invested into the town’s other stations and 2,000 new homes will be delivered by 2021.
Architect Mark Ratke has bought a one-bedroom flat at The Paragon, a 141-home scheme in Ilford. Mark had been living in a flat share in Stoke Newington but was drawn to Ilford because of Crossrail. “I saw a future vision for the town and felt it was a good investment. The close proximity to Epping Forest was also important for weekend jogs.” One-bedroom flats at The Paragon priced from £280,000 are available with shared ownership. Buyers can purchase a minimum 25 per cent for £70,000, making the deposit £3,500. Call 020 3369 0365 (paragonapartments.co.uk).
Bexley and Barking and Dagenham complete the top three London boroughs by house price growth forecast over the next five years. 

East London's cool yet dynamic appeal

The appeal of east London is not just about lots of new homes at a cheaper price. The region has retained an intangible coolness that is spreading out from the likes of Hackney and Shoreditch along the train and Tube lines. 

CBRE’s head of residential research, Jennet Siebrits, puts this down to the emergence of the tech scene, bringing with it a new culture to east London which complements the existing one.
“Regeneration may have smoothed some of east London’s rough edges but it has attracted new residents who have helped it maintain its cool reputation — tech workers and creatives. A younger buyer is drawn by the lifestyle as well as by competitive house prices and rents,” says Siebrits. 
Savills is selling a new development just a 15-minute cycle from Silicon Roundabout at Old Street. Prices at Eagle Wharf Road, Hoxton, start from £600,000 for loft-style apartments overlooking Shoreditch Park. Call 020 3911 3648. 
“The people who move into the East End from elsewhere never want to change the vibe,” explains Savills’ Alexandra Cook. “They always want to help retain it. Every day there’s something going on, whether that’s a festival or arts event. We have a cycling culture and residents who are active in the community. It’s dynamic.” 

A nod to the past

Despite the volume of glass and steel towers planned in east London, there are plenty of projects that preserve its architectural heritage by retaining a feel of authenticity. Haggerston Baths is one such scheme. Architects Squire and Partners have submitted plans to convert the derelict Grade II-listed Victorian bathhouse into a community centre. The proposals include transforming the pool room into a gallery, café and gym. 
“Keeping the historic external fabric of the façade, the brick chimney and metal cupola will enhance the character of Haggerston,” says Julia Nicholls of Squire and Partners.
Deptford Foundry is another development designed to reflect the area’s industrial past. The 276-home scheme, comprising eight brick buildings and one tower, sits on the site of a former metalworks dating back to 1831. One-bedroom apartments start from £375,000. Help to Buy is available. Call JLL on 020 3962 3111. 
When it comes to interior design in the east, developers often move away from the traditional look. Telford Homes is launching its new villas at New Garden Quarter in Stratford this month. These upside-down duplexes have bedrooms on the ground floor and large living areas upstairs. Three-bedroom homes start from £725,000. Call 020 3930 2469.
The east of London, which has seen so much change, manages to move forward while celebrating its past and is now entering a new era of regeneration for the next generation.
Olga Derevianchenko bought a studio apartment in EcoWorld’s Aberfeldy Village, Poplar, modelled on the old East India Dock warehouses. Olga says she fell in love with the floor-to-ceiling windows and the view from her balcony of Canary Wharf at night. The scheme has a 24-hour concierge and a gym. Two-bedroom flats from £530,000. Call 0203 993 9158.
Graphic designer Hannah Smith used Help to Buy to purchase a one-bedroom flat in Upton Gardens, the conversion of the old West Ham stadium into 842 new homes by Barratt. “Being so close to the station means I feel safe walking home at night and my commute to London Bridge is really easy,” she says. Prices start from £359,000 for a one-bedroom apartment. Call 0333 3558496.
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