Reproduced with the kind permission of the Land Registry

Musings of the best Upmarket London Property Finders

The Land Registry  house price statistics for August reflect the rosier ambience those of us involved in the property market have been experiencing for a number of months now.  Most significantly, the number of house sales at the top end, particularly those over £2 million are up year on year at 54 a month in London.  House prices in Westminster, which includes Mayfair, Marylebone, Bayswater and parts of Notting Hill are now down just 3.4% versus last year and we would expect them to end the year close to prices achieved in May 2008, when house prices in Westminster were at their peak.  The average home in Westminster is now worth £574,714 compared to £622,950 in May 2008.

Technorati Tags: Latest London House Price Data, London House Prices, london house prices rise, London property, London Property Finder, London property finders, London property prices, London Property Prices Stable

Tags: Latest London House Price Data, London House Prices, london house prices rise, London property, London Property Finder, London property finders, London property prices, London Property Prices Stable

Musings of the upmarket London Property Finders

It’s conference season again and with most people believing the Tory takeover will be a shoe-in next year, Labour are on the defensive and one of the first things on the agenda at their annual conference today was an attack on Tory housing plans. 

John Healey the Housing Minister suggested the Conservatives would abolish assistance to those struggling to pay mortgages and allow property developments to go ahead without the often draconian requirements for social housing.  He added that plans for social tenants in Conservative-controlled Hammersmith and Fulham would ‘double or triple rents and put their homes on the line with 2 months notice’.

The government meanwhile outlined plans to add a further £180m to fund 1,200 more affordable homes.  The thing is, we can think of several ghastly developments which would eat that up in no time.  Land with planning for development and affordable housing is still being sold relatively cheaply, particularly where a housing association has already agreed to buy the social housing element and with banks now cautiously lending to developers again, 1,200 more affordable homes don’t really get our vote.  Particularly when they are likely to be the first flats hit when the recession bites again.

With all this, coupled with the Liberal Democrats ill-conceived  idea to tax houses worth over £1 million, we wish the politicians would just leave us London Property Finders and other Property people to get on with things and stop interfering.

Technorati Tags: Labour housing plans, Lib Dem housing plans, London House Prices, London property finders, Tory housing plans

Tags: Labour housing plans, Lib Dem housing plans, London House Prices, London property finders, Tory housing plans

Musings of a group of London Property Buyers Agents

I know, I know, we’ve been banging on about house prices for over a week now, but you regular readers know how it is: some weeks EVERYONE releases their house price data, and for property anoraks like us (and some of you) frankly, we know you love it really!

The National Housing Federation has just published a piece of research by Oxford Economists stating that the average house price will fall by 12.2% this year and a further 4.6% next year before stabilising in 2011 with a 1.1% rise.  Apparently we are then into a boom cycle where prices will rise by 7.5% in 2012, 8.4% in 2013 and 6.8% in 2014. 

So that means wannabe first-time buyers who haven’t quite saved enough deposit can rejoyce, supposedly, and carry on drinking their deposit down the pub.

Unfortunately, we don’t know the thinking behind all these stats, apart from the fact that the researchers appear to have based their findings on lower income households and not taken into account the influx of foreign buyers who have contacted all of us London property pros over the last 12 months.

However, the gist of the report is that for unhappy new homeowners in the North West and the East Midlands, there is more bad news: prices in 2014 are forecast to be lower than 2007 so those who bought at the top of the market will have lost out unless they bought an absolute gem.

No such issues for London and the South East.  Property prices in the South East are forecast to rise by 10% from their peak in 2007 and prices in London are forecast to rise by 8%.  As always these are averages and take into account lots of areas in which our Clients would never want to live.  We are pretty confident you are safe, unless we told you so when we organised your house purchase.  We may have quibbled about your asking price but that is what you paid us for and none of our clients are in negative equity, or have lost money on their property purchases to date. 

We may live to regret it, but I think most of our Clients will see over 10% growth by 2014, wherever they are.

Technorati Tags: house price crash, house price inflation, House Prices, London House Prices, UK house prices

Tags: house price crash, house price inflation, House Prices, London House Prices, UK house prices