Tag Archives: investment
Number of British homes worth £1 million or more up 14% since beginning of year
The number of home owners in Britain whose property is worth £1 million or more has increased by 75,796 or 14% since January, according to the latest research. This 14% rise over the past year takes the total number of British so called property millionaires to 622,939, and means that 2.2% of all home owners have a property worth £1 million or more, up 1.9% over the past year. Of these million pound home some 82% are situated in London and the South East, a breakdown of the data from property website Zoopla shows. But Wales has the fewest and the number in Scotland have fallen by 4.5%. London, long the nation’s property powerhouse, has once again dominated the property millionaire league, with well over half (61%) of Britain’s million-pound piles located in the capital. In total, 380,337 homes in the city are now above the million-pound threshold, marking a 33,871 – or 10% increase – since the start of the year. Within London the boroughs with the highest number of property millionaires are notoriously expensive areas such as Westminster with 51,607 and Kensington and Chelsea with 44,972 but they have seen the smallest rise in £1 million plus properties of any borough over the past year, up just 0.9% and 0.6% respectively. Meanwhile, the boroughs that experienced the greatest increases of over 55% are within the top 10 lowest average priced boroughs in London including Barking and Dagenham, Newham, Redbridge and Waltham Forest, Outside of London, the East of England and Yorkshire and the Humber saw the largest increases of million pound properties, up 28% and 24% respectively since January. At the other end of the spectrum, Wales has the fewest million pound properties in Britain with only 1,404 in total despite, an 11% rise since January. Scotland was the only country to see a decrease in number of million pound homes in 2015, falling 4.5% to below 9,000 since the start of the year. ‘It's interesting to see that areas such as the East of England and Yorkshire have seen bigger percentage rises in the numbers of property millionaires over the last 12 months compared with the south which typically dominates each year,’ said Lawrence Hall of Zoopla. ‘However the number of properties valued at more than £1 million in the south still outweigh the rest of Britain boosted by wealthy hotspots such as Kensington and Chelsea and Westminster,’ he pointed out. ‘With an improving economy and the ongoing lack of housing supply, this continues to put upward pressure on house prices at all levels of the market and has nudged a whole new raft of properties over the £1 million mark. A price tag that was once the exclusive preserve of stately homes or massive mansions is now an increasingly common label for more modest houses, particularly in London,’ he added. Continue reading
Sales and prices in Canada still rising but market is balanced, says CREA
Home sales in Canada increased by 1.8% month on month in November with the number of new listings also rising, up 3.1% compared with October, the latest index figures shows. Prices also increased, up by 10.2% year on year but this figure is affected by prices in Greater Vancouver and Greater Toronto as when they are excluded the annual price growth is 3.4%. The data from the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) also shows that year on year sales were up 10.9% and overall the housing market remains balanced. There was a fairly even split between the number of markets where sales posted a monthly increase and those where sales declined. The national increase was again led by monthly sales gains in the lower mainland of British Columbia and in the Greater Toronto Area. Sales activity was down sharply in the Calgary region compared to what were historically high levels posted prior to the collapse in oil prices while the number of newly listed homes rose 3.1% led by the Lower Mainland, Calgary, Edmonton, Kingston and Ottawa. ‘Recently announced changes to mortgage regulations will likely boost sales activity in the short term, as buyers jump off the fence to beat the changes before they take effect next year,’ said CREA president Pauline Aunger. Meanwhile, CREA chief economist Gregory Klump pointed out that changes to mortgage regulations taking effect in the middle of February next year are aimed at cooling the Greater Vancouver and Greater Toronto housing markets. ‘Minimum down payments will be going up for homes that sell for more than half a million dollars, so larger more expensive housing markets will be affected most. Unfortunately, the regulatory changes will also cause unintended collateral damage to housing markets beyond Toronto and Vancouver, including places that are facing economic headwinds from the collapse in oil prices,’ he explained. The national sales to new listings ratio eased to 57.3% in November compared to 58% in October. A sales to new listings ratio between 40% and 60% is generally consistent with balanced housing market conditions, with readings below and above this range indicating buyers’ and sellers’ markets respectively. The ratio was within this range in slightly fewer than half of all local housing markets in November. Of the remainder, more markets recorded a ratio above 60% than fell below 40%. Markets where demand is tight relative to supply are located almost exclusively in British Columbia and Ontario. The number of months of inventory is another important measure of the balance between housing supply and demand. It represents the number of months it would take to completely liquidate current inventories at the current rate of sales activity. There were 5.4 months of inventory on a national basis at the end of November 2015, down from the 5.5 months recorded in October and the lowest level in nearly six years. The national figure is being pulled lower by increasing market tightness in British Columbia and Ontario, according to the index. A… Continue reading
Prices and sales up in Scotland as market recovers from impact of new land tax
Property in Scotland increased by 1% in October, the biggest monthly climb since April and sales were up 10% year on year, the highest figure for the month for eight years. The latest data from the Your Move index also shows that East Lothian saw biggest boost as new homes developments have pushed prices up 6.3% since September. West Lothian saw the biggest jump in home sales of any area in Scotland, with third quarter sales up 23% on the same period last year. The rise took the average price of home in Scotland to £168,843 and the market over a million pounds is starting to recover with 30 homes in this sector sold between August and October compared to just 14 in the previous three month period. Christine Campbell, Your Move managing director in Scotland, pointed out that average property prices in Scotland increased by £1,600 in October, twice the £761 rise reported in September, as sales of million pound home start again. ‘This growth means that we have seen the largest month on month rise in property values since the introduction of the Land and Buildings Transaction Tax (LBTT) in April this year and the fourth biggest monthly jump since the August 2007, at the height of the housing boom,’ she said. She also pointed out that the seaside town of North Berwick has experienced some of the strongest sales activity over the summer, as buyers hunt for somewhere which has an easy commute to Edinburgh. ‘Crucially, the town has seen three homes sold for over a million pounds and completions on premium new homes which has helped fuel this considerable increase in local prices,’ said Campbell. ‘The top of the market now appears to be recovering after being affected by the steeper LBTT. After the introduction of the new levy in April, home sales in this price bracket ground to a halt, but they are now picking up again,’ she explained. ‘The compromise is that higher end sellers are having to reduce the prices of their homes in order to compensate for the increased LBTT tax rate. In Edinburgh, sales of detached homes in the third quarter of 2015 are up 3% year on year, but average prices for these properties have dropped 2% over the same period,’ she added. The index data also shows that so far in 2015 property sales in Scotland for first time buyers and home movers are increasing three times faster than the rest of the UK. ‘The landmark LBTT switch has made it cheaper to buy homes with the first threshold at £145,000. Some 50% of home sales in Scotland are outside the system,’ said Campbell. ‘With the average cost of a flat in Scotland only £134,000, flat sales have jumped 8% in the third quarter of this year, compared to the same quarter in 2014. Low interest rates have also fuelled the rise as we have seen… Continue reading
