Tag Archives: real estate
London Mayor secures planning change for the city
The Mayor of London has welcomed the UK Government's decision to reconsider planning proposals that would have potentially seen valuable office space in the city turned into homes. Boris Johnson has been actively lobbying the Government to amend proposals that he believes would have put the capital's key business districts at risk by allowing office space to be converted into homes without developers applying for planning permission for the change of use. Now the Minister for Housing and Planning, Brandon Lewis, has announced that he will amend the original proposals to ensure London is able to maintain a stock of quality office space in existing key areas, and allow the city to continue to attract jobs and growth. Last year the Mayor successfully negotiated for defined areas of central London to be exempt from a Government policy that allowed office space to be converted into homes without developers applying for change of use planning permission. These areas covered the Central Activities Zone which incorporates the City of London, the South Bank, parts of Kensington and Chelsea, the West End, the commercial area north of the Isle of Dogs and London's Enterprise Zones in the Royal Docks, plus the part of the City Fringe in east London which makes up the emerging Tech City opportunity area. However new proposals announced by the Government would have removed these exemptions which Johnson believes potentially threatened London's internationally important business locations. Lewis said that the Government will allow local authorities to bring forward special planning regulations known as Article 4 directions if they wish to continue determining planning applications for the change of use. This will ensure that London's commercial heartlands will be protected from planning changes. ‘I am delighted that Government has put policies in place that will lead to the protection of our thriving business districts. Removing the planning exemption in those areas would have put the future economic growth of this city at risk, but by agreeing to amend their proposals the Government are ensuring we will be able to maintain the full stock of quality office space required for our city to continue to prosper,’ said Johnson. The Mayor is firmly on track to deliver 100,000 affordable homes over his two terms, with more than 94,000 already built. In the last year there were almost 18,000 affordable completions, the most in any year in London since 1991 and the equivalent of a new affordable home built every 30 minutes. Since the Mayor took on 670 hectares of public land in 2012 some 99% has been released for development, in line with the Mayor's 100% target by the end of his term in 2016. Land already released by the Mayor includes east London's Royal Docks, the Beam Park site in Rainham, and the former Cane Hill hospital site in Croydon. The current exemptions will remain in place until May 2019, providing time for these local authorities to make an Article 4 application to remove the rights… Continue reading
Cheaper to buy than rent in over a third of cities in the UK
It is cheaper to buy than rent in more than a third of cities in the UK with buying most effective in the north of the country, new research shows. Mortgage payments are less expensive than monthly rent in 36% of British cities and home owners in Glasgow are more than £100 per month better off than their renting counterparts. However, in the south renting still beats buying, with buyers in London, Reading and Cambridge forking out hundreds more to own property there, according to the research from property search firm Zoopla. But overall the analysis of the cost of renting a two bedroom home compared to servicing a mortgage shows that nationwide, renters still pay £58 less per month than buyers. Buyers did particularly well compared to their renting counterparts in Scotland and the North of England. In Glasgow, rental payments amount to an average of £596 per month, whereas monthly mortgage payments only totaled £447. This means Glaswegian buyers are paying 25% or £149 a month less to own property than rent it. The research also shows that in Hull, buyers who pay on average £397 a month are £55 better off than renters in the city who pay an average of £452 per month to rent. Conversely, the south eastern corner of the UK represents the best value for money for renters. The average London tenant pays rent of £2,218 per month, whereas the capital’s home owners pay an average of £3,302 on servicing their mortgages, meaning buyers there are paying 49% or £1,084 a month more than the city’s renters. Buyers in Reading and Cambridge can also expect to pay more. On average, owners in Reading typically pay £3,600 a year more than tenants, while servicing a mortgage in Cambridge costs £3,700 more a year on average. Nationwide, the current average asking rent for a two bedroom home is £666 per month, compared to an average asking price of £145,840. As a result, servicing a 90% LTV mortgage typically costs £58 more per month than the average tenant would pay for renting such a property. Aside from the initial deposit, and all the fees associated with the actual house purchase, the financial strain of buying can be overstated. In addition to the peace of mind that home buying brings, many owners enjoy more disposable income at the end of every month than their renting counterparts, said Lawrence Hall of Zoopla. ‘If they can make the leap, and are willing to relinquish the flexibility that comes with renting, tenants up north in particular would be much better off buying and paying off a mortgage every month,’ he explained. He pointed out that Scotland and the North of England are cementing their standing as international university hubs with top universities in York, Edinburgh and Durham. ‘This means increasingly high numbers of students are flock to these areas, all looking for places to stay and… Continue reading
Average rent of newly let home in UK now close to £1,000 per month
The average rent of a newly let home in the UK has increased by 3.6% year on year to £941 per month, according to the latest rental market index. The gap between the places where people can afford to rent and where they can afford to buy has widened in every year since the market downturn in 2008, the data from Countrywide plc also shows. People are also moving further away if they buy a home. The index report says that 51% who took their first steps on the housing ladder in 2015 bought outside the town or city where they had been renting, up from 39% in 2008. With house prices rising faster than rents, an increasing number of households find themselves renting in places where they couldn’t afford to buy and tenants in the South of England tend to move furthest to get on the housing ladder. This is where the gap between where people can afford to rent and buy is largest and has widened the most since 2012. Across London and the South East house prices have increased 42% since 2012, rising from £218,000 to £375,000. Over the same period rents have only increased 19% from £1,000 to reach £1,234 a month. The growing number of tenants moving further to buy is both a product of stretched affordability and first time buyers getting older, the report suggests, adding that tenants are increasingly choosing to compromise on location in in order to own their first home. Those renters who bought a home in the last year, bought in a place where the average house price was £35,000 lower than where they were renting. Across the UK as a whole, two thirds of tenants bought in a cheaper area but there were even more in the most expensive housing markets. In London some three quarters of tenants who bought in the last year, ended up living somewhere cheaper than where they had been renting with an average price gap between the two places of £93,000. Further north, however, a rather different picture starts to emerge. In some of the less expensive areas of the country, tenants tend to be less constrained by affordability when making the move into home ownership. Tenants buying in the North East, North West and Yorkshire, tend to buy in similarly priced areas to where they are renting. The average difference in price between where they were renting and where they bought is just £8,000. In a number of the cheapest northern cities such as Newcastle, the average tenant buying their first home actually moves from a cheaper area to a more expensive one. In addition to affordability, space is a deciding factor of where tenants choose to purchase, according to the report. Irrespective of location, those tenants making the move further afield also tend to buy the largest homes. Nationally, 32% of… Continue reading
