Category Archives: Real Estate

China owns vast network of UK real estate, offshore records reveal

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Presence of key distribution centres on list of more than 250 properties raises questions about grip on supply chain links

The Chinese government owns a vast network of UK real estate via offshore secrecy jurisdictions such as Luxembourg and the Isle of Man, the Guardian can reveal, raising questions about Beijing’s grip on links in the UK supply chain.

Disclosures made as part of a new government register of property owned via offshore entities show that China’s investment division owns more than 250 properties across Britain via dozens of companies. They include distribution centres that are key to the flow of food and goods in multiple regions of the UK including the south-west and south-east of England and the Midlands.

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Average UK house price falls for fourth month in a row, says Halifax

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Figure of £281,272 comes as property values drop by 1.5% in December, after 2.4% decline in November

The average UK house price fell for the fourth month in a row in December, according to Halifax, with experts expecting a further slowdown amid a long recession.

Property values decreased by 1.5% in December, the lender’s monthly index revealed, after a 2.4% drop in November, a 0.4% decrease in October and a 0.1% dip in September.

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UK house prices fall for fourth month in a row, the longest run since 2008

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Annual growth rate cools in December and average price of property drops to £262,068, says Nationwide

Property prices in the UK fell for the fourth month in a row in December, the longest run of declines since 2008, according to Nationwide.

Annual house price growth also slowed sharply as the year drew to a close, to the lowest rate since mid-2020, with all regions of the country affected, according to the building society’s monthly survey.

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Experts predict housing market will cool in 2023 as UK enters a recession

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The slowdown is expected to intensify with price declines between 5% and 12%

The housing market will cool sharply next year after a bumpy 2022, industry experts are predicting, as the UK contends with recession and higher mortgage rates.

As the cost of living crisis has intensified amid soaring inflation and as interest rates have increased, house prices have already started falling month-on-month. The average house price dropped 2.3% in November from October – the most since the start of the financial crash in 2008 – according to Halifax.

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London extends lead as most searched UK location on Rightmove

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Capital now top location by some distance after Cornwall led for several months during pandemic

The lockdown dream of leaving the city behind and owning a spacious house in the countryside or by the sea faded in 2022 as homebuyers picked up where they left off before the pandemic: house hunting in London.

Rightmove said the capital was 2022’s top location by some distance with searches 9% higher than last year. Meanwhile the number of searches for homes in Cornwall and Devon fell sharply although the counties, famous for their spectacular coastlines, hung on to second and third place on the property website’s annual list of most searched for locations.

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UK house prices fall at fastest pace since 2020 amid fallout from mini-budget

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Nationwide warns inflation and rising interest rates will weigh down housing market

UK house prices have fallen at their fastest rate for two and a half years as the fallout from Liz Truss’s disastrous mini-budget put buyers off according to Nationwide, which warned inflation and rising interest rates would weigh on the market in the coming months.

The price of an average home dropped 1.4% to £263,788 in November, according to the lender’s house price index, accelerating a slowdown that saw prices fall 0.9% in October. It was the third monthly fall in a row, and the biggest drop since June 2020.

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Shares in UK’s top housebuilders fall as housing market cools

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Large estate agent chain’s profits also hit as interest rate rises and cost of living crisis put off potential buyers

Shares in one of the UK’s biggest estate agent chains and some of the largest British housebuilders fell on Friday, amid the latest warnings about the outlook for the housing market, as potential homebuyers are squeezed by rising interest rates and the cost of living crisis.

The share price of LSL Property Services, one of the UK’s largest estate agent chains, tumbled by as much as 11% after it warned on profits for the second half of the year and said conditions in the housing market had become more challenging than anticipated.

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Chinese authorities unveil sweeping measures to rescue property sector

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Hong Kong and Chinese markets soared on the announcement that the government would extend loans for distressed developers

Chinese authorities have unveiled sweeping measures to rescue the struggling property sector, as regulators seek to offset years of harsh pandemic curbs and a real estate crackdown that have stalled the world’s No 2 economy.

The banking regulator and central bank issued a 16-point set of internal directives to promote the “stable and healthy development” of the industry.

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Exodus of first-time buyers puts brakes on UK housing market

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Hike in mortgage costs after mini-budget cuts 20% off buyer demand in October

First-time buyers pulled back most from purchasing a home after the increase in mortgage costs following the mini-budget, according to a report showing a widespread slowdown in the property market.

Figures from the property platform Rightmove show buyer demand fell 20% in October compared with a year ago, as house-hunters put their property searches on hold in response to soaring borrowing costs and rising economic uncertainty.

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Five million UK families ‘face mortgage rising by £5,100 a year by end of 2024’

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Increase adds up to a £26bn rise for homeowners, says Resolution Foundation thinktank

More than five million families could see their annual mortgage payments rise by an average of £5,100 between now and the end of 2024, heaping fresh pain on households already struggling with higher food and energy bills.

The increase adds up to a £26bn mortgage rise for homeowners, according to the analysis by the Resolution Foundation thinktank which said nearly a fifth of British households would have to spend more on their housing costs by the end of 2024.

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UK’s 13-year housing market boom to end in 2023, surveyors predict

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RICS report says rise in repossessions will add to supply while soaring interest rates price buyers out of market

Homeowners will struggle to make mortgage repayments and repossessions will rise next year as soaring interest rates and falling prices mark the end of the UK’s 13-year housing market boom, according to a sobering report from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS).

The number of inquiries from potential homebuyers fell for a fifth month in a row in September, while sales fell to the lowest level since May 2020 when the housing market all but ground to a halt during the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic, it said.

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Kwarteng considers extending mortgage guarantee scheme

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Initiative may continue beyond December as bank bosses raise concerns over mortgage market

The chancellor is considering extending the government’s mortgage guarantee scheme after UK bank bosses raised concerns over the state of the UK’s mortgage market at a high-level meeting at No 11 Downing Street.

The meeting on Thursday – which was attended by chief executives including Alison Rose of NatWest, Charlie Nunn of Lloyds Banking Group, HSBC UK’s Ian Stuart, Mike Regnier of Santander and TSB’s Robin Bulloch – was scheduled amid mounting fears about the potential fallout from rapidly rising mortgage rates.

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Renting to the highest bidder: calls for federal laws to ban practice amid Australia’s cost-of-living crisis

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It’s a landlord’s market, as hundreds queue to rent properties with negotiable prices that many simply can’t afford

Peak housing bodies are calling for nationally consistent rental laws to crack down on bidding wars putting pressure on tenants in a shrinking market.

Victoria, Queensland and Tasmania have introduced reforms to ban rent bidding – the process of negotiating the price of a rental by advertising a property within a “range” or without a fixed cost.

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Buy-to-let landlords facing financial cliff edge after mini-budget

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Mortgage market meltdown has left many amateur landlords facing a stark choice: to raise rents or sell up

Britain’s amateur landlords have benefited from years of runaway house price inflation, while intense competition among tenants has sent rents soaring. Now, thanks to the meltdown in the mortgage market triggered by last week’s disastrous mini-budget, many face a financial cliff edge.

Figures shared with the Guardian show that the number of new buy-to-let mortgage deals available has plummeted by 55% in less than a week as lenders frantically pulled products and in many cases increased prices.

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A Ponzi scheme by any other name: the bursting of China property bubble

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Only state intervention can save the day, but the pain is likely to fall on ordinary citizens, say observers

A little more than a year ago, a Chinese property developer largely unknown to the outside world said its cashflow was under “tremendous pressure” and it might not be able to pay back some of its eye-watering debts of $300bn (£275bn).

Today, that company, China Evergrande Group, is all too well known as the poster child of the country’s economic woes. House prices in China have fallen in each of the 12 months since Evergrande’s now prophetic warning, with Xi Jinping’s government now preparing to throw billions of dollars at a property market that experts say increasingly resembles a giant Ponzi scheme.

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London council could seize oligarchs’ homes for affordable housing

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Exclusive: Westminster looking at compulsory purchase orders to tackle laundering of ‘dirty money’

Homes acquired with “dirty money” in the richest parts of London could be seized and turned into affordable housing under plans to crack down on oligarchs using Belgravia, Knightsbridge and Mayfair “to rinse their money”.

Labour-controlled Westminster city council is examining the use of compulsory purchase orders in extreme cases where it finds properties are not being used for their stated purpose, as part of a push to “combat the capital’s reputation as the European centre for money laundering”.

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Vested interests can’t be allowed to dictate Queensland’s response to the housing crisis

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Developers are being touted as saviours to the state’s housing woes but greenfield development won’t affect affordability

About six years ago, the Brisbane city council sought to forcibly remove a growing number of homeless people staying underneath the Go Between and Kurilpa bridges in South Brisbane.

A few years later, the Queensland government placed a series of large boulders under the Kurilpa Bridge to prevent rough sleepers from returning.

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Calls for 50,000 new social houses in Queensland before 2032 Olympics

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Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk announces 200 new crisis accommodation units as prelude to upcoming housing summit

Social services organisations have welcomed the Queensland government’s moves to source urgent crisis accommodation for a growing number of homeless people, but warn that only long-term measures can ultimately fix the state’s housing crisis.

The state’s premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, on Friday chaired a roundtable with housing industry groups, local government and the social services sector. The meeting was a prelude to a housing summit next month.

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New register of overseas owners of UK properties ‘riddled with flaws’

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Critics warn of loopholes as UK government tries to stop ‘oligarchs attempting to hide ill-gotten gains’

The business secretary, Kwasi Kwarteng, has promised that legislation coming into force on Monday will have an “immediate dissuasive effect on oligarchs attempting to hide their ill-gotten gains, ensuring that the UK is a place for legitimate business only”.

However, a string of lawyers, tax experts, MPs, accountants and transparency campaigners are warning that the long-awaited register of overseas entities, which was sped through parliament after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, is “riddled with flaws and loopholes” and will have no impact on forcing corrupt oligarchs to reveal which UK mansions they own.

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Australian property prices tumble at rates not seen since GFC

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Interest rate rises lead to dwelling values falling for third month in a row with Sydney prices down 5.2% since January

Australia’s property prices are falling at rates comparable to the onset of the global financial crisis or the 1980s downturn as higher interest rates deflate demand. Sydney’s drop, though, is already more precipitous than those earlier eras.

In July alone, dwelling values fell 1.3% on average nationally, marking a third consecutive monthly decline according to CoreLogic, a property data firm. Five of the nation’s eight capitals reported falls, with Sydney down 2.2% and Melbourne retreating 1.5% while prices in Brisbane, Canberra and Hobart were also starting to slide.

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