Is Prime London Crashing? - Merged Threads

[Tempus]

The Macron victory should prove bad news for London. 

He has said he wants thousands of City jobs to move to Paris. 

There's plenty of wealthy French citizens around Kensington who may be moving too.

So not a good election for Prime London house prices. 

[spyguy]

1 hour ago, Tempus said:

The Macron victory should prove bad news for London. 

He has said he wants thousands of City jobs to move to Paris. 

There's plenty of wealthy French citizens around Kensington who may be moving too.

So not a good election for Prime London house prices. 

I doubt it, not with Frnch taxes.

No EUer earnign over 30k will have to move.

 

[Tempus]

12 minutes ago, spyguy said:

I doubt it, not with Frnch taxes.

No EUer earnign over 30k will have to move.

 

He's got that covered too: "Macron unveils plans to slash taxes and public sector jobs" http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/02/24/emmanuel-macron-unveils-plans-slash-taxes-public-sector-jobs/

[stormymonday_2011]

1 hour ago, Tempus said:

The Macron victory should prove bad news for London. 

He has said he wants thousands of City jobs to move to Paris. 

There's plenty of wealthy French citizens around Kensington who may be moving too.

So not a good election for Prime London house prices. 

I thought all the City jobs were supposed to be going to Frankfurt ?

 

[Tempus]

58 minutes ago, stormymonday_2011 said:

I thought all the City jobs were supposed to be going to Frankfurt ?

 

Paris, Frankfurt, Dublin. They'll have a variety of places to choose from, but Macron will be actively targeting City jobs.

Plus highly unlikely Merkel and Macron will favour a passporting deal for London. 

I wonder if Foxtons' share price will reflect a Macron win?

[winkie]

On 2017-5-6 at 4:55 PM, North London Rent Girl said:

I sort of feel I have the small city effect by confining most of what I do to north london but I do find what you say very heartening as I'm bound to have to leave at some point... Oxford, hey? House price nightmare, right? The only person I know who lives there lives on a boat.

Could it be that people actually get tired of London and the places can walk to, been there,done it walked it and visited it...... thousands of places where there are good shops, restaurant, pubs,clubs, history and arty places.... wonderful views, open spaces and fresh air, peace and quiet within walking distance......always time for a change, else things get boring and the same, don't try will never find out......North London has changed, so can we.

 

[Peter Hun]

2 hours ago, Jazzman said:

As much as I would love this to be true, it's not clear that this is happening. The higher they climb, the harder they will fall.

That contradicts all other data. Did you make it  up, I see no source.

[adarmo]

On 2017-5-5 at 9:20 AM, North London Rent Girl said:

You are also an only occasional trek into towner?! I went in to see a film a couple of fridays ago, right into the west end on a friday night, haven't done that for ages, ick. Does anyone really actually like it? I am getting old but it's not just that, I didn't like it in my 20s, either, always wondered what was good about it.

I have a group of uni mates who have lived there but a we've spread out it's become the hub for meeting up. Not a bad thing really as so much to do and if we can't decide on activities ther's plenty of bars

I think some like it (the shard), I always had the view that people in London were trapped but I think there are many people who love it. Four me it's too big and I think I have far for freedom living close by but with easy access to beautiful countryside.

[anonlymouse]

London rents fall for first time since 2009

Quote

Rents have fallen year on year in London for the first time since 2009 and are flat in much of the rest of the country in fresh evidence of the post-Brexit slowdown in the property market.

The London average rent fell to £1,519 a month compared with £1,537 a year ago. Rents in the south-east have also fallen slightly year on year, from £1,007 to £1,003. After years of being hit by steadily rising rent bills, it appears that tenants in the capital may finally be getting the upper hand.

Further declines in rent will put additional pressure on buy-to-let landlords to quit the market. 

A double whammy of tighter Bank of England lending rules, which have forced banks and building societies to insist on greater rental cover and higher deposits, plus new taxes on rental income, has made buy-to-let far less financially attractive.

Falling rents will also pile further pressure on the many developers of luxury tower blocks who promote their apartments as investments based on the rental yield.

Buckle up!

[Sancho Panza]

http://www.icis.com/blogs/chemicals-and-the-economy/2017/05/london-house-prices/

 

'London house prices face perfect storm as Brexit risks rise

By Paul Hodges on 8 May, 2017 in Economic growth

The UK goes to the polls on 8 June in a surprise General Election.  And premier Theresa May has clearly decided to base her campaign on a ”Who governs Britain?” platform, as she highlighted when launching her campaign last week:

“Britain’s negotiating position in Europe has been misrepresented in the continental press, the European Commission’s stance has hardened and threats against Britain have been issued by European politicians and officials. All of these acts have been deliberately timed to affect the result of the general election that will take place on June 8….there are some in Brussels who do not want these talks to succeed. Who do not want Britain to prosper.”

In reality, of course, all that has happened is that Brussels is behaving exactly at Theresa May herself forecast, when campaigning a year ago for the UK to Remain in the EU:

“In a stand-off between Britain and the EU, 44% of our exports is more important to us than 8% of the EU’s exports is to them….The reality is that we do not know on what terms we would win access to the single market…It is not clear why other EU member states would give Britain a better deal than they themselves enjoy. ”

May’s rhetoric will no doubt give her a large majority, given the weakness of the Labour opposition.  She has also promised to be “a bloody difficult woman” during the Brexit negotiations that follow the election. But what is good for an election win, may not be such good news for London house prices.  These are at all-time record levels in terms of the critical price/earnings ratio, and were already heading into an inevitable downturn as the City AM chart shows:

  Massive over-building at the top end of the market means there are now 59k high-end apartments under construction in London, yet annual sales of new-build flats are just 6k
  Sales have also been hit by the hike in purchase tax (stamp duty) to 10% above £925k ($1.2m) and 12% on purchases over £1.5m
  The UK’s 2 million ‘buy-to-let’ landlords, most of whom are in London, have also been hit by a combination of a higher tax take on their income and tighter borrowing criteria for mortgages
  China’s capital controls means its buyers have had to pull back, as it becomes more difficult to move money overseas.  They have been the largest buyers of residential property in central London

Now this downturn could well become a perfect storm, as May’s “battle with Brussels” risks an exodus of highly-paid finance and other professionals from London.  As the BBC reports: “More than one million people work in the financial services sector in the UK and it pays over £70bn a year in taxes to the government, 11.5% of all receipts.”

FINANCIAL SERVICES ARE PREPARING TO LEAVE LONDON 
The CEOs of the world’s 2 largest investment banks have already warned of difficult times ahead.

  JP Morgan CEO, Jamie Dimon, has warned:  “The clustering of financials in London is hugely efficient for all of Europe. Now you’re going to have a declustering which creates huge duplicate costs which is expensive to clients, but we have no choice.”
  Goldman Sachs CEO, Lloyd Blankfein, has highlighted the risks caused by uncertainty over the terms of the UK’s exit: ”Without knowing how things will turn out we have to plan for a number of contingencies,” Mr Blankfein said about possible job losses. “If there is no period of time to implement whatever changes are brought about in a negotiation, we may have to do things prematurely and we may have to do a range of things as a precaution and take steps.”

Unsurprisingly, buyers are starting to sit on their hands and waiting to see what happens, as The Guardian reports:

“London estate agents have begun to offer free cars worth £18,000, stamp duty subsidies of £150,000, plus free iPads and Sonos sound systems to kickstart sales in the capital’s increasingly moribund property market. The once super-hot central London market has turned into a “burnt-out core.”

How much will prices fall, and how long will it take for prices to bottom?  These are now set to become the key questions at London dinner-parties.  Logic suggests prices will need to fall at least 50% to bring them back to more affordable levels.  And the pain is likely to stretch out over years, as leading buying agent, Henry Pryor, has warned:

“In my 28 years in the property business, we have done this twice before, and each time it takes around five to seven years before things recover.”

We must all hope that May will use her potential landslide election win to quickly reverse her recent rhetoric, and return to the common sense positions she staked out before the Referendum.  It is not too late for her to agree to remain in the Single Market, the Customs Union and accept the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice.

Without such a move, London home owners will face a perfect storm as the financial services industry “de-clusters” to Frankfurt, Paris, Brussels, Dublin and Amsterdam next year.'

Edited May 8, 2017 by Sancho Panza

[TheCountOfNowhere]

1 hour ago, Sancho Panza said:

http://www.icis.com/blogs/chemicals-and-the-economy/2017/05/london-house-prices/

 

'London house prices face perfect storm as Brexit risks rise

By Paul Hodges on 8 May, 2017 in Economic growth

The UK goes to the polls on 8 June in a surprise General Election.  And premier Theresa May has clearly decided to base her campaign on a ”Who governs Britain?” platform, as she highlighted when launching her campaign last week:

“Britain’s negotiating position in Europe has been misrepresented in the continental press, the European Commission’s stance has hardened and threats against Britain have been issued by European politicians and officials. All of these acts have been deliberately timed to affect the result of the general election that will take place on June 8….there are some in Brussels who do not want these talks to succeed. Who do not want Britain to prosper.”

In reality, of course, all that has happened is that Brussels is behaving exactly at Theresa May herself forecast, when campaigning a year ago for the UK to Remain in the EU:

“In a stand-off between Britain and the EU, 44% of our exports is more important to us than 8% of the EU’s exports is to them….The reality is that we do not know on what terms we would win access to the single market…It is not clear why other EU member states would give Britain a better deal than they themselves enjoy. ”

May’s rhetoric will no doubt give her a large majority, given the weakness of the Labour opposition.  She has also promised to be “a bloody difficult woman” during the Brexit negotiations that follow the election. But what is good for an election win, may not be such good news for London house prices.  These are at all-time record levels in terms of the critical price/earnings ratio, and were already heading into an inevitable downturn as the City AM chart shows:

  Massive over-building at the top end of the market means there are now 59k high-end apartments under construction in London, yet annual sales of new-build flats are just 6k
  Sales have also been hit by the hike in purchase tax (stamp duty) to 10% above £925k ($1.2m) and 12% on purchases over £1.5m
  The UK’s 2 million ‘buy-to-let’ landlords, most of whom are in London, have also been hit by a combination of a higher tax take on their income and tighter borrowing criteria for mortgages
  China’s capital controls means its buyers have had to pull back, as it becomes more difficult to move money overseas.  They have been the largest buyers of residential property in central London

Now this downturn could well become a perfect storm, as May’s “battle with Brussels” risks an exodus of highly-paid finance and other professionals from London.  As the BBC reports: “More than one million people work in the financial services sector in the UK and it pays over £70bn a year in taxes to the government, 11.5% of all receipts.”

FINANCIAL SERVICES ARE PREPARING TO LEAVE LONDON 
The CEOs of the world’s 2 largest investment banks have already warned of difficult times ahead.

  JP Morgan CEO, Jamie Dimon, has warned:  “The clustering of financials in London is hugely efficient for all of Europe. Now you’re going to have a declustering which creates huge duplicate costs which is expensive to clients, but we have no choice.”
  Goldman Sachs CEO, Lloyd Blankfein, has highlighted the risks caused by uncertainty over the terms of the UK’s exit: ”Without knowing how things will turn out we have to plan for a number of contingencies,” Mr Blankfein said about possible job losses. “If there is no period of time to implement whatever changes are brought about in a negotiation, we may have to do things prematurely and we may have to do a range of things as a precaution and take steps.”

Unsurprisingly, buyers are starting to sit on their hands and waiting to see what happens, as The Guardian reports:

“London estate agents have begun to offer free cars worth £18,000, stamp duty subsidies of £150,000, plus free iPads and Sonos sound systems to kickstart sales in the capital’s increasingly moribund property market. The once super-hot central London market has turned into a “burnt-out core.”

How much will prices fall, and how long will it take for prices to bottom?  These are now set to become the key questions at London dinner-parties.  Logic suggests prices will need to fall at least 50% to bring them back to more affordable levels.  And the pain is likely to stretch out over years, as leading buying agent, Henry Pryor, has warned:

“In my 28 years in the property business, we have done this twice before, and each time it takes around five to seven years before things recover.”

We must all hope that May will use her potential landslide election win to quickly reverse her recent rhetoric, and return to the common sense positions she staked out before the Referendum.  It is not too late for her to agree to remain in the Single Market, the Customs Union and accept the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice.

Without such a move, London home owners will face a perfect storm as the financial services industry “de-clusters” to Frankfurt, Paris, Brussels, Dublin and Amsterdam next year.'

"We must all hope that May will use her potential landslide election win to quickly reverse her recent rhetoric"

 

If May does that, houses will be worthless as the nation rips the politicians and bankers a new one.

IMHO.

[rollover]

2 hours ago, Sancho Panza said:

Massive over-building at the top end of the market means there are now 59k high-end apartments under construction in London, yet annual sales of new-build flats are just 6k
 

I was looking for the number of apartments currently under construction in London. They are building them everywhere. 59K is just ludicrous!

[TheCountOfNowhere]

7 minutes ago, rollover said:

I was looking for the number of apartments currently under construction in London. They are building them everywhere. 59K is just ludicrous!

I posted a topic about office blocks being concverted to flats pretty much everywhere.

Everyone wants their share of the free money !!!

This is a f**king disaster for the productive economy.

[Kent Ambitions]

The whole "Financial Services employs 1million people and contributes 70bn of tax" factoid is frequently conflated with financial activity in the investment banks The City, but they are very different things

let's be clear - the small sections of certain global investment banks, which may move because of Brexit, currently operate out of Canary Wharf or The City and DO NOT EMPLOY ANYTHING LIKE 1 MILLION PEOPLE AND CONTRIBUTE LITTLE TO OVERALL TAX TAKE

the UK's broader financial services industry is 95% retail banking, commercial banking, insurance services etc - that ain't going anywhere

 

[TheCountOfNowhere]

19 minutes ago, Kent Ambitions said:

The whole "Financial Services employs 1million people and contributes 70bn of tax" factoid is frequently conflated with financial activity in the investment banks The City, but they are very different things

 

Is that £70Bn before or after the £2Trillion in hand outs they've had to keep them solvent.

They're being taxed on money they've scammed off other people...WE'RE PAYING THE TAX...NOT THEM

[Tempus]

The initial plans are 9,000 City jobs going http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-eu-banks-idUKKBN184132?utm_campaign=trueAnthem:+Trending+Content&utm_content=5910998704d3011eba8524de&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=twitter

I expect others will depend on what the Brexit deal is. 

But we will see many thousands of potential luxury shoebox buyers going. 

[MARTINX9]

5 hours ago, TheCountOfNowhere said:

"We must all hope that May will use her potential landslide election win to quickly reverse her recent rhetoric"

 

If May does that, houses will be worthless as the nation rips the politicians and bankers a new one.

IMHO.

So we must reverse the will of the British people to protect London house prices when Londoners voted remain and are the most likely part of the U.K. To back Corbyn and the Lib Dems.

Such logic!

[Peter Hun]

9 hours ago, TheCountOfNowhere said:

If May does that, houses will be worthless as the nation rips the politicians and bankers a new one.

IMHO.

What will they do? 5 years to the next election.

All she has to do is stick to her manifesto, that's her mandate and nothing else matters.

[steve99]

9 hours ago, TheCountOfNowhere said:

I posted a topic about office blocks being concverted to flats pretty much everywhere.

Everyone wants their share of the free money !!!

This is a f**king disaster for the productive economy.

Which in fact is what the economy is now based on, free money via schemes, scams invented by the bankers and whatever real industry they can ponce off, housing being at the top of the list. In fact it is the whole basis of neo liberalism.  Had to have an end point one day when 'they' decide it is a croc of caca and we must try doing real things again like science and engineering and real infrastructure etc not just financial engineering (which 'they' believe to be a true science)

And of course the other ongoing scam with this building and converting into flats is the scams around leases and service fees, an industry within itself (also aided and abeted by city entities) which of course makes long term 'ownership' of appartments and flats etc another misery to be endured.  My wifey knows one poor woman who has spent and extra £50k +++ since buying 10 years ago on obscene fees invented on the fly from the management team and now paying huge legal fees to get rid of the parasites.

Edited May 8, 2017 by steve99

[maverick73]

9 hours ago, Tempus said:

The initial plans are 9,000 City jobs going http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-eu-banks-idUKKBN184132?utm_campaign=trueAnthem:+Trending+Content&utm_content=5910998704d3011eba8524de&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=twitter

I expect others will depend on what the Brexit deal is. 

But we will see many thousands of potential luxury shoebox buyers going. 

They were moving out anyway. Brexit just handed the required excuse on a plate.

Low cost location strategies, why pay ? ?two bags gold to hire an employee in London, when they can pay ? one bag of gold to hire in Dublin, Krakow, Budapest with equal skills and multilingual.

Then declare the spare bag of gold ?as increased profits and split gold between the share holders. 

Then, the UK will compete by reducing corporation taxes, increase personal taxes and move towards becoming a tax haven like the Swiss. 

As for house prices, if the home owners loose employment, and can't find new employment, ultimately it's the end of the road. 

Or things can only get better 

[LittlePig]

2 hours ago, maverick73 said:

They were moving out anyway. Brexit just handed the required excuse on a plate.

Low cost location strategies, why pay ? ?two bags gold to hire an employee in London, when they can pay ? one bag of gold to hire in Dublin, Krakow, Budapest with equal skills and multilingual.

Then declare the spare bag of gold ?as increased profits and split give the gold to executive management between the share holders.

Then, the UK will compete by reducing corporation taxes, increase personal taxes and move towards becoming a tax haven like the Swiss. 

As for house prices, if the home owners loose employment, and can't find new employment, ultimately it's the end of the road. 

Or things can only get better 

Fixed an item for you.

[TheCountOfNowhere]

1 hour ago, fru-gal said:

The problem is they will just keep them empty and pay £2000 per year in council tax rather than selling for lower prices or renting them out.

I know they whole thing is madness, then again, nothing related to the housing mania has been sane since 2000.

To think it will continue forever is naive in the extreme.

We're all amazed on here how long it has being going on but it seems many people are starting to get very angry, myself included.

[rantnrave]

Transactions in central London down by over a quarter compared with last year

May 10 2017

Almost half of properties in prime central London (PCL) were reduced in price before sale in the first quarter of 2017, according to data from LonRes.

The analyst’s latest transaction and price figures for the first quarter of 2017 warns that year-on-year comparisons are distorted by last year’s Stamp Duty rush, but overall transactions across the three prime areas of the capital were down 26%.

The report looks at PCL, prime London and prime fringe, and found agents were selling properties at discounts on average of 9.1%, pushing average prices across the three areas down 1% to £1.68m.

Of those properties sold in the PCL area, 45% were at a discount.

The number of properties withdrawn from the market also increased for the fourth quarter in a row, with 72% of agents reporting a failure to achieve the price as the reason for taking the property off the market.

Looking ahead to the next 12 months, 35% of agents said they expected transactions to increase by 1.5%, while 42% believed sales values will decline by the same amount.

The report also suggested a more competitive lettings market with 46% of properties reduced in price before letting, and homes taking 15% longer to rent out.

In prime lettings, the number of properties let was up 16% year-on-year.

In the first three months of the year, the LonRes Prime London Lettings Index recorded an 8.3% fall in achieved rental values in PCL. Prime London and the prime fringe market also saw falls of 3.8% and 2.8% respectively compared with last year.

Meanwhile, a report from agents Strutt & Parker claims the PCL market may be through the worst of the downward price pressures following the Stamp Duty rush and Brexit vote.

Vanessa Hale, partner in research at Strutt & Parker, said: “UK house prices grew 4.1% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2017, but in PCL it was a very different story and prices fell by approximately 7%, leaving values around 13% down from the 2014 peak.

“The first quarter of 2017 has however seen a slight upturn in purchaser activity, and realistically priced good-quality stock is selling reasonably well.”

Forecasts from the agent predict UK prices will increase 3% this year and next, while PCL may decline 5% over the same period, but both are seen to grow by 4% from 2019.

http://www.propertyindustryeye.com/prime-london-properties-selling-at-up-to-10-less-as-price-sensitive-buyers-take-control/

[North London Rent Girl]

On 08/05/2017 at 6:59 AM, winkie said:

Could it be that people actually get tired of London and the places can walk to, been there,done it walked it and visited it...... thousands of places where there are good shops, restaurant, pubs,clubs, history and arty places.... wonderful views, open spaces and fresh air, peace and quiet within walking distance......always time for a change, else things get boring and the same, don't try will never find out......North London has changed, so can we.

 

It might be that, praps bit spoilt...

[North London Rent Girl]

On 08/05/2017 at 8:25 AM, anonlymouse said:

London rents fall for first time since 2009

Buckle up!

It's definitely great that rents are falling, no doubt about it. That said... a friend of mine's rent is just going up - landlady's husband has fallen ill so, of course, it goes without saying taht their tenant needs to contribute more to their welfare. She is considering moving, is not hugely attached to the place, but I think I would really mind moving to get a lower rent. I would do it but it is a market in homes, moving is a huge upheaval financially, mentally and emotionally, not to mention the headache of organising new utilites, post forwarding etc.. It's like the utilities business - few of us want to check our providers every month and be switching all the time, would be better if the lights just came on and the gas just worked and we didn't get ripped off. Anyway, yes, v good that rents coming down, part of a bigger picture, perhaps keeping a roof over one's head won't be an ongoing worry for much longer.