Fancypants Posted January 21, 2006 Share Posted January 21, 2006 (edited) http://property.timesonline.co.uk/article/...1894864,00.html this monumental folly will obscure what little sunlight I see seeping into my pitiful enclosed space at work. I'd better find another job soon! Hmm, £250k for a studio on the IoD with the DLR pounding mere feet past my bedroom window? The knowledge that I can't even go to half of the building as I am considered a lower class occupier doomed to a life slaving in the dark bowels of Gotham City? not for me thanks. I'd rather grow a beard and fish for subsistence on St Kilda. ****************** "January brought news that Saudi Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal, a 1995-vintage investor in Canary Wharf, was selling two-thirds of his shares at a price more than four times his cost. 'The price was right and we made a tremendous profit' said the prince, an old hand at buying low and selling high. " http://www.forbes.com/columnists/forbes/2001/0402/162.html (from 2001 - I guess even he wasn't to know that the recession would be averted/delayed by the massive injection of liquidity. Perhaps he knew something about September though, he just miscalculated the result) and this year... http://www.ameinfo.com/65495.html you don't get to be the world's 7th richest man by not knowing market tops/bottoms when you see them. This guy bailed out the whole estate in '95 when no-one else would touch it with a bargepole. Edited January 21, 2006 by Fancypants Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FreeFall Posted January 21, 2006 Share Posted January 21, 2006 (edited) Looks like all the other flats being built, just taller. I can't for a second believe that many will splash out 250k for a 300 sq ft studio. Lots of better and bigger places not far away for that sort of wonga. Edited January 21, 2006 by FreeFall Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fancypants Posted January 21, 2006 Author Share Posted January 21, 2006 Looks like all the other flats being built, just taller. I can't for a second believe that many will splash out 250k for a 300 sq ft studio. Lots of better and bigger places not far away for that sort of wonga. quite. You'd think they might take a raincheck before going ahead given current market conditions. Judging from the spiel on the website though, they're a pretty "aggressive" "bold" "adventurous" bunch. even the marketing "pontoon" is unbelievably swish, with a below-water-level boat to ferry potential buyers around the docks. It really is a sensationally extravagant undertaking. I shall take some secret guilty pleasure from watching them choke on their cocaine (metaphorically speaking) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Bart of Darkness Posted January 22, 2006 Share Posted January 22, 2006 Some would say this points to the start of a recession. Skyscrapers that point to trouble. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
apom Posted January 22, 2006 Share Posted January 22, 2006 they can't sell the flats already at canary warf.. its a damn ghost town.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fancypants Posted January 22, 2006 Author Share Posted January 22, 2006 they can't sell the flats already at canary warf.. its a damn ghost town.. quite right - you'd think that one of these investment genuises backed by multimillions would have cottoned on to this. Walk around the island now and you'll notice a surfeit of estate agents and new developments... all of which are eerily empty. This has been the case ever since I've been working there (15 months) so I can only assume that they think its normal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
apom Posted January 22, 2006 Share Posted January 22, 2006 Durring the boom supply could not keep up with demand.. oops.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FollowTheBear Posted January 22, 2006 Share Posted January 22, 2006 Further proof the boom is coming to an end. I was in Birmingham yesterday - one huge tower has just gone up and another is rising fast. Two towers in Sheffield however have recently been cancelled. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Luggage Posted January 22, 2006 Share Posted January 22, 2006 A bloody great big tower in the middle of London's forthcoming HPC - just perfect for recent purchasers, BTLs and EAs to throw themselves off! It will take balcony rails higher than shoulder height to stop them. LL Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BTman Posted January 22, 2006 Share Posted January 22, 2006 30K for a parking space? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fancypants Posted January 22, 2006 Author Share Posted January 22, 2006 30K for a parking space? a year's salary for most of the people who work in my building (although Zorn has some groovy stats that show that Docklands is overflowing with £70k earners). The nearby flats (Discovery Dock) are being marketed as desirable because they are so close to work. Well, the prevailing view is that these boxes are extremely undesirable as the IoD is a pretty grey, bleak place, and no-one wants to open their curtains on a Saturday morning and see their office 200yds away. Remember that the same money can get a 3bed terrace in a reasonable area of London within 30mins of Docklands. Even without an HPC these flats would need to lose 40% to start selling. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BusBuilder Posted January 22, 2006 Share Posted January 22, 2006 a year's salary for most of the people who work in my building (although Zorn has some groovy stats that show that Docklands is overflowing with £70k earners). The nearby flats (Discovery Dock) are being marketed as desirable because they are so close to work. Well, the prevailing view is that these boxes are extremely undesirable as the IoD is a pretty grey, bleak place, and no-one wants to open their curtains on a Saturday morning and see their office 200yds away. Remember that the same money can get a 3bed terrace in a reasonable area of London within 30mins of Docklands. Even without an HPC these flats would need to lose 40% to start selling. Actually, these flats are selling and at a very fast rate. 65% of the flats have already been sold and they are selling at a faster rate than Ballymore have ever sold before (in previous developments). I noted this in a thread a few weeks back. After more than 2 years of very slow off-plan sales in London’s Docklands the market has definitely picked up over the last few months. The developers would not have even attempted to launch this development as little as 12 months ago. Other new builds are also selling well or expected too. The developers seem to have a bullish outlook. Developers such as Bellway who usually are keen to deal and sell whole blocks to first tier investors are in bullish mood and are indicating they are confident they will sell all of the units at retail prices. Now of course these developers could all be wrong but as I said the residential build programs in Docklands all but stopped with almost no new starts in the last 2 years and now the developers are recommencing some of these projects at the very least it indicates that they (the developers) are confident they can make money of these projects. Also, regarding pricing, it is very easy to judge this from your own perspective (these flats are expensive especially compared to what you earn) but you should also understand that there is always another level of wealth out there. To some people £300k is not a lot of money to spend for a one bedroom flat close to their office that they may only use occasionally during the week. One of our clients bought a £400k flat (spending another £50k refurbishing and furnishing it) in the area just to use when he visits London occasionally to watch premier football and visit his children. I also know a number of investors in Docklands so with good sized portfolios of between 30 and 60 properties with the bulk bought in the “early days”. I recently came across one investor with around 250 properties (again another level I though 50-60 properties was big – I was wrong) in the area with multiple flats in one of the developments mentioned on this thread among many others. Many of these flats are owned without mortgages (he would buy 20 flats then sell half of them to pay off the remaining 10 he has kept). As I said there is always another level of wealth out there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elizabeth Posted January 22, 2006 Share Posted January 22, 2006 I remember then selling Docklands flats in 98 for 95K. Stupid me. I thought, who the hell would want to live in these flats? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fancypants Posted January 22, 2006 Author Share Posted January 22, 2006 Actually, these flats are selling and at a very fast rate. 65% of the flats have already been sold and they are selling at a faster rate than Ballymore have ever sold before (in previous developments). I noted this in a thread a few weeks back. After more than 2 years of very slow off-plan sales in London’s Docklands the market has definitely picked up over the last few months. The developers would not have even attempted to launch this development as little as 12 months ago. Other new builds are also selling well or expected too. The developers seem to have a bullish outlook. Developers such as Bellway who usually are keen to deal and sell whole blocks to first tier investors are in bullish mood and are indicating they are confident they will sell all of the units at retail prices. Now of course these developers could all be wrong but as I said the residential build programs in Docklands all but stopped with almost no new starts in the last 2 years and now the developers are recommencing some of these projects at the very least it indicates that they (the developers) are confident they can make money of these projects. Also, regarding pricing, it is very easy to judge this from your own perspective (these flats are expensive especially compared to what you earn) but you should also understand that there is always another level of wealth out there. To some people £300k is not a lot of money to spend for a one bedroom flat close to their office that they may only use occasionally during the week. One of our clients bought a £400k flat (spending another £50k refurbishing and furnishing it) in the area just to use when he visits London occasionally to watch premier football and visit his children. I also know a number of investors in Docklands so with good sized portfolios of between 30 and 60 properties with the bulk bought in the “early days”. I recently came across one investor with around 250 properties (again another level I though 50-60 properties was big – I was wrong) in the area with multiple flats in one of the developments mentioned on this thread among many others. Many of these flats are owned without mortgages (he would buy 20 flats then sell half of them to pay off the remaining 10 he has kept). As I said there is always another level of wealth out there. I don't doubt that the developers feel bullish. My own observations of the marketing suites and estate agents around would suggest that there's not a huge amount of activity however - although there may be some very skilled solitaire players out there. I'm sure at the higher echelons everything may seem to be hunky-dory, but they are equally insulated from what's going on at the coalface. I simply do not believe that there are enough people around with the wealth necessary to justify the number of new developments that there will be soon - irrespective of whether we get a recession or not. To some extent, the success of these schemes will depend on most of the flats being bought or rented to people at or around my salary - only a minority (albeit sizable) are aimed at the top level earners. I can only refer back to my opening comment - the dude at the very top of the investment period - who bought at the trough in 95 - is now bailing out. Proof of nothing, admittedly, but that really is another level of wealth! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.