Regents Quarter

“House price optimism has perked up to its highest level in over two and a half years in February, providing encouraging evidence that the property market has seen a strong start to the year. The improvement in sentiment about current and future house prices provides firm evidence that the Funding for Lending Scheme is already having a noticeable beneficial impact on the market, via the improved availability of mortgages and the simple fact that people perceive that the new initiative will drive a recovery of the housing market.

“With rising housing market sentiment adding to the news from the PMI surveys of a return to growth of business activity in January, the picture for the UK economy has brightened considerably since late last year.”

Please see attached research note- Confidence note

Sterling’s slide boosts London property demand

Posted on February 18th, 2013 by admin

Please find attached recent research from Knight Frank.

KF Jan note

Holborn transforms with new luxury homes and crashpads

Posted on February 18th, 2013 by admin

New Crossrail stations at Tottenham Court Road and Farringdon have triggered demand for local homes in Holborn, says David Spittles for the Evening Standard

From £2.15 million: five luxury apartments at Lincoln’s Inn Fields are for sale.

Few parts of London have such a fascinating history as Holborn, which stretches from the Old Bailey, past the Hatton Garden jewellery quarter and Chancery Lane’s Inns of Court to Covent Garden. It was through these streets that condemned prisoners travelled on their way from Newgate in the City to the gallows at Tyburn, Marble Arch.

Urban since the Middle Ages, the area has always changed with the times and is now undergoing another transformation. In recent years, big law and accountancy firms have moved in, which has triggered demand for local homes — main residences as well as crashpads for higher-earning career professionals.

Lincoln’s Inn Fields is a listed building designed by renowned architect Edwin Lutyens

Five new luxury apartments in a listed building designed by renowned architect Edwin Lutyens are for sale at splendid Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London’s largest public square and one of the oldest, being first laid out in the 1600s.

The apartments have about 1,500 sq ft of space, and are linked to Club Quarters, a small designer hotel offering facilities to residents. Prices from £2.15 million to £3.25 million.
Area change has been given momentum by two new Crossrail stations being built at Tottenham Court Road and Farringdon. Fetter Lane has the world’s newest and biggest “courts complex” (29 courtrooms and other judicial offices), evidence of the area’s resurgent legal sector.

Nearby Inner and Middle Temple, with their barristers’ chambers, are London’s oldest live-work estates. Among the best new homes are those tucked away in narrow lanes and passageways, or next to heritage buildings.

Red Lion Court, close to the Royal Courts of Justice, fits into this category — 14 flats priced from £775,000.

New homes for techies as Google moves to King’s Cross

Posted on February 18th, 2013 by admin

Google’s move to a million-square-foot bespoke office complex at King’s Cross Central will be the biggest UK property deal of the 21st century so far — and will cement London’s position as the technology capital of Europe.

As London emerges from the banking crisis, it is re-inventing itself. New digital hubs are rejuvenating neighbourhoods where old trades and technologies have perished. This is bringing a fresh vibe to the streets, together with designer homes for techies who want to live close to their workplace.

The cluster of tech companies around Old Street’s so-called Silicon Roundabout — a breeding ground for ideas and product development — has helped transform Shoreditch into a top residential address. Royal Docks and the Olympic Park are becoming centres for green technology, while Covent Garden, formerly crammed with advertising agencies, now has more space occupied by “TMT” (technology, media and telecoms) companies than anywhere else in London — 2.2 million sq ft, up 30 per cent since 2009.

Townhouses and apartments are being built at Canal Reach

The cluster effect

Google will relocate to King’s Cross from offices in Victoria and Holborn in 2016. The site will be the internet giant’s European headquarters and is the company’s first design-and-build project anywhere in the world.

“The view of life in California [where Google was born] — on sustainability, recycling and so on — is very different,” according to David Partridge, chief executive of Argent, the building’s developer. “It has involved a lot of transatlantic discussion and a merging of knowledge and understanding. This will be a truly 21st-century workplace.”

Google expects a technology cluster to evolve in the surrounding area as a result of its move. “It’s the key ingredient for King’s Cross and will help anchor more tech companies in London,” says Edward Lister, deputy London mayor for policy and planning.

One communication highway opening up is the Regent’s Canal, which links King’s Cross, Shoreditch and Paddington. Run-down sections of waterfront continue to be brought back to life, with developers finding space for homes, loft offices and eateries, often small-business and live-work enclaves, as at Kingsland Basin and City Road Basin.

Transformation of 67 acres of blighted railway land at King’s Cross has proved a regeneration masterclass. It is an entirely new district in the making, with 20 new streets and “boulevards”, public squares, restored heritage buildings, modern offices and retail space, plus 1,900 new homes, 40 per cent of which are “affordable”, available through One Housing Group.

As many as 30,000 people will eventually work at King’s Cross Central, and 6,000 will live there. Google’s presence will complement the new campus for Central St Martins College of Art and Design, a splendid Victorian granary, or “warehouse of ideas” for 5,000 students and staff.

King’s Cross Central’s 2,000 homes are spread across 13 residential buildings, with about 40 per cent of the apartments designated “affordable”, a mix of rented and shared ownership. Argent is developing the site alone, rather than parcelling up land and selling off plots to housebuilders, meaning there is a coherent plan, with all the public-realm infrastructure in place before construction commences. The aim is to deliver high-quality architecture on a big site with a relatively low number of homes.

ArtHouse will have 114 flats and a terracotta steel façade

Creating living space

ArtHouse is the first scheme of private homes — 114 flats in a building with a façade of terracotta tiles, polished stainless steel and sliding louvre screens. On the market now are penthouses, priced from £1.55 million. Completion is in autumn 2013.

Launching next is Canal Reach — townhouses and apartments in a block crowned with a sky garden. Coming later are eagerly awaited apartments built within the iconic Victorian gasholder frames. These listed cast-iron structures have been dismantled and put in safe storage pending the start of construction.

A former engineering yard next to King’s Cross station has become Regent Quarter, a smart community of homes, design studios and small business premises in cobbled courtyards, while at Battlebridge Basin, canalside warehouses have been turned into trendy lofts and workspaces for creatives. Here, too, is King’s Place, a new 430-seat concert venue with art galleries and waterside restaurants.

Boost to business

Development ripples are spreading out towards Barnsbury, Angel and Bloomsbury. Google will retain its Innovation Hub in east London. The government-backed East London Tech City is a media and technology hub that spreads from Shoreditch to Stratford. Modelled on Silicon Valley in the United States, it has more than 3,000 tech firms, including Cisco, Facebook, Intel, Vodafone and Amazon, and employs 50,000 people in the digital economy. Imperial College and UCL are among the academic partners, with Barclays providing specialist banking finance to start-ups and entrepreneurs.

The view across Kingsland Basin from Canal Wharf, with the historic former stables in the background

City Road, which runs from Silicon Roundabout to Angel, has become a development corridor. Behind the busy thoroughfare a nine-acre canal basin is being opened up and turned into a mixed-use estate of homes, businesses, recreational outlets and boat club.

Developer Mount Anvil and housing association Affinity Sutton are offering 307 new homes, 69 for shared ownership, at The Lexicon — three canalside buildings, including a 36-storey tower. Adjacent to Silicon Roundabout is 27-storey Eagle House, another Mount Anvil scheme, with 276 flats.

Kingsland Basin, just north of the Shoreditch heartland, is being turned into a new waterside community with 207 new homes. The £65 million project includes the restoration of two listed stable buildings (once providing horse-drawn carriages for hire — the origins of “Hackney carriages”), which are being turned into studios and workshops for tech start-ups and small businesses. The canal bank is being opened up for recreational use, with eco-zones on the edges of the basin planted with native species to attract birds and other wildlife.

Hertford Wharf is one of three new apartment blocks, a modern architectural take on traditional wharves and warehouses, where homes have been released for sale. Prices from £385,000.

Homebuyers seeking value push up asking prices in Merton, Hackney and Croydon

Posted on February 18th, 2013 by admin

Merton, Hackney and Croydon were the surprise beneficiaries this month as property buyers sniffed around for bargains in London’s less prestigious boroughs and pushed up asking prices, website Rightmove said today.

The trio were among the five top-performing areas, along with Hammersmith & Fulham and Islington, as sellers jacked up the price of homes coming on to the market. Sellers in Merton demanded £477,462 on average – a 4.4% rise on January asking prices and more than double the 1.7% rise seen in Kensington & Chelsea, where average asking prices hit almost £2.2 million.

Rightmove director and housing market analyst Miles Shipside said: “With sellers having a real upper hand in pricing power in the higher-priced and most sought-after locations, some buyer demand will ebb away from the most fashionable hotspots and flow into other boroughs. Buyers in the capital have a great track record of looking elsewhere to seek out new areas offering greater value and potential.”

Average London asking prices hit a record £486,890 in February, up 1.2% on January and 8.4% ahead of the same time last year, as an easier lending climate helps unlock the housing market but sellers benefit from scarce supply.

But growth in average asking prices is cooling, up just 0.7% on three months ago. Shipside adds: “It remains to be seen whether sellers can achieve their record new price aspirations, which will require buyers to find the extra money and justify to themselves the higher prices being asked.”

House asking prices at highest level since 2008

Posted on February 18th, 2013 by admin

The housing market has made a “sprightly” start to 2013, with asking prices reaching their highest levels for February since 2008, a property search website said today.

Prices jumped by 2.8% month-on-month to reach £235,741 on average, with big monthly leaps of around 5% recorded in the North West of England and Wales, Rightmove said.

Prices are 1.1% higher than a year ago and are just £2,115 shy of a February record set in 2008, showing the market is making a “slow but steady recovery,” the study said.

Rightmove also reported that it recorded its busiest ever month in January, in a further sign that activity in the market is gathering pace.

Miles Shipside, director of Rightmove, said: “There has been a sprightly start to 2013, and while market activity remains patchy across locations and property type, some agents are reporting their busiest new year since the onset of the credit crunch.”

There have been signs of the market picking up in recent months following the launch of Government schemes to kick-start mortgage lending and give people a leg up on to the property ladder.

The Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) recently reported that lending to first-time buyers reached a five-year high in 2012.

However, Rightmove said it had found that seven out of 10 people who plan to sell in 2013 will be aged over 45, suggesting that older people are likely to be driving the market this year.

Half of those planning to buy a home in 2013 said they would be third-time buyers, and downsizing was the main reason for selling in the vast majority of regions.

The two most active age brackets were found to be 45 to 54-year-olds and 55 to 64-year-olds, the study found, suggesting that those who already have access to equity and finance will be the main “movers and shakers” in 2013.

All regions across England and Wales recorded month-on-month increases to asking prices.

Rightmove said that the large monthly price increases recorded in northern areas and Wales were effectively “rebounds” from large house price falls at a time when there were low numbers of properties on the market towards the end of last year.

The North West recorded the highest monthly increase at 5.2%, taking prices to £156,801. However, prices in the region are still 1.8% lower than a year ago.

Wales saw the second highest month-on-month increase at 5%, meaning that, at £161,365, prices are 0.9% higher than a year ago.

Asking prices in London are a hefty 8.4% higher than they were a year ago at £486,890, although the month-on-month change was much softer at 1.2%. The South East recorded the smallest monthly increase at 0.4%, taking average prices to £297,036.

Mr Shipside said: “Pages viewed on the Rightmove website hit a record high in January, up by over 20% year-on-year.

“While the journey between expressing interest and closing the deal has many more twists and turns than before the credit crunch, it is a sign of increased confidence and helps build a momentum that has been sadly lacking in many local markets over the last five years.”

Source: Evening Standard