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Rental market expected to be stronger than sales in some parts of London
This year is expected to bring fewer sales and more letting transactions, with strong rental markets across London’s Midtown, City and Docklands, a new report suggests. There will be a two tier sales market with demand for properties up to £1 million continuing to attract buyers and a slower market at prices over £1 million, according to the latest report from property advisors and development consultants Hurford Salvi Carr. However, as the market slowed in 2014, two segments of the market bucked the trend, it reveals. ‘Demand for entry level one bed apartments continued to outstrip supply so that it will be no easier to buy a pied a terre in Central London in 2015 than it was in 2014,’ the report says. The other segment to buck the trend was Docklands, where demand strengthened, as buyers looked to East London, to deliver value for money, although plentiful supply kept a lid on price increases. Over the whole year, property prices rose by an average of 4% in 2014 in City, Midtown and Docklands. Strong demand from UK buy to let investors is expected in 2015 with a concentration on sub £750,000 levels where returns are most attractive. The firm also says that buyers from the UK dominated the residential markets in 2014, accounting for almost 70% of sales, in comparison to 54% in the first half of 2013 and 61% in 2013. Other European buyers also increased their share by a small margin but the big shift was in the proportion of Asian nationals, which dropped from 17% of sales in 2013 to 7% in 2014. Almost 70% of tenants who rented homes through Hurford Salvi Carr in 2014 were overseas nationals. Overall the split was 32% British, 31% other European and 37% from elsewhere in the world with Asians being the most dominant group within that. The Docklands attracted the highest proportion of British tenants at 43%, whereas Midtown attracted more Asian tenants and the City attracted more American tenants. The most common occupation for a tenant is in the financial sector, closely followed by students. The financial sector was more prevalent in the City and Docklands, where it made up over 30%, while students were by far the most common group in Midtown, where they accounted for 62% of all lettings. The relatively high proportion of Asian tenants in Midtown reflects the demand from overseas students at top universities such as UCL, King’s College and LSE. Continue reading
First Look At Sorghum Genome May Usher In New Uses For Food, Fuel
Taylor Scott International News Taylor Scott International Taylor Scott International, Taylor Scott Continue reading
Biomass Helping To Make Communities Greener
5 September 2013 FARMERS are being encouraged to take advantage of new opportunities to diversify created by community green energy co-operatives. The first project of its kind in the UK is seeing a community joining forces to buy shares in a £1million green energy co-operative which will cut bills at John Cleveland College, Hinkley, Leicestershire, and raise money for good causes. The biomass boilers provided by Leicestershire-based Rural Energy, a Myriad CEG company, will cut carbon emissions by 400 tons a year, reduce energy bills by £45,000 a year and act as a blueprint for similar projects across the UK. The co-operative will also create a Local Community Fund to support initiatives to benefit the school and local community, which it is estimated will generate £227,876 over the project’s 20-year lifespan. Farmers and woodland owners in the area are now being encouraged to diversify into planting woods for coppicing over the 20-year lifespan of the project. The contract for wood-chip will be in excess of £60,000 annually (600 tons a year) and the project will act as a blueprint for similar projects across the UK. The Green Fox Community Energy Co-operative is already recruiting investors – ranging from the local GPs to manual workers and pupils’ parents and grandparents – to buy community shares with a projected return on investment of up to 13 per cent. This innovative renewable energy project, which is a collaboration between three not-for-profit organisations Green Fox Community Energy Co-operative, Transition Leicester and Sharenergy, aims to use sustainably harvested wood from local woodlands to fuel wood-chip boilers that will heat the college. Richard Halsey, a founding member and Director of Green Fox Community Energy Co-operative, said: “Investors in the Co-operative become its members and they will be contributing to the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions from the College by an estimated 400 tonnes annually. Furthermore the project will seek to source the woodchip locally, which will in turn sustain local jobs”. Scott Morris, head of estates at John Cleveland College added: “Currently the college uses oil and the heating bills are in excess of £150,000 a year. By switching to wood-chip, we will be saving an estimated £45,000 per year – which is significant to any school.” Continue reading
