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£140 million to be spent on regenerating housing estates in the UK
Some of the UK’s most rundown housing estates will be replaced with attractive and safe homes with a new fund for regeneration projects, it has been announced. Prime Minister David Cameron released details of what he called a comprehensive approach to estate regeneration with the creation of a new £140 million fund. He said that the government will work with 100 housing estates across the country to either radically transform them or, in the worst cases, knock them down and replace them with high quality new homes. ‘Within these so-called sink estates, behind front doors, families build warm and welcoming homes. But step outside in the worst estates and you’re confronted by brutal high rise towers and dark alleyways that are a gift to criminals,’ Cameron explained. Secretary of State Greg Clark said that there is a belief that the worst estates offer huge potential to be revived so that they become thriving communities and places which people want to live and work in. ‘That’s why we’re so determined to kick-start work which will benefit the lives of thousands of people by providing high quality homes,’ he added. To help tackle the problem the nationwide strategy will be supported by a new Estate Regeneration Advisory Panel, which will be chaired by Lord Heseltine, the former Deputy Prime Minister who has long championed the regeneration of Britain’s inner cities. The Panel will report in detail by this year’s Autumn Statement. The Prime Minister’s announcement comes ahead of a report from property advisor Savills which will show the approach to regeneration could help catalyse the building of hundreds of thousands of new homes in London alone. ‘For decades, sink estates had been seen as something simply to be managed. It’s time to be more ambitious at every level. The mission here is nothing short of social turnaround, and with massive estate regeneration, tenants protected, and land unlocked for new housing all over Britain, I believe we can tear down anything that stands in our way,’ Cameron added. Yolande Barnes, Savills research director, explained that the research shows that housing estates can deliver more homes and be made into better neighbourhoods by re-integrating them into the wider street network and creating or repairing the streetscape. The British Property Federation (BPF) welcomed proposals and praised the Government for ensuring that binding guarantees will be put in place for tenants and homeowners, to ensure that that their right to a home is protected. ‘There are some very old council estates that are in need of regeneration, but that process must treat existing residents fairly,’ said Ian Fletcher, director of policy for real estate at the BPF. ‘The Government is therefore right to put some sorts of guarantees at the forefront of its policy and encourage a partnership approach. There are investors in our membership, pension funds and the like, who will be very interested in how they can contribute to those partnerships,’ he pointed out. ‘Communities need not only… Continue reading
Bristol and Cambridge were most searched locations for homes in 2015
Bristol is the most searched city for property hunters in the UK, followed by Cambridge, according to new research from online property portal Rightmove. Margate has seen the highest asking price hikes and Welwyn Garden City is where properties have sold the quickest with March the busiest month of the year in terms of browsing for real estate. There were 110 million visits from home hunters each month to Rightmove in 2015, as demand for property hit an all-time high and supply issues in many parts of the country remained. Whilst the busiest month was March, the busiest day for browsing property was actually later in the year on Monday 10 August when home hunters browsed over 58.6 million pages of property, a common time of year for people to try and find a new home to be settled in before Christmas. Bristol and Cambridge came first and second for potential buyers and renters searching for property in 2015 outside London, with almost 14 million searches in these two places over the year. York was in third place for buying and Manchester came third for rental searches. Commuter towns Milton Keynes and Reading made the top 10 searches for both renting and buying, perhaps as people looked for more affordable options outside of the capital. Some areas fared particularly well in 2015 outside London, with new seller asking prices in a few locations going up by more than 20%. The seaside town of Margate in Kent saw the price of property coming to market go up by 24.2% to £204,631 between January and the end of November, followed closely by Altrincham in Cheshire with a rise of 21.9% to £484,258. The rest of the top five is made up of towns in Kent with Gravesend recording a rise of 20.5%, Ramsgate up 18.6% and Dartford up 17.4%. The average time for a property to sell across England and Wales was 62 days throughout 2015. Properties in Welwyn Garden City sold fastest outside London, spending an average of only 25 days on the site before being marked as sold, with nearby Hertford coming in second place with an average of 26 days. Places in the East of England dominated the top 10 fastest to sell list, as many parts of the region recorded strong growth. As the year ended, the annual new seller asking price increase in the East of England is 9.2%, recording the same rise as the South East. ‘2015 saw demand reach record levels for home hunters both buying and renting, and the ripple effect from London to the South East moved even further out to places like Essex and Hertfordshire, as you can see from how quick properties are selling in these locations,’ said Rightmove’s housing expert Sam Mitchell . ‘Usually January is Rightmove’s busiest month but the New Year rush stayed even longer this year, and we recorded our busiest ever month in March. It’ll be interesting to see… Continue reading
US property sales set to grow at a more moderate pace in 2016
Following the housing market’s best year in nearly a decade, existing home sales in the United States are forecasted to expand in 2016 at a more moderate pace. Pent-up buyer demand is expected to combat affordability pressures and meagre economic growth, according to the latest monthly report from the National Association of Realtors. Indeed, Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist believes that demand, sustained job growth and improving inventory conditions are the main reasons for an expected gain from 2015 in new and existing home sales. Despite his forecasted increase in sales, Yun cites rising mortgage rates, home prices still outpacing wages and shaky global economic conditions as headwinds that will likely hold back a stronger pace of sales. ‘This year the housing market may only squeak out 1% to 3% growth in sales because of slower economic expansion and rising mortgage rates. The continued rise in home prices will occur due to the fact that we will again encounter housing shortages in many markets because of the cumulative effect of homebuilders under producing for multiple years. Once the spring buying season begins, we'll begin to feel that again,’ Yun explained. With one month of data remaining for 2015, Yun expects total existing homes sales to finish the year up 6.55 from 2014 at a pace of around 5.26 million, the highest since 2006, but roughly 25% below the prior peak set in 2005 of 7.08 million. The national median existing home price for all of 2015 will be close to $221,200, up around 6% from 2014. In 2016, existing sales are expected to grow between 1% and 2%, 5.3 to 5.4 million and prices between 5% and 6%. Continue reading
