Zoopla’s flotation news expected this week

Zoopla is expected to announce its long-awaited stock market flotation this week.

But its advisers could be spooked by a sharp fall in Rightmove’s share prices in recent days.
Last week, Rightmove’s shares plummeted £3, reducing the value of the company to just under £2.1bn from a high in February of over £2.7bn.

The fall did not come on the back of any bad news from the company or negative broker sentiment, but may have been the result of speculation of a house price bubble and a possible rise in interest rates.

Although Bank of England governor Mark Carney appears to have ruled out an immediate rise in interest rates, he did say that the housing market was the biggest threat to the recovering economy, and that the Bank is closely watching rising house prices.

Yesterday in an interview on Sky he went further, saying that the housing market has “deep, deep problems”.

Meanwhile, Zoopla is expected to announce its plans to go public this Thursday when its parent group, Daily Mail and General Trust, releases its annual results.

The stock market is expected to value Zoopla at around £1bn – half the current value of Rightmove – creating a windfall for both the Daily Mail publishers and Zoopla founder Alex Chesterman, who made the Sunday Times Rich List yesterday for the first time, with a fortune estimated at £100m.

The DMGT owns 51% of Zoopla, while Chesterman has a 9% stake. Other winners in a flotation would be the corporate estate agents, including Countrywide and LSL, that also have stakes.

Any flotation of Zoopla would inevitably cause City analysts to focus on Agents’ Mutual, its recruitment of agents so far, and its plans to launch next January with an advertising rule of “only one other portal”.
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Mortgage lending down 17% in three months, claim

Mortgage lending fell 17% in the three months before the Mortgage Market Review kicked in at the end of April, it was claimed this morning.

E.surv, part of LSL, estimates that house purchase approvals fell 6% in April, when it says there were 13,000 fewer loans than in January.

The firm says that although house purchase approvals in April were up 15.3% on the same month last year, the recent monthly falls are stalling the housing market recovery.

Richard Sexton, director of e.surv, said: “Borrowers must now prove they can withstand potential interest rises of up to 7%, as well as answering a host of detailed questions about future finances.”

However, e.surv’s forecasts – which attempt to anticipate official Bank of England statistics – could be controversial.

Mortgage guru Ray Boulger, of John Charcol, hit out angrily at the “misleading” way that mortgage approvals are reported, thanks to the “nonsense” of seasonal adjustment.

The Bank of England says, as does e.surv, that mortgage lending dropped in both February and March. In fact, Boulger says, they actually rose in both months – by 8.7% in February and 15.4% in March.

Boulger points out: “The seasonally adjusted figures are in fact lower than the actual figures nearly every month except December and January, because the reported figures in these months are massaged upwards by a large margin.

“This winter the seasonally adjusted figure for December was 31% higher than the actual figure and for January it was 29% higher.

“The nonsense of seasonal adjustments is amply demonstrated by reference to the reported figure for January of this year which was 124,844 – whereas the real figure was 96,762.”
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Commons to vote on ban on letting agents’ fees within days

Labour is to try to force a vote in the Commons next Tuesday on banning fees charged by letting agents to tenants.

The ban could be in place within months. Industry leaders have hit out at the proposals, pointing out that bans on fees are likely to result in raised fees for landlords – who would pass the increases on to tenants in the form of higher rents.

Ian Potter, managing director of ARLA, called the latest move – unveiled today – deeply worrying.

Ed Miliband believes he could get support from both the Tories and Lib Dems, and that legislation to ban fees could be in place before next year’s General Election.

David Cameron has been pointedly silent on the specific matter of letting agents’ fees, although his party has repeatedly said it will not legislate the lettings industry itself.

On Wednesday, during Prime Minister’s Questions, Cameron rejected another Labour idea – that of rent controls – but did suggest he would be prepared to work with Labour on proposals for longer tenancies.

Miliband will table the proposed ban as an amendment to the Consumer Rights Bill in the Commons.
Miliband said: “If the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats support us on Tuesday we can make this happen now. That could be implemented straight away.

“David Cameron seemed to be warming to Labour’s policy on rents. Now he has a chance to actually vote for it.”

Shadow housing minister Emma Reynolds said: “If the Tories and Liberal Demcrats refuse to back Labour’s proposals, they’ll have to explain why they won’t stand up for the nine million people who rent.”

Potter said: “Pledging to transfer fees to landlords or calling for outright bans will increase rents as landlords and agents seek to achieve returns. Fees are not arbitrary or unnecessary; they represent a business cost that Labour has failed to recognise.”

Under the likely proposed amendment, letting agents could only require tenants to pay a month’s rent upfront and a deposit. They would not be able to charge for services such as administration, referencing or check-in inventories.

Following next Tuesday’s vote, the Consumer Rights Bill would then have a third reading in the Commons, before going to the Lords for consideration.
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Merger to create Scotland's largest rental body

LetScotland, the Association of Professional Letting Agents in Scotland, and Lettingweb, a marketplace for lettings in Scotland, have announced that they have merged.

With more than 420 members, the merger creates the largest representative body for letting agents in Scotland. It is the only Scottish organisation representing only letting agents which will act as the voice of agents in the media and in parliament and government. Previously, LetScotland spoke on behalf of just over 40 members.

The representative body will retain the name LetScotland, but will be branded as part of the Lettingweb group to reflect its role as one of Lettingweb's divisions.

The merger is part of a significant increase in the scope and activity of Lettingweb, which is 15-years-old this year having been formed in 1999 as a letting agent-led advertising portal. Since its inception, it has been a popular advertising platform for letting agents.

Lettingweb is now set to become the single leading voice of the private rented sector. Over the coming weeks and months it will announce:

new plans for activity in the area of housing investment;
new plans for a charitable foundation;
new tools to help letting agents operate at the cutting edge of their industry;
a huge boost to Lettingstats, Lettingweb's statistical division;

Alex Watts, chief executive of Lettingweb, said: "LetScotland's ethos matches Lettingweb's perfectly – we are both formed by Scottish letting agents, for letting agents, with only the interests of letting agents at heart. This arrangement is a perfect fit.

"The private rented sector plays a crucial and expanding role in providing homes for people in Scotland. The new, enhanced Lettingweb group will encourage more investment in homes to increase the supply of rented accommodation, which will help tenants who are currently unable to find a property and help our member letting agents run successful businesses. We are looking forward to getting started."

Malcolm Warrack, chairman of LetScotland who will continue in his leadership role for Letscotland as part of Lettingweb, said:

"LetScotland was formed because the letting agent sector had been ill-served by its representatives. There was no body dedicated to Scottish letting agents, so we created one from the bottom-up.

"Our grass-roots movement can now take the next step as we go from being a relatively small voice to by far the largest representative body for letting agents in Scotland.

"The industry needs a single unified voice to speak for it in the media and in parliament. This deal creates that voice."
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Guide to EC: Clerkenwell, Liverpool Street and Barbican

Barbican first, because Barbican, with over 2,000 homes spread across 35 acres, is by far the biggest residential area in the City of London. And also the most traditional: until the take-off of Clerkenwell, Whitechapel and surrounds, Barbican, controlled by the City Corporation, was pretty much the only area that aspiring City dwellers could move to. Its conception was certainly a bold one: never before had plans been made to undertake, so centrally, such a vast residential project.

Aesthetically, however, Barbican isn’t that pleasing. On face value alone, it’s a colossal, and ultimately quite drab structure with three huge tower blocks protruding from its complex maze of a belly. Estate agents have been known to take a ball of string on viewings. But you shouldn’t judge this Grade II-listed book by its cover. For starters, it has its own theatre, lake and well-kept lawned area, while the impressive flats within come in all different shapes and sizes (and I mean all different shapes and sizes): there are just under 150 different types of accommodation in Barbican. If there’s one thing this place has got, it’s choice.


"...Anyone thinking of buying or renting here, of course, should expect to pay a premium. This is very definitely one of the hippest areas in London and prices reflect this. However, it’s not all about converted and designer flats. Clerkenwell also has a good spattering of Georgian and Victorian properties"
Giles Atkinson, Director
The vast majority of properties here are one and two bedroom flats (£250,000–£450,000), although you can also pick up the odd town house (expect to pay £750,000) and there are also a good number of studios (circa £200,000). The Barbican attracts all age groups, although is increasingly favoured by older people, attracted by the excellent security, overall community feel – the people who live here tend to live here for years – and ‘onsite’ cleaning facilities.

Directly north of Barbican is another estate, Golden Lane, which contains just under 600 privately owned flats, which tend to be 20%–30% cheaper than their Barbican counterparts, and are not dissimilar in design and quality. To the east of Barbican, meanwhile, little more than a quarter of a mile, is Liverpool Street, although it’s on the Barbican side of the station that many of the area’s best properties are to be found. In Finsbury Square, and on Tabernacle Street, both off the City Road, it’s possible to pick up some of the City’s most stylishly converted flats, lofts and penthouses, often chiselled out of old warehouses and factories.

And on to Clerkenwell. Much like its neighbour, Shoreditch, Clerkenwell, in the eighties and very early nineties, was a hive of light industrial activity, particularly printing companies. Then, as if commanded by the God of residential development, they all departed, leaving behind swathes of grim but at least cheap and centrally-located, space, that was either snatched up by media companies fed up with paying sky high West End rents, or by developers who promptly set about converting the soulless ex-commercial buildings into super-cool living space (particularly lofts apartments, mimicking the trends of Manhattan). Or simply bought them, knocked them down, and started anew. Enter, left, a wave of big hitting restaurants and ultra-fashionable bars keen to cash in on the advertising, design and dotcom types and you have Clerkenwell as it is today.

Anyone thinking of buying or renting here, of course, should expect to pay a premium. This is very definitely one of the hippest areas in London and prices reflect this. However, it’s not all about converted and designer flats. Clerkenwell also has a good spattering of Georgian and Victorian properties, such as in the ‘triangle’ between Clerkenwell Road and Rosebery Avenue, and no shortage of very quaint pockets, such as Exmouth Market, a pedestrianized zone replete with bars, cafes, restaurants and the usual designer outlets.
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One Hyde Park penthouse sells for record £140m in booming London property market

An East European buyer is believed to have paid £140 million for the 16,000 sq ft apartment — more than 10 times the size of a typical London three-bedroom home — at the One Hyde Park scheme near Harrods.

Developer Christian Candy’s CPC Group said it had used “global professional valuation companies” to give the flat a potential price tag of £160 million to £175 million when it is fully furnished.

That would value the apartment at more than £10,000 per square foot, setting a new benchmark for London. The sale comes after some commentators suggested the long boom in trophy homes in London could be coming to and end amid growing worries over swingeing new property taxes after next year.

Earlier this week one of London’s biggest landlords, the Duke of Westminster’s Grosvenor Estates, which owns swathes of Mayfair and Belgravia, said it had sold £240 million of super-prime London property because of concerns about overheating.

But more evidence of the insatiable demand for London property emerged today as property firm Capital & Counties said it had already sold £200 million worth of flats at its Lillie Square development at Earl’s Court just five weeks after its March launch.

The firm has sold 204 of 237 flats — which range in price from £600,000 to £1.4 million and will not be finished for another two years — to a mix of overseas and domestic buyers.

Chief executive Ian Hawksworth said: “Demand was overwhelming. It was so strong that we scaled up original plans for the launch.

“Overall I think it is a very sound marketplace at the moment ... London over the next five to 10 years is looking as good as anywhere in the world.”

See the full article HERE

Housing costs pricing first-time buyers out of the market

House buying is becoming increasingly more expensive for many Brits, new research has shown. Figures published by the Land Registry revealed that property prices rose at an annual rate of 5.6 per cent in March, the fastest rate in nearly four years.

 

Its findings showed that prices in London are particularly high. Housing costs in the sector rose by 12.4 per cent over the last year.

 

On average, a person can expect to pay up to £414,490 to live in the capital. Land Registry figures now show that across the country, property values now stand at £169,124. But house price growth has not just been seen across London.

 

All regions across England have seen prices rise year-on-year, but in Wales they fell by 1.6 per cent annually to £113,275 on average.

 

The greatest monthly rise was seen in both the east and north-east regions with rises of 1.1 per cent. But it is not just ordinary homes that have been subjected to these increases. Premium properties have also gone up in prices.

 

There was a 61 per cent rise in homes over £1 million that were sold in January 2014, according to the report. Commenting on the findings, a property economist at Capital Economics, said however, that although the Land Registry figures pointed to a slight recovery in the market, this is unlikely to translate into a "runaway boom" just yet.

 

He added: "That is not to say that the housing market is grinding to a halt. With the economy growing by a healthy 0.8 per cent in the first quarter, and earnings finally rising faster than prices, demand for housing is not set to collapse." These figures have also been supported by findings from Estate Agents across the country who are reporting that a rising number of people are renting for longer, as purchasing a home is becoming increasingly unaffordable.

 

Estate Agent Marsh & Parsons for example revealed that the average price of a three-bedroom home in prime London has increased by £729 a day over the past year. It said that property prices rose by 19 per cent since April 2013.

For full article click HERE