If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
While you may think the idea of a housebuilder offering self-build plots sounds contradictory, the people who have struggled to get planning permission or finance for their own project might have appreciated a middle man to make life easier for them.
Housing remains my preferred investment choice. Get it right and it provides a stable return that keeps pace with inflation. But the revenue return rates are not as high as some would have you believe. They are however sensible, sustainable and therefore attractive as an investment.
The UK government has made a critical mistake: George Osborne's 'help to buy' scheme is off to a roaring start with money pouring into house-buying, including many first-time buyers... but there's a big problem.
Labour should be offering a clear and radical alternative to Tory despair and division. An alternative that inspires people to believe a Labour government could and will repair the serious damage being done to our communities and our economy by the Tory ideologues.
Next week on Thursday 6 June the world's largest security firm G4S, will hold its annual general meeting in the City of London. A large coalition of groups, including several refugee rights organisations, has called for a to be held outside the event, in protest of G4S's varying and widespread human rights abuses.
It's time we admit that people who are renting in the UK, through choice or necessity, are being treated as second class citizens and widespread action is needed. At present, rarely a day passes without a story in the news about the non-existent rights of renters and the plethora of ways private landlords and letting agents have of exploiting this.
After some turbulent economic times, there are signs that things are looking up for consumers this spring.
Goldhawk Road in West London, is renowned for its terraced row of independent, family-run fabric shops. "This is where fashion starts on Goldhawk Road," said Aniza Meghani, owner of the Classic Textiles fabric shop, with the Lime Grove campus of the London College of Fashion located a block away.
Residents at Woodland Court UNITE student accommodation have been told they must vacate their rooms during summer despite holding a signed tenancy contract to have the room until September. A petition has been launched in support of students wishing to stay in their rooms.
Unfortunately, this government inspired (and underwritten) subprime mortgage is threatening the economic benefits of house building by injecting an additional dose of risk into the transaction. When did we decide that high loan to value mortgages had become less risky?
What does appear to be clear beyond reasonable doubt is that crime in this country is falling. It's falling in some other countries too, but the decline is particularly marked in Britain. Crime in England and Wales has halved since the 1990s, including an 8% fall in a single year.
Buying a house can be enough of a headache without the constant stress of the possibility of the broken 'chain' phenomenon.
This week I will present a 10 Minute Rule Bill to Parliament calling for stricter rules to impose fines on developers who deliberately exceed planning consents.
Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, will commit at least £300, 000 of the £16.8m allocated for the Greater London Authority's (GLA) rough sleeping budget for 2013-15, to support London's homeless veterans.
As well as targeting specific funds to get stalled schemes in our most buoyant cities moving, we need to see more autonomy for cities to drive investment in new housing. By removing the restrictions on councils' ability to borrow money against their existing housing assets to invest in new housing, industry experts suggest councils could borrow an additional £2.8bn to invest in new housing.
Nothing the government said in the Budget will aid the housing market. A toothless bunch, the market has recovered through hard work and honest advice from estate agents, not the policies or schemes that the government has introduced in recent years.
Most Popular Housing Stories
