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Morning Briefing: Brexit impact sees house prices drop by 25%
The ongoing impact of Brexit uncertainty has wiped up to 25% off some house prices, new figures show.
In the news
The Guardian reports on data from estate agent Your Move, which has found that house prices in some of Britain’s richest areas have fallen by up to 25%.
Typical price falls in some case, the paper said, were almost £500,000, with the average asking price of a London home falling below £600,000 for the first time since August 2015.
The same newspaper carries a report on proposed changes to local government funding formulas, which have been branded a “stitch-up”.
Urban councillors claim that “grossly unfair and illogical” proposals would see a vast transfer of wealth from deprived inner cities to rich, Conservative-voting rural areas.
In The Observer, architecture critic Rowan Moore responds to research from London Assembly member Tom Copley, who found that councils in the capital are spending more than £22.3m a year renting back homes sold under the Right to Buy.
Mr Moore calls this “scandalous” and puts forward a case for building more council housing.
Meanwhile, Property Industry Eye reports that the UK government is being urged to follow Scotland in introducing a Housing Court.
A call for evidence on the idea of a court to deal with tenant and landlord disputes, put out by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, closes tomorrow.
Elsewhere, a Guardian investigation has discovered that Brent Council has paid more than £500,000 in housing benefit to a landlord ruled unfit to rent out property in the borough.
Bernard McGowan, the paper said, was convicted six times under the Housing Act between 2014 and 2017 and failed Brent’s ‘fit and proper’ test in 2015.
In local news, Wirral Council is planning to pull down flyovers outside its town centre and build hundreds of homes on a site formerly controlled by Homes England, according to the Liverpool Echo.
Building on the site, according to council leader Phil Davies, could take pressure off Wirral’s green belt by helping the council to hit its housebuilding targets.
Further south, the local authority in South Kesteven is planning to spend £5m a year on buying land to build housing, the Rutland & Stamford Mercury reports.
In Bristol, the council has been signing joint venture agreements with developers. John Boughton, deputy managing director of one of them, Willmott Dixon, argues in favour of such arrangements in the Bristol Post.
Finally, Scottish Housing News carries a piece by Jim Strang, president of the Chartered Institute of Housing, and Marsha Scott, chief executive of Scottish Women’s Aid, on domestic abuse.
It examines the role of housing in helping people experiencing domestic abuse, arguing that both culture change and legislative action are needed.
On social media
54k minimum. I don’t have the data for four boroughs, another four are no longer stock-owning authorities, and it’s not possible to track the tenure of homes where the freehold rather than leasehold was sold. Actual figure will be much higher t.co/gcoAls6h1n
— Tom Copley (@tomcopley)54k minimum. I don’t have the data for four boroughs, another four are no longer stock-owning authorities, and it’s not possible to track the tenure of homes where the freehold rather than leasehold was sold. Actual figure will be much higher https://t.co/gcoAls6h1n
— Tom Copley (@tomcopley) January 21, 2019
