Wednesday property news update
The pound climbs, high LTV lending returns and the rise of the 50/50 ski home
3 minutes to read
MPs are excited about Brexit
The pound continued to edge higher last night, up 0.75% against the euro and 0.9% against the dollar, on expectations a Brexit deal is within reach. Currency traders tell Bloomberg a deal is now about 75% priced in.
Much of the excitement is credited to this set of tweets from BBC Newsnight political editor Nicholas Watt.
Meanwhile new research from lobby group TheCityUK reveals the City of London has maintained its dominance as the world's largest exporter of financial services, with a $77 billion trade surplus that outpaces the US, Switzerland, Singapore and countries across the European Union.
The long road to normality for mortgage lenders
We talked on Friday about a return of high loan-to-value (LTV) lending as product numbers at 85% LTV and above climbed to their highest level since spring.
Over the weekend, Barclays reintroduced mortgage products at 90% LTV for the first time since the first lockdown, then on Monday, Natwest said it would resume offering loans at 90% of a property's value, citing sky high demand from customers and a more benign outlook for house prices.
The Bank of England will tomorrow publish its latest decision on whether to hold the base rate at a record low 0.1%. In recent weeks traders have been unwinding bets that the Bank would cut rates below zero following the vaccine breakthroughs, with markets now indicating the rate is likely to trough at roughly 0% in late 2022.
Downsizers stay put
For a new agents' diary, Chris Druce heads to Wimbledon then out into Tunbridge Wells to probe why London’s suburban markets have performed strongly and how “work from home” has opened up new parts of the country market to commuters.
In Wimbledon, properties with a lack of outdoor space have been a challenge, as has the higher-value end of the market that relies on downsizers, as older homeseekers have chosen to stay put during the pandemic.
Brexit and the rise of the 50/50 ski home
With Brexit around the corner, Kate Everett-Allen lays out the trends that Ski homeowners need to be aware of during the year ahead.
UK residents eligible for a dual nationality can still apply for a second passport solving questions about freedom of movement, pensions and healthcare and UK owners of Swiss ski homes should see less disruption given Switzerland’s non-EU status.
Across all our ski markets, the last six months have seen second homes reclassified as semi-permanent homes, which could have a significant impact in some markets. In Switzerland, as many homes are recategorised as permanent residences, the proportion of second homes may fall below the 20% cap imposed by Lex Weber back in 2014, enabling new development to take place for the first time in over a decade.
In other news
The future of towns, abandoning the housebuilding algorithm, modular construction meets changing needs in the pandemic, US regulator finds Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine ‘highly effective’, hospitality redundancies, and finally, the challenge of weighing environmental impact against shareholder value.