Inside the ‘national scandal’ of leasehold properties

New data reports that the UK’s rate of homeownership has fallen from 72% in 2003, to just 64.5% in 2014.

Excluding leasehold properties not legally owned by owner-occupiers, the true rate is actually 58.9%, which is only 0.9% higher than in 1981.

Reflecting on what’s being dubbed as a ‘national scandal’, Black Brick Founder and Managing Partner, Camilla Dell shared her thoughts for a new piece in Ham & High Property this week:

“Never rely on an estate agents estimate on what a lease extension might cost you,” she advised. “Make sure to ask estate agents what the length of the lease is. It’s the estate agents job to accurately state this, along with the service charge and ground rent on the sales particulars,”.

Read more in the full article here.

Camden named amongst top five property investment hotspots, but London prime property market remains hard to predict

Camden has been revealed as fourth in a list of property investment hotspots across the UK, a new article in Ham & High Property reveals.

With house prices in the area expected to rise by 33.9% in the next five years, our Founder and Managing Partner, Camilla Dell shared her thoughts for the article released this week.

“I would say [this] is quite a simplistic way of looking at the market because the London property market is not homogenous; different parts of the market will behave and do very different things in the next five years,” she said.

“Savills are actually predicting Prime Central London growth of 21 per cent over the next five years cumulative, so quite a bit more than what Barclays’ price predictor is showing. Knight Frank are suggesting that east London will increase far more than more traditional west London and Prime Central London postcodes. So there’s quite a big discrepancy in their data.”

Camilla continued by explaining why she is less convinced that Camden will perform better than other London regions: “I’ve seen lots of research around HS2, Crossrail 2, east London because of all the technology companies investing there but I can’t say I’ve come across anything that says Camden is a hotspot,” she said. “Instead, I think that the most growth will be seen in the market below £1m, outside Prime Central London. “That’s where we see the most growth happening over the next five years where we still continue to see supply and demand in balance and first time buyers competing with investors.”

Read more in the full article here.