Recent Articles in Building a Property Checklists

Any surprises in Rishi Sunak's Budget in 2021?
Mar 5, 2021

Yes there were! Lots of things not done that people feared, including, no changes to Capital Gains Tax, no changes to income tax, VAT etc. In reality, this was a pretty good Budget for everyone except tenants in rent arrears and the landlords who are having to deal with a situation where they can’t get rent, can’t evict the tenant and can’t even sell the property to recoup their losses. So, what are the implications of the Budget for people and property in 2021 and beyond?

Kate Faulkner's property price update - February 2021
Feb 18, 2021

My report on regional performance is usually: ‘look how diverse the performance is’ but not this month. All regions have bounded back incredibly post lockdown and rather than forecasts of falls in the housing market, it’s clearly done the opposite. As with the regional growth, most cities experienced extraordinary year on year growth across the UK, however, there are more differences at this lower geographical level. Read more to find out what's happening in your area.

Do you understand what Green Belt actually means?
Jan 27, 2021

The Green Belt is one of the central mysteries of the English planning process. Most people think they have an idea what it is and what it is for – and often they are only half-right.  So let’s try to unravel the myths and explore when building on Green Belt land is allowable after all.

What about 2021? Are we going to see crashes?
Nov 11, 2020

I must admit, before the forecasts came out I was expecting to see falls, perhaps anything between 5-10%, but remarkably the property price forecasters are incredibly optimistic versus a few months ago. 2021 is also going to be a tough year to predict and get right – we don’t know if the ‘stamp duty’ cliff edge will be retained, the Help to Buy Scheme is being restricted, will home movers have ‘burned’ themselves out for the next few years, or are there plenty of home movers left to keep the market going at least for the first half of the year? Read my article here.

Kate Faulkner's property price update - October 2020
Oct 14, 2020

Over the last few months, we have been checking and scrutinising house market statistics as many were still being influenced by lockdown as the market didn’t open until mid-May. However, we are starting to see similar trends emerging between the indices suggesting that the stats are being less affected. But I would still only take averages with a pinch of salt. What matters to home movers and investors is what’s happening to property prices/rents on a particular street as at a local level, we see huge variations versus the ‘average’. Read my latest property price article here.