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Telegraph
26-05-2025
- Business
- Telegraph
‘I've slashed my asking price by £150k. I still can't sell my flat'
London flat owners are in trouble. Not only has the average price of the city's apartments stagnated over the past nine years, according to Zoopla, many blocks have been marred by cladding scandals and a wider realisation about the perils of leasehold and uncapped service charges. As a result, flat owners in the capital have seen their investment lose a quarter of its value in real terms, on average – and in some cases they have been unable to sell up, leaving them trapped or faced with making a significant loss. Telegraph Money speaks to three such homeowners, who face the grim reality of selling their homes for far less than they believed them to be worth. 'It's devastating' Laoise Davidson, 56, has been forced to reduce the asking price of her London flat by £150,000 since putting it up for sale last February. She bought her two-bedroom leasehold flat in West Hampstead, in a converted synagogue, in 2004 for £350,000. By 2016, the flat had been given a valuation of £800,000, so Davidson assumed that she was well on her way to making a healthy profit. But after putting her property on the market for £725,000 last year – the amount an estate agent told her it was worth – she was unable to secure a sale. 'The estate agent did a social media campaign and loads of work to get interest. He got us three viewings in three months, but then we never heard back,' she says. As Davidson was getting married in July, she and her now-husband took the flat off the market for a few months. 'The signs were saying that the economy was doing well, so we put it back on at the end of August with a local agent – there was more interest.' But in the space of less than a year, Davidson has been forced to slash the asking price to £575,000. 'It's devastating. It's still not really getting any interest – we had one viewing last week and one this week, and we haven't had feedback from either of them yet. 'My husband and I want to buy our forever home in London – we can't both live in my flat, as he is a piano teacher and needs more space. We are looking at houses, but it is really tricky as house prices are going up while flats aren't. We can't afford the house we are looking for, and we are really stuck.... I wish I'd sold in 2016.' Davidson attributes part of her trouble selling to the service charge she pays on her flat, which rose from around £3,000 a year to almost £4,000 after there was a water leak in her building, raising its insurance premiums. 'There is a smaller flat on the other side of my road which has a lower service charge, and that includes a swimming pool, a gym and somebody looking after the place. We don't have any of that, but there is nothing I can do about it,' she says. Nonetheless, Davidson thinks negative attitudes towards leasehold properties are overblown. 'I think leaseholds get a bad name – there are benefits not being discussed, it seems to be one-sided. We have a good managing agent and the building is looked after… if you [buy freehold] you have to do your own repairs and maintenance, so you end up spending a similar amount,' she says. 'But that said, I wouldn't want to go leasehold again – but that's the phase of my life that I'm in.' 'The property ladder myth is still hurting me now' Liam Chennells, 35, bought his leasehold flat in Willesden, north-west London, in 2016. Since then, the value of the property has fallen by around 15pc, and Chennells finds himself unable to sell the property, in part because of the building's ongoing cladding issues, and the fact that it comes with an annual service charge of almost £3,000. 'The property ladder myth got me at the age of 25, and is still hurting me now. I had worked hard enough to save a significant deposit of 10pc while renting in London – I didn't have any help from my parents. It seemed like an excellent idea. 'I think we are hard-coded in Britain to get on the property ladder – it's one of the things people want to check off. It's an aspirational thing when you're doing well.' But Liam – who now lives in Hertfordshire and has resorted to renting out his London flat – seriously regrets his purchase. He urges young people to think very carefully about buying property and taking on a mortgage, as his experience has left him wishing he had just rented instead. 'Rent everything – you get freedom, flexibility. Mortgage rates are a joke. If you extrapolate the information about the payments you have to make and for how long, it's nonsense. 'One of my big things is education – we don't get taught any of this stuff in school.' 'I won't break even. It's a bitter pill to swallow' Eliza*, 39, who wished to remain anonymous as her property is still for sale, purchased a one-bedroom leasehold apartment in Stepney Green – a trendy area of East London – in 2016, for £440,000. She used the Help to Buy scheme to fund 40pc of the purchase. This government-backed initiative ran in England and Scotland from 2013 to 2023, giving buyers a government loan to help them purchase a new-build home. While the loan is interest-free for the first five years, after this time interest of 1.75pc is charged on the amount borrowed, which must be repaid alongside mortgage repayments. 'I couldn't afford a flat in Zone 1 or 2 without the Help to Buy scheme,' she says. 'I didn't have a big inheritance or anything like that, and thought it was a no-brainer. I love the flat – it was perfect, with great transport links.' However, having recently had a baby with her husband, Eliza is now desperately trying to sell up in order to buy a house outside the city. But, despite being on the market since last March, the flat remains unsold. 'The first estate agent wanted to put it on at £490,000, but we had no offers. We got an offer for £450,000, only £10,000 more than I [paid for it], so I would not break even with all the interest. That's a bitter pill to swallow. And then that offer fell through. 'We put it back on at £450,000,' she says, 'but we didn't get too much interest as it was winter.' Eliza and her partner have made an offer for their dream home, but as the flat is still not selling, it looks like it will fall through. 'We're going to lose this house that we really want. I'm on maternity leave, so I'm not going to get another mortgage like that unless I work full-time, which I don't want to do.' Eliza believes there are several factors at play that are prolonging the sale of her flat. One is the £240 monthly service charge. 'All the stories of service charges escalating and getting out of control are putting people off, and people generally don't think investing in a flat in London is a good idea,' she says. She also suspects that if she had put her flat on the market at a more competitive price in the first place, it may have sold, and she would be moving into her dream home with her partner today. 'Estate agents tell you what you want to hear so you'll go with them. If they'd told me my flat was worth £450,000 originally, would I have gone with them? Probably not.' Ultimately, Eliza thinks the price she paid for the flat in 2016 was inflated due to the Help to Buy scheme. The scheme has been criticised by experts and MPs for contributing to higher flat prices when it was active, and may have 'encouraged people to buy property they couldn't actually afford', according to Ranald Mitchell, of Charwin Private Clients. 'I do blame Help to Buy for inflating house prices,' she says. 'They knew people needed the scheme, and that it sounded great on paper.' All things considered, Eliza is not particularly hopeful about selling her flat in future. 'We might just have to auction it and move on.'
Times
21-05-2025
- Business
- Times
London office rents reach record high in race for prime buildings
An 'unbelievable shortage' of new offices being built has pushed rents for the best workspaces in London up to record highs, and landlords expect prices to keep on climbing. Great Portland Estates, the London office developer, reckons rents at its prime buildings have risen by almost 8 per cent over the past year, and it expects them to go up by perhaps another 10 per cent over the coming 12 months. Landlords are profiting from booming demand for best-in-class bases at a time when there is not much prime workspace being built. GPE, for example, signed a record £38 million of new lettings last year. 'The supply side is unbelievably tight,' Toby Courtauld, chief executive of GPE, said. 'There is a significant drought of high-quality
Bloomberg
21-05-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
Landlord GPE Anticipates Rent Surge on Supply Shortage
Landlord Great Portland Estates Plc expects London office rents to surge next year as a shortage of new development collides with robust demand for the best new space. The company upgraded its guidance for rental growth to as much as 7% across its portfolio and 10% for the best new space, according to a statement Wednesday. That's up from 3% to 6% for the year through March, a period in which it delivered overall rental growth of 5%.
Daily Mail
18-05-2025
- Business
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE This is the borough where Londoners get most garden for their money
Across London, buyers get just 23.6 square metres of garden space per £100,000 they spend on a property, data seen by This is Money reveals. However, some areas of the capital offer much better value. We dug into the data, provided by solar panel company Eurocell, to find out how much garden space house buyers get for every £100,000 they spend on their home. The research only looks at houses, and not flats - accounting for the large proportion of homes that have private outdoor space. In the bustling City of London, only 23 per cent of properties come with a garden, Eurocell said. With average property prices in the City of London at around £787,104, buyers will only get a tiny 2.1 sq m of garden space per £100,000 spent. Houses in notoriously expensive Westminster, where average house prices stand at £920,645, typically have gardens spanning 40.8 sq m. In Westminster, 75 per cent of houses come with private outdoor space, with buyers only getting 4.4 sq m per £100,000 spent. Across Kensington and Chelsea, 85 per cent of houses come with a garden, but the median size of a garden in the area is 54 sq m. According to Office for National Statistics data from 2020, this is less than a third of the size of the average garden in Great Britain at 188 sq m. Average property prices in Kensington and Chelsea are around £1.18million, meaning buyers get just 4.6 sq m of private outdoor space per £100,000 spent. In Hammersmith and Fulham, slightly to the west of central London, 98 per cent of properties have a garden. In this area, the average property price is £734,126, with buyers getting 7.6 sq m of garden per £100,000 spent. Other locations where buyers pay a hefty premium for relatively small outdoor spaces include Camden, Islington and Wandsworth. Beth Boulton, marketing director at Eurocell, told This is Money: 'Outdoor living has become a major selling point for today's homebuyers - especially in London, where private space is limited and highly sought after. 'Gardens are no longer just "nice to have"; they're seen as essential sanctuaries, offering a break from busy city life and a chance to recharge in nature.' Best value gardens in London Sutton, Havering, Bexley and Bromley came out as the top four spots with the biggest gardens. In Sutton, average house prices are £445,207, while the median garden size is 178.2 sq m. On average, buyers in Sutton get 40 sq m of garden per £100,000 spent on a property in the area - almost 20 times as much as those in the City of London. Across Bexley, average house prices are lower and buyers get 46 sq m of garden per £100,000. Buyers snapping up houses in Bromley enjoy a median garden size of 239.5 sq m, the biggest of any London borough. Average house prices in Bromley are around £517,679. Around 94 per cent of houses in Tower Hamlets come with some outdoor space. With average property prices at £502,561, buyers get 10.9 sq m of garden for every £100,000 they spend on a property, according to Eurocell. In locations like Merton, Ealing, Lewisham and Greenwich buyers also get more garden space for their money. In Merton, average property prices come in at £619,145 and the median garden size stands at 119.5 sq m. Buyers get 19.1 sq m of garden per £100,000 spent on their property. Eurocell's Boulton added: 'Our data shows that boroughs like Bromley, Bexley, and Havering offer an average of 239 sq m of private outdoor space, making them an attractive long-term investment for families and first-time buyers. 'In contrast, outdoor space in areas like Westminster, Camden, and Kensington and Chelsea comes at a premium - but with smart design and landscaping, even compact gardens can become standout features that significantly enhance a property's appeal and value.' Separate data from Eurocell this month showed that Aberdeen was the best urban location to get more garden for your money across Britain. The Scottish city offers 161.8 sq m of garden per £100,000 spent on a property. This is five times more the outdoor space buyers in Portsmouth get for their money. Dundee and Stirling made up the top three cities where buyers get more garden space for their money. Rotherham, South Yorkshire, came in fourth place in the rankings, offering buyers 108.99 sq m of garden space for every £100,000 spent on the property. How to find a new mortgage Borrowers who need a mortgage because their current fixed rate deal is ending, or they are buying a home, should explore their options as soon as possible. Quick mortgage finder links with This is Money's partner L&C > Mortgage rates calculator > Find the right mortgage for you What if I need to remortgage? Borrowers should compare rates, speak to a mortgage broker and be prepared to act. Homeowners can lock in to a new deal six to nine months in advance, often with no obligation to take it. Most mortgage deals allow fees to be added to the loan and only be charged when it is taken out. This means borrowers can secure a rate without paying expensive arrangement fees. Keep in mind that by doing this and not clearing the fee on completion, interest will be paid on the fee amount over the entire term of the loan, so this may not be the best option for everyone. What if I am buying a home? Those with home purchases agreed should also aim to secure rates as soon as possible, so they know exactly what their monthly payments will be. Buyers should avoid overstretching and be aware that house prices may fall, as higher mortgage rates limit people's borrowing ability and buying power. How to compare mortgage costs The best way to compare mortgage costs and find the right deal for you is to speak to a broker. This is Money has a long-standing partnership with fee-free broker L&C, to provide you with fee-free expert mortgage advice. Interested in seeing today's best mortgage rates? Use This is Money and L&Cs best mortgage rates calculator to show deals matching your home value, mortgage size, term and fixed rate needs. If you're ready to find your next mortgage, why not use L&C's online Mortgage Finder. It will search 1,000's of deals from more than 90 different lenders to discover the best deal for you. > Find your best mortgage deal with This is Money and L&C Be aware that rates can change quickly, however, and so if you need a mortgage or want to compare rates, speak to L&C as soon as possible, so they can help you find the right mortgage for you.
