At last, after some four years from a Eureka moment to reality this long awaited agent owned property portal has been launched.

In July 2011 a salesman from Zoopla came to me and asked for a 50% annual increase in costs.  I thought he was joking and I may have misheard him.  It was true.  He left and I decided to gather 20 of the most influential agents in the UK to a secret meeting in a private room of Zafferano Restaurant in Central London in order to hatch the ‘Grand Plan’! Continue reading →

I am all for reforms in the Stamp Duty process and, in fact, have been lobbying for years to have the system reformed so that it was not so ‘slab sided’.  So hooray to the Treasury since the £2million threshold hitherto had stopped any sales from £2-£2.5million which was getting ridiculous.

The only problem is to the Treasury SDLT is like a ‘golden goose’ laying ‘golden eggs’ that are easy to harvest.  They increased the Stamp Duty rates in the 2012 Budget by 40% and 300%(for corporate purchases) that significantly curtailed the market place in the higher ranges (each sale that didn’t take place cost the Treasury money). Continue reading →

The aspiring Tessa Jowell and her mayoral aspirations are reflected in her latest epistle in the Independent newspaper recently about recommending local councils impose a tax on empty homes if they remain so for more than 6 months.

Does she really think that reasonably intelligent people buy homes that are non-income-producing and leave them empty just to take advantage of the capital gain?  If they do, they are stupid! Continue reading →