If life is like a box of chocolates, then residential property this year has been a particularly mixed assortment — some delicious, some nutty, and a few best left untouched.

It would be fair to say that this has not been an easy year for the Residential Property Market. That said, I struggle to share the media’s apparent enthusiasm for declaring a cataclysmic collapse in values. In reality, the low to middle markets have behaved with surprising decorum. The top end, admittedly, has been less cheerful since the government decided to give the non-dom regime a good kicking — with all the finesse one might expect. Continue reading →

After months of fevered speculation before the Budget, residential property transactions juddered to a halt. I always suspected that as ‘confidence arrives on foot and leaves by horse’, the feel-bad factor’ generated by the 4-5 months mindless delays before the Budget, would have a detrimental effect on retail spending and economic growth.  Lo and behold, we have just heard from the Office of National Statistics that output in the UK economy fell by 0.1% in October, after a similar contraction in September. Continue reading →

The Keystone Cops were out in force today in the Commons as exemplified by the OBR’s involuntarily (we suppose) leaking of the Budget before the Chancellor’s speech, which is a sackable, if not criminal, offence. Continue reading →