Neal Hudson

My dad worked on building some very robust MRT stations when we lived there in the 1980s!

Turned this into an article

bsky.app/profile/resi...

What is the point of owning a mansion in Mayfair? London’s luxury property market has bigger problems than the ‘exodus’ of wealthy non-doms

What is the point of owning a mansion in Mayfair?

London’s luxury property market has bigger problems than the ‘exodus’ of wealthy non-doms
My latest article for the FT: on.ft.com/4lTCOBf

A sizeable fall in mortgage rates could lead to short-term double-digit price growth, especially when accompanied by looser lending conditions around LTIs etc.

Although rates have moderated somewhat over the past year, we have yet to see mortgage terms fall back. However, even with these longer mortgage terms - which lower initial payments and so improve the affordability calculation - we can see that payments take up a much higher proportion of income now than at any point since the peak of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC). Like mortgage term, this measure of affordability has not eased significantly as rates have come down, with rising house prices largely offsetting any lowering of payments through falling rates.

This is something I'm worried about over the next couple of years. New mortgaged buyers largely coped with recent rate rises by paying a higher % of income. As rates fall, I'd hope that % would fall too. However, it's not so far. Instead, as per UK Finance, it's filtering into higher house prices.

About 96m².
@geographyjim.bsky.social tracked down the source of the zombie stat here jamesjgleeson.wordpress.com/2017/02/11/t...

Eg size of new build homes in England
(it's not 76m²)

Also noticeable when they go up against someone like Max. Lando looks more nervous while Oscar looks more like Lewis.

Apparently this was behind McLaren’s hesitation to back Norris over him last year. They didn’t want to undermine Piastri for this year (& he’s got a manager who knows you don’t want to be tagged as the number 2)

My son’s school uses fingerprints which can be a problem when he’s been climbing lots.

Appears to be a combination of that and second homes.

As expected, stock per agent is increasing. It's very seasonal but this is the highest figure for June since at least 2015 (when my records begin) and not far off the peak in Oct/Nov 2020.

This autumn could be interesting for the housing market!

Big increase in new property listings on Rightmove in June/July as measured by their index sample size.

Similar to the number of new listings when the market reopened in 2020 - though the latest data covers a slightly longer time period than normal so might be a factor (8/6/25-12/7/25)

Land agents are fragmented: many serve small geographic areas. A birds-eye view of this market suggests you can roll it up for economies of scale. We liked this logic, so we pursued it. We didn’t consider if the fragmentation was a feature rather than a bug. Each agent spends a lot of time building the social infrastructure – going to fairs, drinking in pubs, befriending the parish council – needed for these deals. Landowners are a small-c conservative customer, and they don’t respond well to audacious pitches and fast timetables. These deals take 18-24 months because these are emotional decisions, not scalable ones.

Found the guy’s proptech startup postmortem which is much more interesting (to me) than the land banking piece.

(it’s the pre-planning part of the market that’s most interesting re land banking)

buildwithtract.com

The social housing sector is delighted though. They get more money for delivering a better tenure but they don’t have to worry about expansion as the number of homes the funding actually delivers may even be lower than previous ones.
They’d be more upset if the funding had been doubled!

Was just discussing the lack of joined up thinking on housing yesterday. The new Social and Affordable Homes Programme is a welcome improvement on the last decade (especially the focus on social rent) but it is not a funding package that helps get anywhere near to delivering the 1.5million target.

Low yields also mean just the stamp duty payable on multi-million pound homes could instead pay for several years of rent, especially if non-UK resident and it's a second home.
(and the capital values haven't risen in over a decade)

"I found—one might expect it, perhaps—that the small landlords are usually the worst. It goes against the grain to say this, but one can see why it should be so. Ideally, the worst type of slum landlord is a fat wicked man, preferably a bishop, who is drawing an immense income from extortionate rents. Actually, it is a poor old woman who has invested her life’s savings in three slum houses, inhabits one of them, and tries to live on the rent of the other two—never, in consequence, having any money for repairs."

George Orwell on small vs. large landlords in The Road to Wigan Pier:

Data www.gov.scot/publications...

(I wouldn't rely on the RICS survey for this kind of analysis)

The Scottish Landlord Register shows the number of landlords has been gradually falling since 2017 but the number of registered properties had been recovering back to slightly below 2017 levels (-3%), and is relatively unchanged over last 9 months.
Suggests an ongoing consolidation in the sector.

(also, don’t confuse it with the equity loan scheme for housebuilders)

The mortgage guarantee scheme, if it can reduce the relative cost and increase the availability of higher loan-to-value mortgages, is a useful policy tool.
The challenge is getting lenders to actually use it. Last version only accounted for 1.4% of mortgage completions.

“My father said to me ‘you could write on the back of a stamp what you know kid’. I had to prove him wrong”, says award-winning developer - Insider Media One of the UK's best-known independent housebuilders says he was driven by a desire to prove wrong his father's belief he would never be a success.

"The 43-year-old also co-owned the 52 Degrees North nightclub in Birmingham for ten years, which, he says, was good grounding for the house building sector"

www.insidermedia.com/news/midland...

Axo were successful this time with a different student development in Coventry.
They've got permission for a temporary (5yr) change of student rooms into serviced apartments, starting with 149 rooms
planandregulatory.coventry.gov.uk/planning/ind...

(37% vacancy rate for 2023/24 year!)

UK housebuilders agree to pay £100mn after competition probe CMA unearthed evidence that price information was shared between companies

They're paying a handy extra £100m for affordable housing but not admitting they broke competition law
on.ft.com/3GdPpzS

YouTube video by MoonClimbing THE REAL THING | The Original Bouldering Movie

Son was bouldering at Stanage over the weekend, so now we’re watching The Real Thing for the first time (& enjoying the mid 1990s vibes!).

m.youtube.com/watch?v=brbx...

Apparently up to 20% of overall private rental stock (or households as per chart) in some markets
www.savills.co.uk/research_art...

(We made it to Dublin)

As we drove through London, it got increasingly strange as clear something was up with closed tube stations and crowds trying to get on the coach.
It was only when I saw this message on the motorway that I realised something was up so paid extortionate data charges to look it up on my phone.