New process agreed for valuation of high-rise buildings

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RICS, the BSA and UK Finance have agreed a new industry-wide process to be used by valuers, lenders, building owners and fire safety experts in the valuation of high-rise properties.

The new External Wall Fire Review process will require a fire safety assessment to be conducted by a suitably qualified and competent professional delivering assurance for lenders

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Nationwide call to use empty homes

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Nationwide Building Society is urging the new Government to resurrect abandoned funding that would bring thousands of empty properties back into use.

With an estimated 226,000 empty properties in England[1], the Society believes the time for action is now.

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New Father of the House and leasehold reform?

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I note since the latest general election that the new Father of the House is Conservative MP Sir Peter Bottomley. One of his main activities has been to push through leasehold reform.

This is particularly in response to “new builds”

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RLA concerns about impact of stamp duty levy included in Commons briefing paper

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A briefing paper on stamp duty reform published today by the House of Commons library includes concerns raised by the RLA relating to the policy. The briefing, which you can read here, discusses the reforms to taxation of sales of residential property that have been made in recent years. The briefing includes a reference to […]

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Top new home builders

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Stone Real Estate collected the latest annual results for 11 of the UK’s biggest housebuilders to see who was top of the pile when it comes to the delivery of homes within the sales market and who has stepped up their game the most compared to the previous year.

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UK regeneration opportunities ranked

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Property Development:

Birmingham
is
the top council
area in
a new ranking of re-development opportunities
for
investment in empty residential and commercial properties.

New
research by UK fibre broadband specialist Glide, based on a series of
FOI requests to local councils, identifies the extent of empty
dwellings and commercial properties in these localities, and for
councils across the UK.

Collectively,
says
Glide, across
both categories of buildings,
in the month of September 2019 there were 617,527 empty properties
across the UK.

Of
those councils which held this
detailed
information, Birmingham has
been ranked by Glide as the
leading council
area offering
the most
potential space, with 8,086 residential properties and 7,622
commercial buildings in the city and its suburbs being empty.

Liverpool
comes second with 15,339 buildings currently unoccupied, while
regions across the north dominate the top five; Manchester, Leeds and
Bradford also ranking highly.

Bradford
has the highest number of commercial properties currently empty, with
7,908 business premises currently unoccupied, which means that 4.5%
of all empty commercial properties in the UK are located in that
council
area.

Birmingham
has the second highest number of empty commercial properties (7,622),
followed by Leeds (4,528) and Liverpool (4,266).

The
FOI requests found that there are a total of 172,217 empty business
units across the UK, which perhaps suggests a huge potential for
investment, particularly in cities and regions that have felt the
harshest effects of recent financial uncertainty.

Whilst
this information points to potential opportunities for investment,
redevelopment and re-purposing in many
cases, especially given the possibility of a post-election boost to
the economy, some locations are still
suffering
severe economic decline.

Nevertheless
opportunities still exist. To take one example, after
the government’s sell
off of county court buildings following moves to modernise
the court system, relying
more on IT to reduce the need for face to face hearings, and to
cut
down the need for travel to the court, many
were sold off at what now look to be bargain basement prices.

Between
2010 and 2017 the Ministry of Justice has sold off £223 million in
court real estate and in London alone £175 million has been raised
by selling these
buildings off, many of which have become hotels.

The
250-year-old
Bow Street Magistrates was
sold
to Qatari investment firm BTC, with planning permission to convert
into a 100 room hotel, and
both
Old Street and Tower Bridge courts are
already
converted into luxury hotels. The
Bloomsbury
and Central London County court have been demolished, to
be replaced with 73 homes, selling at
around £15
million each.

In
fact Bow
Street Magistrates was sold off
in
2008 for £17 million and
was re-sold
on again in 2016 without
the developer doing a thing for
£75 million, a
nice litter earner for them; but one should bear in mind, this was a
risky buy at the height of the great recession.

These are all large scale development but there have been plenty of smaller commercial buildings across the provinces sold for much smaller sums, and representing very lucrative opportunities for investor developers big and small.

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