Olympic Real Estate Legacy

As the Olympic games's get underway and Team GB celebrates girl power with our first two medals, (well done to Lizzy and Rebecca) take 5 minutes out from your watching schedule(has anyone got any useful tips on avoiding the wall to wall coverage and actually getting some work done?!?!) and take a look at this reflective piece from http://realestate.msn.com/article.aspx?cp-documentid=23530429 looking back at the real estate legacy projects of past winter and summer Olympic’s.

The commentary on the successful and not so successful project makes for interesting reading.  The challenge for the London commercial and domestic market place post the greatest games ever held comes into the spotlight.

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Home Office?

Planning consents for the conversion of offices to residential buildings in the West End is on the increase.  Last year schemes totalling more that 2 million sq ft of conversion were granted, significantly up on the 202,000 sq ft in 2010.  Values of West End conversions are being quoted at the £3,000 per sq ft mark as against £2,000 per sq ft for office space and a number of office building are currently on the market to attract residential developers to drain even more for the pool of available commercial space.  It is thought the demand is, yet again in the London residential market, being driven by demand from “overseas buyers” with the kudos of Mayfair and St. James’s being too great an attraction to resist.

Westminster Council would appear to be keen on this latest trend, showing limited resistance to the movement to convert.  Indeed, new planning regulations may make it even easier to carry these out without the need for a change of use consent.  The trend will continue to put the squeeze on the West End commercial occupier, those creating and bringing wealth into the capital on a continuing basis.  Rental levels on refurbished space in Mayfair are already breaking the £100 per sq ft level and, with a narrowing range of choice as new developments hit an all time low, there will be continual upward pressure on the limited vacant space available.

This is all very well for the present as the Capital’s residential market continues to resist the national trend of stagnation and even regression in housing prices.  Where there’s a fast buck to be made, why not?  When the economy turns, (and it has to doesn’t it?) the time lag to address the requirement for more commercial accommodation will be significant. Apart from the obvious lack of acreage in the West End, and they’re not making any more of that, the timescales to prepare and develop either new build, conversions or refurbishment will mean that the shortage of available space will be with us for some time to come.

Not all is doom and gloom on this front, however.  There are those who welcome the return to original usage of some fine buildings, with period features once again being brought back to a life they were originally intended for.

Residential market continues to fall

As the banks’ mortgage lending criteria continue wreak havoc with the UK residential housing market Rightmove (www.rightmove.co.uk) reports the number of searches carried out on their website in for the first 10 days of 2012 reached record levels.

As po faced bankers continue to be allowed to make everyone else pay for their mistakes, setting lending criteria that has surely strangled the housing market into submission, new to market property listings plunged to a 10 year low.  London prices managed to go against the trend with a rise in values of just over 6%, but against the lowest level of activity in over three years.

As expectations are that the market will continue to be difficult during 2012, of those 44 million searches that were carried out, how many were done so in hope rather than expectation? 

Rise in numbers of residential rental properties

The number of residential properties in the private rented sector has risen again this year.  Approximately 17%, or nearly 1-in-6 of all British houses now belong to the private rental sector, reflecting an increase of 229,000 properties on last year.

Despite mortgage difficulties the opportunity to secure bricks and mortar investments remains as quintessentially British as drinking tea.  The rise continues, fuelled by a combination of landlords buying property with cash and buy-to-let mortgages, people letting out homes they have inherited and homeowners deciding to let their property and, in some cases move into private rented accommodation themselves.

Harry Potter Stars' Invest in Property

The young stars of the Harry Potter movie franchise have been spending their respective wealth by investing in property in the UK and abroad reports http://www.primelocation.com./  Harry Potter, in the guise of Daniel Radcliffe, has eschewed the attractions of Privet Drive and is said to have spent a tidy £11.2 million on investment properties, including a £3.5 million penthouse apartment overlooking the Hudson River in New York.

Rupert Grint who played the irrepressable Ron Weasley, has spent more than £9 million on three addresses and, whilst all are believed to be in the UK, it is thought The Burrow is not amongst them, whilst the very lovely Emma Watson has maintained her muggle roots and divided her investment portfolio of undisclosed value between Britain & France.

No details of the acquistions are available but it has to be assumed that they will be predominantly residential, rather than commercial investment properties.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows 2, the last film in the series, was released in the UK on July 7th.