Might the solution to the Olympic officials’ worries over filling the skills gap left by returning Polish workers be staring them in the face? There’s a property-led recession in Ireland that is freeing up construction workers at a fair rate of knots? Mind you, perhaps they need look no further than our shores, as firm after firm after firm in construction announces redundancies.
The steady decline in the UK housing market has been underlined by the latest numbers to come out of HM Revenue & Customs. They show sales of homes dropping to 72,000 in August, compared with 164,000 last August. The figures show a continuing slide that not only highlights the collapse in the housing market, but it also presents severe problems for the exchequer, as revenue from stamp duty dwindles. It now looks likely that annual transactions will fall to about…
The Council of Mortgage Lenders is bang on when it says it is futile to try to update its house price forecast. Frankly it is probably sufficient to say that houses are worth less than they were a year ago and in a year’s time they will probably be worth a lot less – that is on average. We are experiencing a market correction and no one really knows how fast it will take place and to what place it…
Is it me or are you living in a different world than that described by the national statisticians? Today we are asked to accept that retail sales increased in August led by a jump in sales of shoes and clothes. What have we got here? Do we have a consumer addiction problem? Do we have freaked-out shopperholics worrying about where the next penny is coming from suddenly cracking in the gloom and dampness of August and going on a buying…
I was speaking earlier this morning to the head of a top 50 house builder, a man with years of experience and someone’s who opinions are worthy of respect. He is as baffled as the next person about where things are going. Each week brings a whole new set of uncertainties and oddities. What I found impressive was that while he is, no doubt, under intense pressure he is calm and considered – a man to cope in a crisis….
The latest jobless figures showing a leap of 81,000 people unemployed over the past quarter will come as little surprise to most people in the construction industry. They are seeing life getting tougher by the day, especially those with any links to house building. The major house builders have axed about 40% of their direct workforce and for each of them roughly five others lose their work. Against this background it is no shock that the figure put on the…
Anecdotal evidence is useful, if a bit unreliable. But it can help to substantiate the numbers and provide a context. And sometimes it can lead you to ask questions. Here is an example. I recently moved and have a new work telephone number. Right from the off I started receiving odd calls asking if I was the Job Centre. Maybe one or two a week. Initially I thought I had been gifted a redundant line by BT, but I later…
I am in the midst of looking at endless numbers on house building and house builders for the annual Housing Market Intelligence report. I’ll admit things are a bit slippy at moment. Trying to put meaning to the numbers is a bit like trying to pin a donkey’s tail on wobbling jelly when you’re blindfolded. Not that I have tried. As mentioned before, I am also reading bits and pieces from a book that has been on my shelf for…
Until the realisation of the enormity of the task was grasped those at home and those on the way to the front comforted themselves with the line: “It’ll be all over by Christmas.” That was WW1. How much of this is a myth, I certainly am not qualified to judge. But it rather sums up the way we accept bad news and nasty twists of history that break our “normal” routine of life. I have heard many people predict a…
The latest consensus forecast from the Investment Property Forum paints a bleak picture of prospects in the commercial sector. This will add to worries that the downward dip in the private commercial construction output figures is increasingly likely to turn into a downward slide. The Forum said the figures for the third quarter represented the sharpest downward adjustment in expectations for the UK commercial property market in a single quarter to date. Those brave types in the development world looking…