I recognise that I have said this time and again and probably will say it a few times more – but don’t underplay the impact of rising inflation. I can already hear echoes of overexcited managment consultants suggesting to clients to take note of what is rising in the east and smell the coffee. It is not just about managing cost pressures on projects, tough as that will be. The issue is more basic. High inflation will threaten projects where…
I received an interesting email from Ray Crotty of C3 systems some days ago now. It was in essence a challenge to look at the industry over 20 or 30 years and see if “we’re seeing anything now that we haven’t seen before in terms of economic adjustment at work in construction”. Ray’s view is that we probably are not seeing anything much different, and that journalists and commentators (I assume I am included in this bunch) are over reacting…
The latest figures from the British Bankers’ Association make seriously grim reading. The seasonally adjusted value of loans approved in June for homes dropped to a third of what it was in the same month a year ago. The figures read: £3,297 million June 2008 against the already pitiful £4,243 million in May 2008 and compared with pervious years £9,826 million in June 2007 and £9,517 million in June 2006. This points to a further fall in transactions and more…
If I were the Chancellor looking at the latest property transaction figures I wouldn’t be worried, I’d be very worried. At 270,000 transactions for residential property in the second quarter, we are looking at a housing market about 38% less active than a year ago, when 432,000 transactions were undertaken in the same period . A quick look at the seasonally adjusted figures points to the downswing continuing. That means more estate agents closing (As it happens, I walked past…
The release of some pretty nasty survey results on the commercial property market from the surveyors body RICS is far from the sort of fare one would have served up just before heading off on holiday, but there it is. Bleak, with spiky curves heading in just the directions you don’t want them to be. I seem to be reading the phrase “declined at the fastest pace in the survey’s history” a lot at the moment. The good news here…
Let’s face it predicting house price movements is like trying to forecast the British weather. You can have a vague clue from the available data, but you are likely to be onto a loser more often than not if you try to pin down how things will turn out in a given part of the country at a given time. That doesn’t stop us trying. For most of us having some clue is better than having none. Not everyone can…
I am not really sure why I was surprised to hear Nick Robinson on the BBC news last night confirming an FT story due to run today about the Treasury changing the borrowing rule set by Gordon Brown when he was Chancellor. It seemed clear that Government debt was set to bust through 40% of national income, and it is clearer today when looking at the Public Sector Finance figures released today. Public sector net debt as percentage of GDP…
I admit it, my response to Caroline Flint’s housing rescue plan Part II, “Facing the housing challenge – Action today, innovation tomorrow”, was borne out of frustration. I admit that lapsing into frustration is a huge fault in my character, one that frankly frustrates me. I admit that there are some elements within the policy that may help the industry, those in need of homes and those struggling to hold on to them, of which more later. That’s the confessional…
On a day that Wolseley has announced 6,000 job cuts and when the employment figures are looking decidedly shaky, even without the effects of the recent cull by house builders, the latest efforts by Caroline Flint to ease pain in the market seem rather puny. I could go into a detailed deconstruction, but it seems fair enough just to say something old, something new and plenty to keep the industry and those excluded from decent homes feeling blue… But please…
It is an odd thing that things can still be getting worse, but that sentiment can be regarded as improving. So it is with estate agents, according to the latest housing market survey produced by the surveyors body RICS. The story of the June survey is that while things are still getting worse at a hell of a pace, but the good news is that the pace at which the market is getting worse has slowed a bit over the…