Where to buy for wild swimming, rowing and fishing on your doorstep

Looking for a house in the UK from which you can swim, row and even fish?

Well, look no further than Thames in Barnes, south-west London, where the Olympic rowing champion, Ben Hunt-Davis lives with his family for year-round access to the water.

Sharing his insights into the area, Black Brick partner Caspar Harvard-Walls commented on the region’s buying prospects in a new piece for The Telegraph this week:

“The river was a very undeveloped area and there was a lot of land available to build on,” he said. “And there is something iconic about living over the Thames.”

Read the full article here.

Mum and Dad rent a different class of digs

In some areas of London, it’s been reported that parents are paying almost 100 times more than the average £88 a week for their children’s student accommodation.

So why is this case? Is it Brexit? Is it the economy in general? Black Brick’s London Buying Agents have lent their insights to The Times this week in the article on the topic.

Read it here.

Four beds good, five beds bad

People might often assume that a five bedroom house would be more sought-after than a four-bedroom one…

In a new piece for The Times this week, Black Brick’s Founder, Camilla Dell offered her perspective on why homes with three to four bedrooms and additional storage rooms are better than houses with five or six crammed in bedrooms.

Read the article here.

How much does it really cost to live in London’s residential squares?

In new article for Absolutely Chiswick this week, our Founder Camilla Dell shared her perspective on how expensive London’s residential gardens are to buy in.

“Our data shows that in the last 18 months, the average price paid per sq. ft. in Eaton Square was £4,113,” Camilla shared. “When we compared this to nearby Eaton Place, buyers paid an average of £2,404 per sq. ft. That is a whopping 42% premium to be on Eaton Square.”

Strategies to survive a price slowdown

With the UK property market expected to fall in the next few weeks, a new article in The Times shares top tips and advice on how property searchers should navigate it.

Adding our insight as a top London buying agency, Black Brick’s Founder Camilla Dell advised:

“Try to avoid flats higher than the first or second floor without a lift, ground and lower-ground floor flats, which suffer from damp or low levels of light, and properties far from public transport and shops.”

Read the article here.

Inside the ‘national scandal’ of leasehold properties

New data reports that the UK’s rate of homeownership has fallen from 72% in 2003, to just 64.5% in 2014.

Excluding leasehold properties not legally owned by owner-occupiers, the true rate is actually 58.9%, which is only 0.9% higher than in 1981.

Reflecting on what’s being dubbed as a ‘national scandal’, Black Brick Founder and Managing Partner, Camilla Dell shared her thoughts for a new piece in Ham & High Property this week:

“Never rely on an estate agents estimate on what a lease extension might cost you,” she advised. “Make sure to ask estate agents what the length of the lease is. It’s the estate agents job to accurately state this, along with the service charge and ground rent on the sales particulars,”.

Why the Russians want Mayfair

Super-rich Russians are back buying up luxury property in Mayfair and central London. But why?

In a new piece for The Times this week, Black Brick Founder and top London buying agent, Camilla Dell shared her perspective on why Russians are increasingly looking to invest in prime central London property.

“[Black Brick buying agency] has had a 22 per cent increase in the number of Russians buying in central London this year compared with last.”, Camilla revealed.

“The Russians have been our biggest spenders, paying an average of £18.5 million for their properties. They have been buying homes in prime central London, with a preference for Mayfair and Kensington. Their reasons for buying are relocating to London for family, better quality of life, safety and education. Brexit has not been a factor, although currency has,” she said.

Commons, good schools and cosy gastropubs means families stay put in SW4

Clapham has been described as “a south London suburb that has welcomed wave upon wave of migration from other boroughs”, in a new article this week.

Sharing our perspective into its growing property market, Black Brick buying agent, Caspar Harvard-Walls featured his thoughts in City A.M.

“[Clapham] is a very diverse area, from maisonettes and flats for around £600,000 to period family houses that command from £4m around the edge of the Common. Indeed, an original 9,000sqft Georgian villa is currently available for £12m.” Caspar shared.

Developers appeal to culture vultures by building theatres right next door to home

Arts hubs and theatres are being built in areas in the hopes of attracting home buyers looking for neighborhoods with a sense of community.

Sharing her thoughts in a new piece for The Telegraph this week, Black Brick Founder and Managing Partner, commented:

“Such venues transform the interesting into the highly desirable. Television Centre is generally regarded as one of the coolest and hippest new developments,” she said.

Read the full article here.

Camden named amongst top five property investment hotspots, but London prime property market remains hard to predict

Camden has been revealed as fourth in a list of property investment hotspots across the UK, a new article in Ham & High Property reveals.

With house prices in the area expected to rise by 33.9% in the next five years, our Founder and Managing Partner, Camilla Dell shared her thoughts for the article released this week.

“I would say [this] is quite a simplistic way of looking at the market because the London property market is not homogenous; different parts of the market will behave and do very different things in the next five years,” she said.

“Savills are actually predicting Prime Central London growth of 21 per cent over the next five years cumulative, so quite a bit more than what Barclays’ price predictor is showing. Knight Frank are suggesting that east London will increase far more than more traditional west London and Prime Central London postcodes. So there’s quite a big discrepancy in their data.”

Camilla continued by explaining why she is less convinced that Camden will perform better than other London regions: “I’ve seen lots of research around HS2, Crossrail 2, east London because of all the technology companies investing there but I can’t say I’ve come across anything that says Camden is a hotspot,” she said. “Instead, I think that the most growth will be seen in the market below £1m, outside Prime Central London. “That’s where we see the most growth happening over the next five years where we still continue to see supply and demand in balance and first time buyers competing with investors.”