Alastair Stewart

Alastair Stewart

Alastair Stewar has almost 30 years experience of the construction industry as equities analyst, journalist and columnist. He writes a monthly column on the residential market for Property Week and sits on the housebuilding panel of the Experian Construction Forecasting Committee.

 

 

 

  • Truss, Liz
    Insight

    Was housing really trussed by Liz?

    2023-09-22T08:42:00

    Blink and you’d have missed them, but a year on from Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng’s widely derided clanger of a ‘mini Budget’, housebuilders and estate agents are still reporting the aftermath. Imagine if the former prime minister and chancellor had unleashed a ‘maxi Budget’?

  • shutterstock_297235109_cred Cesarz
    Insight

    The Emperor strikes back

    2023-08-24T00:00:00

    “Some merchants are always eager to turn a profit. Therefore, we decree that the benefit of low prices is not hindered while greed, checked in advance, is restrained.” Not the words of left-wingers calling for price controls, but those of Emperor Diocletian’s Edict on Maximum Prices in 301AD. He failed; ...

  • Starmer hutterstock_1574272270 (1) ComposedPix
    Insight

    Home economics: a new enthusiasm for Labour

    2023-07-13T00:00:00

    Alastair Stewart explores Labour’s growing appeal.

  • PW160623_modular_shutterstock_1441164959_cred Stephen Dewhurst
    Insight

    Modular homes vision falls flat

    2023-06-15T00:00:00

    I can almost set my watch by it. Every 10 years, it seems, I convince myself that this time, modular housing is finally set to take off. My latest enthusiasm for modern methods of construction (MMC) looks more short-lived than usual.

  • Two newly-developed homes inside a warehouse. Artificial snow is on the ground, with a car covered in the snow in front of one of the homes.
    Insight

    Alastair Stewart on the futureproofing of new housing developments

    2023-05-18T00:00:00

    Snow in May – even if it is in Manchester? Except the artificially produced flurry is not at the northern capital’s indoor ski slope but from a housing research project trying to preserve the future of the natural white stuff.

  • Stamford Bridge
    Insight

    Hide chequebook to avoid blues

    2023-04-20T00:00:00

    The more you spend, the less value you obtain. Several housebuilders have learned that the hard way in the past couple of decades. Somebody should tell that to Chelsea FC’s American co-owner.

  • Architect_credit_shutterstock_Akira Kaelyn_740754769
    Insight

    Equities analyst and consultant, Alastair Stewart, on the number of architects in the industry

    2023-03-23T00:00:00

    There is a scientifically unreliable but effective way of inversely gauging architects’ workload – and, thus, the outlook for the wider property market: how much time designers spend on social media. It seems to have soared, but they appear more exercised about saving the planet than saving their jobs.

  • Hebden Bridge shutterstock_274166933 peter jeffreys
    News

    Equities analyst and consultant, Alastair Stewart, on property affordability in the north of England

    2023-02-16T00:00:00

    Swept up by the hype, I’ve just binge-watched my first-ever run of British TV crime drama Happy Valley. All good Bafta-worthy stuff. But is it really that unrelentingly grim up north?

  • Market shares
    Online

    Equities analyst Alastair Stewart on the adage of buying on the rumour, selling on the good

    2023-01-26T07:00:00

    There’s an old stock market adage, dating to less assiduously policed times: buy on the rumour, sell on the news. At least when it comes to good rumours.

  • Housing market finance chart
    Insight

    It’s beginning to look like Christmas

    2022-11-30T00:00:00

    Christmas arrived early for the housing market this year. Not from a bedazzled child’s aspect; more, at least it would seem from early evidence, from a turkey’s.

  • London houses
    Insight

    Don’t listen to housing ‘experts’

    2022-11-03T00:00:00

    Was rehabilitated Levelling-up secretary Michael Gove right in one of his past pronouncements, that “people have had enough of ‘experts’ saying they know what is best and getting it consistently wrong”? Quite possibly, especially when it comes to housing.

  • PW071022_stocks_shutterstock_1713378805_cred Poring Studio
    Insight

    A meltdown is wide of the mark

    2022-10-06T00:00:00

    “What do you think of Sterling’s performance yesterday?” I asked a neighbour a day after the mini-Budget. “Dreadful,” he answered. “He just couldn’t get the ball across to Kane.” No, I clarified: “The pound versus the US dollar, not Raheem versus the Italian defence.”

  • Aint nothing going up but the rent poster shutterstock_333834479 HipKat PW090922
    Insight

    Will rent cap prove anti-social?

    2022-09-08T00:00:00

    The road to housing hell is paved with government good intentions. The latest example is the thoroughly laudable aim of sheltering social housing tenants from double-digit rental inflation. The problem is that might stop development of affordable housing in its tracks.

  • Truss, Liz
    Insight

    A Tory scrap on the home front

    2022-08-03T00:00:00

    FFS! What are the Tories up to? Not my abbreviation, but the riposte from Tory MP Angela Richardson after Nadine Dorries criticised Rishi Sunak for modelling Prada shoes while rival Liz Truss scrapes by with £4.50 earrings.

  • PW080722_housing_shutterstock_648611077_cred Alicia G. Monedero
    Insight

    Housing cycles: the key differences

    2022-07-06T23:00:00

    It’ll be different this time. No, I’m not being ironic. The way this housing cycle unwinds is likely to be very different to the last two – despite the headlines.

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    News

    Glass half full for housebuilders

    2022-06-08T23:00:00

    Forget RPI or CPI. The spectre of inflation really hit home when my inflationary measure of choice, LPI or the London Pride Index, ticked up.

  • Housing-estate_shutterstock_cred-Ewelina-Wachala-PW060418
    Online

    No crisis signs for housebuilders

    2022-05-11T23:00:00

    Cost-of-living crisis, rising interest rates, Covid, Brexit and a grinding war in Ukraine. Cue carnage for the housing market? For housebuilders, so far, it’s still a case of ‘crisis, what crisis?’

  • Stock-market_credit_shutterstock_Phongphan_416888221
    News

    Investors vote with their wallets

    2022-04-12T23:00:00

    When the UK’s top eight stock-market-listed housebuilders announced combined profit writedowns of more than £1bn over three days to pay for recladding, investors might have been expected to press the panic button.

  • Putin-shutterstock_2131360371-Photographer-RM-PW180322
    News

    A Russian threat on the home front

    2022-03-17T00:00:00

    “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” Mike Tyson’s famous quip has a chilling resonance for a world plotting a recovery from a global pandemic – but now facing off an infinitely nastier brute.

  • Column data colour graph
    Insight

    London ends rental drought

    2022-02-17T00:00:00

    London rental levels have finally shaken off the curse of George Osborne, with agents now foreseeing residential rents in the capital rising faster than the rest of the country for the first time since the ex-chancellor’s 2015 Budget put the kibosh on the sector for close on seven years.

More by Alastair Stewart