All Blogs articles – Page 19
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BlogsA game of three halves
The three biggest hitters in property - British Land, Land Securities and Segro - go head-to-head over the future of the property industry. Andrew Teacher is on the sidelines with his shorthand pad.
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Blogs
Barrie blogs on pre-election debate
The paint was almost peeling off the walls at the RICS’s newly-refurbished lecture theatre last night – as property’s election race got off to a rip-roaring start. Grant Shapps, the Conservative Housing spokesman, came under strong fire from a 100-strong audience of Property Week and Building readers in an event ...
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Blogs
Giles Barrie blogs from the Brixton/Wheeler tribunal
In neat black woollen dress, diamond earrings and pearls, Lady Louise Patten today looked like an elegant lady spy from the 1960s of James Bond. First up as a witness at today's employment tribunal hearing with former Tim Wheeler today, the former Brixton chairman started by sliding a stiletto deep ...
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Blogs
House-builder's spring selling means it's time to start stocks buying
The snow is melting, and spring is around the corner. For the private investor, now is the very best time of year to buy shares in the listed house builders. Even if you don’t dabble on the stock market, chances are you’ve heard of the "spring selling season" Logical, then, ...
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Blogs
New Year full of hope for those blazing their own trail
December appeared to be the same as every other year. The restaurants, bars and pubs were over full with too many people that can’t take their alcohol and the shops along Oxford Street were full with Christmas shoppers. Banks were trying to pay excessive bonuses to their staff and ...
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Blogs
North West divided over United
I am on the train back from Manchester, where all the talk is of 'Project Bluebird', 'Project Boomerang' and now 'Project Beckford'. I have been hearing about all this while chairing the judging for Property Week's North West awards, of which more later. First, 'Project Beckford'. Football fans will know ...
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Blogs
British Land but a very American Model
My biggest surprise this morning was not opening the curtains to see unforecasted snow, but rather opening my copy of the FT to see that British Land is planning to manage a £300 million buy-to-let fund. The CR Property Fund will be launched this week with a small investment from ...
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Blogs
Big themes for agencies in 2010
I have had breakfast, coffee or lunch with the chief executives or senior partners of four of the top 15 agencies in the last week – and here are the big themes that emerge. 1: Consolidation : there is a growing mood that globally and in the UK 2010-11 will ...
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Blogs
The man from the Pru: Paul McNamara expects growth in derivatives
Paul McNamara is director and head of research at Prupim and he was writing exclusively for Property Week Politics and economics will dictate property’s fortunes in 2010 As a long-term property investor with investment horizons measured in years rather than months, Prupim expects the pace of capital growth in the ...
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Blogs
No festive hangover for online property searches
Over the past few weeks every man and his dog seems to have been speculating on what we can look forward to in the New Year and even the next decade. Those who know me well would tell you that I often have difficulty foreseeing what I am going ...
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Blogs
The Night Watch
Every day I have the pleasure of either one or two night watches, depending on the day. Our time on board the boat is split into watches, which are either six hours (daytime) or four hours long (night time). A typical two day period involves a six hour shift starting ...
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Blogs
Bytes and Mortar - what online retail is doing to shops
Travel agent offices are becoming a thing of the past. I have never set foot in one and folk younger than I are even more unlikely to ever do so. That is because the internet offers a much better, faster and cheaper way of booking and shopping for trips. Consequently, ...
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Blogs
Barrie blogs on Kilmartin and Thornfield
Yesterday’s collapse of HBOS-backed Kilmartin Holdings and Thornfield Ventures is a grim portent for 2010. Make no mistake, while the property market as a whole is stabilising, the banks are now stepping up the pace for a full scale clear out of their problem loans. As we explain in the ...
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Blogs
Burj Khalifa – great construction or great development?
Property has been in the world’s headlines this week with the opening of the world’s tallest building, Dubai’s `Burj Khalifa’ – until Monday known simply as the `Burj Dubai’. `Burj’, by the way, means `tower’, and the colossus has been renamed `Khalifa’ on honour of the president of Abu Dhabi ...
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Blogs
Cyclones, volcanos and pirates
I have just spent my first 24 hours on board Jamaica and absolutely nothing is as I expected. We started off with the crew briefing where a number of potential hazards were outlined to us. Firstly cyclones; we are in the middle of the cyclone season and just before ...
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Blogs
Financial meltdown has helped buy-to-let landlords
It has taken a financial crisis to make buy-to-let a profitable investment. Friends who are landlords have enjoyed a good Christmas, thanks to plunging interest rates on their lenders’ standard variable rate (SVR). As buy-to-let mortgages are nearly always interest only, for those not committed to a fixed rate deal, ...
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BlogsSneak peak inside One Hyde Park
If you’ve got a spare £65m knocking around, I bring good news: the apartment at One Hyde Park that was originally used as a show flat has gone up for sale.
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Blogs
Taxing Times Ahead!
Fifteen-years-ago there was an obsession at the RICS that property was not seriously on the political agenda; that chartered surveyors did not have seats in boardrooms and, that as an investment class, property was getting too small a percentage of the pension fund pot. Well these areas have all radically ...
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Blogs
Barrie’s blog: winners and losers of the 'noughties'
Here are my awards for property’s winners and losers in the `noughties’. Having started at Property Week in 1999, after a seven year spell on construction magazines followed a 1988-1991 stint at Estates Times, it has been a fascinating decade to watch I would love to hear your views, too, ...
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Blogs
A 52,000 seat future for the Olympic stadium
I have thought of a long-term use for the Olympics Stadium – and how to help save West Ham. For months ministers and the Olympic Park Legacy Company has been agonising over how to prevent the 80,000-seat 2012 stadium turning into a white elephant after the games. 80,000 seats is ...
