D&G London Property Blog| London Property Market News| Douglas and Gordon

Social Media is a real Catch 22

Monday, May 14, 2012 by
Ed Mead
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Social Media……the Catch 22 is that in businesses that think they need it the bosses probably feel it’s for their kids, and those young enough to understand and use it probably couldn’t give a toss about the sort of businesses that could benefit from it. Symposiums on... ...read more

Stamp Duty thresholds help lazy estate agents

Monday, April 23, 2012 by
Ed Mead
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There seems to be an awful lot of confusion and taking advantage by those seeking to manipulate the SDLT thresholds. Much is said about activity around the £250k/£500k/£1m/£2m figures but there’s a lot that isn’t said that merits discussion. Let’s start with... ...read more

Business angels who lend for development as alternative to high street banks muzzled by Revenue

Friday, March 30, 2012 by
Ed Mead
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As we all know funding has become more and more of a problem for those seeking to develop property. As mainstream funders have dried up other sources have sprung up, many imaginative and altogether more flexible. High net worth individuals have been seeking, since absolute returns plunged to zero or... ...read more

Almost no one has understood quite how appalling Stamp Duty changes were in the Budget.

Thursday, March 22, 2012 by
Ed Mead
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The sound of people working out what to do is palpable. The sound of people exhaling thinking they’ve just dodged a bullet is too. But most of them are wrong and simply haven’t understood what happened yesterday in the Budget. In fact many people have totally missed the point and the... ...read more

A week seems a bloody long time in the Central London Property Market

Tuesday, March 20, 2012 by
Ed Mead
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A week might be a long time in politics but it seems like a bloody long time in the central London property market too. When I went away (OK, it was two weeks) the market was showing a few signs of life but after a lacklustre 2011 it did seem that perhaps 2012 might be another drab year. Its early... ...read more

Be careful what you believe, not all agents tell the truth.

Friday, February 17, 2012 by
Ed Mead
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Why does anyone bother to use the discredited currency that is statistics. Listening to Ed “Wallace” Miliband (You think that’s bad, try the prospect of Prime Minister Balls) sparring with Dave at PMQs not only are the figures meaningless, but they’re often not even understood... ...read more

Buy to let could be the cure not the cause of our ills

Monday, January 09, 2012 by
Ed Mead
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Ed Hammond of the FT writing in Saturday’s Weekend section mentioned in passing that buy to let “speculators” were partly to blame for the housing crash we saw in 2008. I would beg to differ. The issues raised by rising prices may or may not have anything to do with buy to let... ...read more

Can we have our Knightsbridge streets back please......

Thursday, November 10, 2011 by
Ed Mead
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Needing to buy a birthday present for my brother in law I thought I’d wander up to an overpriced field sports shop in Knightsbridge. I might as well have gone to Doha, although it could just as easily have been Rome, Athens, Paris or Sydney. I felt like a foreigner and have to say I came back... ...read more

So why is the sales market stalling

Friday, October 14, 2011 by
Ed Mead
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In the Times today Anne Ashworth talks about the uselessness (my word) of House Price indices, even the CLG ones. Most of them don’t give you any useable objective data, although there are plenty of pundits out there attempting to prove their efficacy. But CLG reporting a 0.6% rise in... ...read more

Why does HMG spend millions on house buying symptoms when we all know the cure

Tuesday, September 20, 2011 by
Ed Mead
1 comments

What a load of guff, of course the practice given the name gazanging [sellers pulling out because they can’t find anything to buy] this week has been around for aeons, and surfaces whenever supply is short. In normal market conditions such practices are short lived, but this is not a normal... ...read more