Responses To Proposed Planning Reform
Following the white paper reforms to planning, we round up some of the responses by those in the industry. Yesterday the Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick (6 August) announced an overhaul to the planning system that would improve a currently “sluggish” systems and allow more development to take place quickly on brownfield sites, leaving green and […]
Consultation To Reform Planning System For The Future
Today, 6 August, Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick announced that an overhaul of the planning system is needed, to deliver “high-quality, sustainable homes communities need” and that need will be at the heart of “significant reforms” to housing policies. Stating the current situation is “sluggish” in providing homes and ineffective in obligating developers to properly fund […]
Sales In Offer Stage Overtake Number In Exchange And Completion
Property technology company Coadjute reports a significant rise in offers in the last week, alongside rises in registrations, sales enquires and viewings booked with estate agents. All point toward the continuing upwards trend in the property market, now rapidly filtering through to offer stage. An industry group formed by Coadjute – the Blockchain leader in […]
Ask An Expert: David Jabbari’s Confidence, Caution And Covid Variations
In our recent Ask an Expert series, Chris Harris interviews David Jabbari, CEO of innovative conveyancing provider Muve. The pair discuss the state of the market during the Covid-19 situation, the impact increasing mergers and acquisitions will have on the sector, the key conveyancing differentiators businesses need to consider and the importance of technology in […]
Keep The Momentum Of Digitisation Going Urges Industry Data Provider
The property sector must maintain the progress it has made in a very short space of time urges Search Acumen’s Andy Sommerville in an interview with Today’s Conveyancer discussing the release of their latest Conveyancing Tracker. Search Acumen’s Conveyancing Market Tracker was launched 5 years ago, tracking the volume of transactions completed by law firms […]
Active Conveyancing Firms Fall To Lowest Recorded Levels
The number of active conveyancing firms in the UK has fallen to its lowest ever levels since the tracker was launched in 2011. At the start of 2020, there were 4,135 active conveyancing firms. However, by the end of January, as Covid-19 started to take hold in the UK, this figure had fallen to 3,726 […]
Conveyancing Hit Four Year High And Seven Year Low In Q1
Search Acumen Conveyancing Market Tracker – Q1 2020 edition 236,641 transactions registered in England and Wales during Q1 2020, up 5% from 226,444 in Q4 2019 – helped by a brief post-election bounce – but down 8% year-on-year January recorded the greatest number of monthly transactions (104,325) since April 2016 March saw just 55,381 transactions […]
Pre-Coronavirus Transactions Continued Post-Brexit Recovery
UK property transactions increased in February as the pre-Corona virus property market continued to recover from long-term Brexit uncertainty. HM Revenue and Customs’ UK Property Transactions Statistics for February highlight the continued UK recovery from a market flattened by worries surrounding Brexit. The 103, 870 residential transactions represented a 4.5 per cent increase on January’s […]
The Housing Secretary’s Ambitious Future Building Plans
The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) announced big plans to bring Britain’s building industry into the 21st century. In order to get the country building, Housing Secretary, Robert Jenrick MP has unveiled proposals to bring the country’s planning system up to date. The proposals set out to encourage developers to build upwards […]
Increased January Transactions Indicate Continued Recovery
The UK’s housing market recovery continued in January with HM Revenue and Customs data highlighting significant transnational increases at the start of the calendar year. The 102,810 residential seasonally adjusted transactions in January 2020 appear to be 5.2 per cent higher than a year ago and have increased by 4.1 per cent in the past […]
Conveyancing Market Suffers Worst Conditions Since 2009
The conveyancing sector suffered its worse quarterly performance since 2009 in the final quarter of 2019. According to Search Acumen’s ‘Conveyancing Market Tracker’, the 226,444 quarterly transactions between October and December represented the lowest levels since 2009. The figures also indicated a 15 per cent fall on the 267,438 final quarter transactions from 2018 and […]
Conveyancing Market Nose-Dives In Q4
Coveyancing Market Nose-Dives in Q4 As Policitcal Uncertainty Quashes Transaction Volumes And Active Firms Search Acumen Conveyancing Market Tracker – Q4 2019 edition Quarterly transactions down by 8% in Q4 to the lowest level since Q2 2017 Number of active firms now at 3,920 – a record low and 5% down in the last 12 […]
Conveyancing Heavyweights Set To Merge
Two major high street conveyancing providers are exploring a potential merger, according to the Gazette. Sources close to the legal publication believe McMillan Williams and Taylor Rose TTKW are considering joining forces to create ‘a conveyancing powerhouse.’ It is thought negotiations started over the weekend and are likely to be ongoing all week. The deal […]
Construction Sector Increased By 2.5% in 2019
Despite the political strangle hold Brexit placed on the property sector in 2019, the construction sector grew by 2.5% over the course of the year. Overall, the construction sector’s value rose to its highest recorded level of £13,949 million, according to ONS’s ‘Construction output in Great Britain: December 2019 and new orders October to December […]
Private New Housing Investment Triples Since 2013
Total housing output has experienced strong and sustained growth since 2013. Over the past decade, private investment in new housing has tripled from £1.145 billion in 2010 to £3.025 billion at the end of 2019, according to ONS data. Similarly, new housing investment has almost doubled from £342 million to £588 million in November 2019. […]
Younger Owner Occupiers Increase In 2018-19
Schemes to help younger home owners purchase their own property could be reaping rewards as the latest English Housing Survey indicates that more people under the age of 34 are now classed as owner occupiers. The research, released by the Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government (MHCLG), found the proportion of 25-34 year olds […]
Convey Choice Delights In Playing Key Role In First Ever Digitised End To End Property Transaction
Convey Choice delights in playing key role in first ever digitised end to end property transaction Completed last week, the digitised property transaction reduced time to exchange of contracts from an industry average of 63 days to just 11 days and marks a turning point in terms of revolutionising the conveyancing process. Frustrated by the […]
UK Construction Increases In November
The UK construction sector enjoyed the largest monthly growth in November since January 2019. According to recent Office for National Statistics (ONS) data, the 1.9% increase in construction activity in November was the single largest increase since the 2.4% increase in January 2019. The data will also be a welcome relief, going some way to […]
ONS Construction Output In Great Britain
Andy Sommerville, Director at Search Acumen, comments: “The UK construction industry stands on a threshold – advancing forwards to achieve new heights or slipping backwards to stagnation. Growth has been slow, but the UK construction market still stands tall in Europe. While the volume of construction orders has advanced only incrementally in the past year, […]
House Price Growth Falls To Seven Year Low
According to the Office for National Statistics’ UK House Price Index, house prices increased by 0.7% in the year to October. The latest figures also suggest that growth has fallen by 1% since the start of 2019 and over 7% since the referendum result in 2016. In the year to August, volume transactions fell by […]