April 14, 2014
A Post-Christmas Carol
God bless us, every one!” cried Tiny Tim at the end of Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, at which point the reader could safely put down the book, with a glisten in his or her eye, and reflect on how well everything had turned out. And so it seems wi… Read more
March 14, 2014
The rain in Spain stays mainly on the plain
Spring has sprung and, at the time of writing, the rain seems to have gone to Spain. This makes quite a welcome change for the south of England, which has had the wettest winter since records began, and has left the local councils in the West Countr… Read more
April 18, 2012
Spring forward, Fall back
In years gone by the seasons were predictable, and spring officially started when the clocks went forward by an hour and autumn arrived when the clocks went back, giving most of the country the luxury of an extra hour in bed. Lately, however, the se… Read more
October 21, 2011
Kiss me, Hardy
In 1801, when ordered to disengage the Danish fleet at the Battle of Copenhagen, Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson famously put his telescope to his blind eye and uttered the apocryphal remark that he could “see no ships” before him. In all likelihood… Read more
June 2, 2011
Changing trends
We constantly talk about the lack of supply and this year it is worse than ever, not helped by the late Easter and three weeks in a row with bank holidays. Add to that the general uncertainty of the economy and job security and it is not surprising … Read more
November 25, 2010
The London Roller Coaster
It’s tough to remember a financial rollercoaster ride more violent than the one that the poor old London property market has been on over the last forty-eight months. We have seen the net effects of the last ten-year boom bust and recovery of 1985… Read more
March 2, 2010
The best and the rest
The question that has all house-buyers chewing their fingernails is whether ‘now’ is the right time to buy? Are prices just about to soar, or will things get cheaper if they wait? At the beginning of last year there was doom and gloom and it loo… Read more
October 20, 2009
Central London Property Market Review
In spring 2008, I commented that it felt as though we were being visited by the old Chinese curse “may you live in interesting times” and, whilst it was then pretty clear in the aftermath of the nationalisation of Northern Rock that ‘some-thin… Read more
March 10, 2008
Interesting times…
Legend has it that there is a notorious ancient Chinese curse that says “may you live in interesting times” which, as curses go, sounds like a mild form of punishment but becomes more worrying, the longer one thinks about it. A little like the w… Read more
June 14, 2007
The Prime Country House Market
Over the thirty years I have been involved in the market, there has always been a question at the end of each year as to what house prices will do the following spring when the market emerges from its winter hibernation. Read more