Northern property
Dresdner Kleinwort's construction analysts have been touring property agents and consultants in Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds and Sheffield. The six leading property agents in Leeds have sold 6 new apartments between them in the last two months. Barratt in Yorkshire is offering discounts of up to 43% on bulk buys of at least 5 units. In all four cities, agents spoke of massive over-supply of apartments; developers selling at virtually any price to shift their stock of flats; virtually all forthcoming new developments mothballed; signs of the biggest listed housebuilders descending into severe financial difficulties; residential sales staff numbers being cut by around two-thirds and a complete freezing up of the land market. Generally lenders were insisting on deposits of at least 25% for flats, with very vigorous valuation criteria.
posted by Whispering Walls at 10:15 am
4 Comments:
Well there's a surprise.
But lets just look at it.Discount of 43%? Well, lop off 25% for developers profit and another 10% for marketing, leaves a discount of 13% - not much against an expectation of houses dropping by up to 40%. In reality, these guys should be offereing 65% off their headline price - and there are stories already of 55% discounts overall.
I wonder who will profit from all this. I'm dizzy at just looking at all those figures kinglear has written, but I'm sure he is right.
Hi KL & Ellee - what you say is intersting KL. I suppose the winners will be those with cash which isn't held in dodgy banks. Did you see that Luqman Arnold's stake in UBS is now frozen in Lehmans?
ww - i like it.
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