Good morning.
Red wall Tories have called for a cut in business rates(£), claiming the much-hated tax hits retailers in the North and Midlands hardest. The powerful group is insisting the chancellor takes action in his Budget this month.
Meanwhile, fewer retailers are paying their rent on time(£) than at the height of the pandemic.
And Virgin Money(£) has said it will close a fifth(£) of its “stores“.
More than 700,000 people could be at risk of losing their jobs(£), hours or earnings as the furlough scheme(£) comes to an end today.
But house prices are still rising. Nationwide says it is harder to raise a deposit(£) now than ever before…
… as it launches a sub-1% buy-to-let mortgage(£).
And only 9% of homes will escape stamp duty(£), as the threshold reverts to £125,000.
With all that in mind, The Times (£) asks: are house prices heading for a fall in the fall?
The RICS has publicly apologised to the four non-execs at the heart of its governance scandal, and has dropped Fieldfisher as its legal adviser.
Property investor and Tory donor Malcolm Offord(£) has been handed a peerage and made a minister, in a move that immediately resulted in accusations of cronyism.
BGO and Welput will bring forward their 470,000 sq ft 105 Victoria Street development as London’s largest speculative office scheme since the pandemic, and the largest all-electric office in the UK.
PwC, meanwhile, wants to create a tech hub(£) at its Manchester office, with plans to hire 1,000 more staff.
Panther Securities was one of the best-performing real estate stocks yesterday, up by almost 8% on the back of interim results that showed it back in the black. NewRiver REIT gained 3.5% to hit a month-and-a-half high of 83.3p.
But the markets are still jittery as Evergrande(£) misses another interest payment. Distressed debt funds(£) are buying up its bonds, betting that Beijing will be forced to bail out the developer.
The stakes are high for Beijing, as The FT (£) notes that nearly 30% of China’s GDP is dependent on real estate. It is understandable that president Xi Jinping wants to “rebalance” the economy – but to what?
And finally, for around £60,000 you could snap up a piece of Britain’s collective childhood – Winnie the Pooh’s pooh-sticks bridge(£) is up for auction. The bridge, which crossed a river in Ashdown Forest, East Sussex, is reportedly where many of Pooh’s adventures began. But, caveat emptor. This is just the bridge(£) we are talking about. It was moved into storage back in 1999 to make way for a new bridge – the one that currently stands in the Hundred Acre Wood. What is for sale is just the bridge – no land, no river, just wood – much of which was replaced in 1979. Surely only a bear of little brain would buy that – there is an old adage about being sold a bridge, after all. Still the vendor has said he will happily take it apart and reassemble the pile of sticks elsewhere. At Pooh Corner, perhaps?
