Author: |Posted: 5:57 pm on 23/12/08
Category: christmas
Just a quick note from the 4Homes team to wish everyone a very merry Christmas and a prosperous new year.
It’s been a rocky year for the property market, but we’ll be back strong in 2009 to bring you all the latest on house prices, the state of the market, the hottest interior trends, and some fantastic Channel 4 property programming.
Best wishes to all,
The 4Homes team.
Author: |Posted: 2:19 pm on 17/12/08
Category: Buying & Selling, House Prices, On TV
Brookside Close, the set of Channel 4’s famous and long-running soap opera, has gone under the hammer… read more
Author: |Posted: 12:55 pm on 09/12/08
Category: Architecture, On TV, Style
Despite my obvious bias, I genuinely really, really enjoyed the preview copy of tonight’s opening episode of Country House Rescue. Why?
Author: |Posted: 11:58 am on 05/12/08
Category: christmas, christmas gifts, credit crunch
We love a bargain, and our Christmas pages are packed with affordable and fabulous gift ideas. But if you’re stuck for something last minute, we’ve just heard about www.grabitnow.com, a site that sells different stock every day at massively discounted prices. Today, for example, it’s family PC games for a tenner. Loving that credit crunch!
Author: |Posted: 10:01 am on 04/12/08
Category: Buying & Selling, House Prices, Property & Money, Uncategorized, credit crunch
The Bank of England is today expected to cut rates again today, with experts predicting that the cut could be up to another one per cent – more than that and it would take rates to their lowest since the Bank was founded over three hundred years ago.
But will it make that much difference in the short term to the homeowner? Last month’s shock base rate cut of 1.5 per cent was not passed on in full by a staggering 75 per cent of mortgage lenders, although 92 per cent of them passed the cut on in full to their savers.
Michelle Slade, analyst at Moneyfacts.co.uk, says, ‘Both borrowers and savers have been penalised following the last base rate cut and it is hard to believe that it will be any different if base rate is cut again. Many of the large high street banks passed the cuts on equally to SVRs (standard variable rates) and savers. However, Barclays Bank, through its Woolwich brand, failed to pass on any cut to its SVR, but cut its savings rates by up to 1.75 per cent.’
Forgive us if we don’t throw our hats in the air with joy just yet – we’ll wait and see how generous the banks are this time first.
Author: |Posted: 12:41 pm on 03/12/08
Category: Property & Money, credit crunch
La Manga offers everything upmarket British tourists could wish for. Pristine golf courses, a five-star hotel that pulls in celebrities as well as well-heeled tourists, and a raft of property developments overlooking a relatively undeveloped stretch of Spanish coastline, and treasured for its spas, clipped lawns and attentive bell hops. But La Manga is rapidly going the way of Woolworths and MFI over here – dragged down by historic debt run up during one of the longest booms in living memory.
Did the owners of La Manga, which is in the Spanish region of Murcia, ever wonder what would happen if the tourist market took a turn for the worse? It would appear that they didn’t, or perhaps that they over-relied on the cheap credit that we have all taken for granted over the past decade. A couple of years ago finding a bank to restructure a €97 million debt (which La Manga has) would have been a formality – today no one – it appears at the moment – will lend it a penny and the resort, although still functioning, is now in financial difficulties. How many more of these debt-laden Mediterranean super-resorts will soon follow suit? See aplaceinthesun.com for the full story.
Author: |Posted: 6:15 pm on 01/12/08
Category: Architecture, On TV, Style
Coming soon to Channel 4 will be Country House Rescue, an all-new show fronted by former Channel 5 Hotel Inspector Ruth Watson.
Without giving too much away, the premise of the show will be that Ruth tries to help the owners of large country estates that are losing vast sums of money and are simply too expensive to maintain. Ruth’s job is to help these people develop new revenue streams so that the houses don’t fall into disrepair and their owners aren’t bankrupted trying to maintain the period magnificence of their properties.
Ruth Watson assures me that the homeowners are generally real characters and make for great viewing. Although I haven’t seen any episodes yet, I have seen countless photos of the featured properties and they are all amazing – beautiful, huge period country houses with fantastic gardens, acres of grounds etc. I think this show could be a very good one, and with Ruth on board the potential for laughs is always there.
You can read more about the show and get top tips from Ruth Watson and an exclusive interview about the series on the new Country House Rescue website.
Country House Rescue starts on 9th December at 9pm on Channel 4.
