markybwoy

Yes, that is the correct way to calculate yield and I expect that historically London yields have been higher than the wider UK average of the miserable 2.4% (that takes in some unpopular areas where the housing market does not work properly) However, as Huguenot hints, your calculation does not include letting fees, maintenance, furniture, white goods, insurance, void periods. Yields as well as multiples will return to approximately their historic averages, it is inevitable now the air pumping up the bubble has been taken away [abruptly].

"'The UK's property market has a better chance of bouncing back before other countries because "we failed" to build enough houses, Gordon Brown has said" What a load of cr#p! There are 840,000 empty homes in the UK today, 4% of our total stock. If there was a shortage of homes, why is Paddington Basin pitch dark at night and why are the centres of Leeds, Birmingham and Manchester packed with blocks of empty unsaleable and unlettable flats? The housing bubble has many causes, cheap credit, poor lending decisions, government forcing interest rates too low etc. If you want to see where your house price is going, calculate the ED Median Multiple. Take the median household income in your area (of similar homes) and divide by median house price. The result should be about 3. If you think you are "typical" in East Dulwich, multiply your annual salary before tax by 3 and that's the rough price range your home will be worth after the correction works itself out over the next 2 or 3 years. In many areas of London, the MM is more than 5, meaning house prices in those areas will fall by 60% from their 2007 peak before the bubble is deflated. Average house price yield since 1975 has been 2.4% a year, not the crazy 10-20% we have had in the years running up to the bust.

Tinkering with pavement furniture, kerbs, bollards, humps and bumps, pelicans etc is not going to address the root cause of this anti-social behaviour. Put speed traps up all over the place, snap everyone doing 25mph in the 20 zone, or 35 in the 30 zone, instant ₤150 fine in the post. You'd only need to run it one day a month to start to affect behaviour. Also, our council tax would be slashed by all the extra money coming in.

Well yes, I'm sure they won't keep the number of aircraft exactly the same with a brand new runway. However, increasing 2 runways to 3 doesn't means a linear increase in traffic at all times of the day. There are planes circling overhead at peak times that would be landed more quickly and quietly with less queueing. Also, there are government regulations in place regarding available slots.

Heathrow is already running at over capacity for runway time, so I doubt they can squeeze many more aircraft. The point is that if there's more runway time available then they won't have to stack round and round over East London as much before going into that final approach path shown so nicely by all those red lines above.

Nonsense. Another runway at Heathrow means less time on approach not more.

Plain Stupid more like. Aviation accounts for less than 2% of "emissions" (if you believe carbon dioxide is a pollutant). And that figure is falling. Electricity generation is the area you need to look at if you think this is an issue.

The Times is reporting on this today as well http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/law/article3438415.ece So even the government is gunning for Foxtons. Why have they been singled out? The OFT report even says that their problem is "widespread in the lettings industry". So why aren't they prosecuting all the other estate agents and not just Foxtons? It's discrimination! Foxtons needs our help. Please help your local Foxtons. Call in to your local branch as ask to adopt an agent?

Er... why are Foxtons so terrible? It's just an estate agent. Sure, some estate agents are corrupt, some are lazy, some have unpleasant personalities, but most are just normal folks. All they do is marketing. What's so bad about marketing?