london: For the lolz :) Hugh Grant and Sam Elliott shave off a Movember supporter's moustache! - 12/21/09 01:36 AM
It's been a while since I posted on ActiveRain, but I know a lot of ActiveRainers were proud supporters of Movember so I thought I'd share this video of my buddy here in London (but from North Carolina....hence the lack of suave British accent!) persuading Hugh Grant to shave off his 'tache on the red carpet...yes, really! When I have something interesting and real estate related to post, I will. But I'm too excited about being in Orange County for Christmas to think too businessy right now ;D Merry Christmas! <3 … (2 comments)

london: I may not be at Connect, but I have American candy! - 07/25/08 02:24 AM
Well I'm kinda overexcited right now, I just got a big delivery of groceries from my gorgeous friends Gia and Grant from Realseekr.com. I can't put into words how excited I am about my new goodies, so I made a video instead.....and to all those who have been waiting to hear my British accent - enjoy! LOL!!! … (15 comments)

london: 40% of British homebuyers lose their nerve before sale completes... - 07/23/08 09:38 PM
According to new figures from the Bank of England, in some parts of the UK as many as four in ten homebuyers pull out before they complete. I’m seriously resisting a sexual innuendo here, immature I know! The Bank of England said…
“‘In the market for established homes, more transactions were falling through, with some estate agents reporting a cancellation rate of up to 40 per cent recently. That was partly due to the unwillingness of many sellers to accept a lower offer.”
But, understandably, many are resisting buying now in the hope for a better bargain later down the line, … (25 comments)

london: A walk around London, England... (LOCALISM FEATURED) - 07/14/08 04:41 PM
I guess this would be a Localism post, but my neck o' the woods doesn't feature on Localism. That's one of the downsides of being a British gal posing as an Anaheim resident! But I thought I'd give y'all a little insight into my part of the world anyway, the glorious capital of the United Kingdom! Maybe this will even be the first of a series of London posts? Who knows. Thanks to Carolyn for the inspiration!
 

I live and work right by here, Tower Bridge. It's one of our most iconic landmarks so it can be battle to … (81 comments)

london: Starbucks and real estate... - 07/08/08 12:21 AM
In the Western world, Starbucks are everywhere. If you walk past a Starbucks and decide you fancy a mocha caramel extra shot wotsit but the queue looks too long, you can pretty much say ‘Meh, we’ll go to the next one’, knowing that in 5 minutes you’ll be at another one of their establishments. I’m pretty sure London has the highest Starbucks concentration in the world, there’s definitely far more than in Manhattan. If you stand on Oxford Street today, you have a choice of 139 Starbucks stores within a five mile radius. So as you can see, there are quite … (11 comments)

london: The latest stats show that 'prime central London' is taking a hit... - 07/02/08 03:09 AM
Last week, Savills reported a decline in prime central London property values of 5.5% over the second quarter of 2008 (read the full story here). Today, Knight Frank have published their results which are similar, but not quite as stark.
According to Knight Frank figures, the monthly fall in property prices in prime central London accelerated in June, from a 1.5% decline in May to a 1.7% decline over the past month. Prices have now fallen for two consecutive months and are now 3.1% lower than three months ago, and although this quarterly decline is not as drastic as the one … (2 comments)

london: The property news stories that are engaging us today in the UK... - 06/19/08 11:34 PM
Monthly outgoings soar 26%. According to Combined Insurance, the amount people spend on bills and living costs has risen from a monthly average of £945 in June 2006 to £1,281 today. Higher energy and housing costs take the brunt of the blame, personally I’m finding increasingly expensive Starbucks visits to be the root of my money troubles. Why I pay over £3 a day for a tall mocha light Crackuccino is beyond me. Read more at MSN. 5 things to look out for as the housing market and UK economy gets sadder. Repossessions and laughable help for mortgage payers being just … (0 comments)

london: Monday morning property news from the other side of the globe :-) - 06/15/08 09:23 PM
Consumers are cutting back when moving home. A survey by Lloyds TSB has found that one in ten homeowners are planning to sell their property without the aid of an estate agent to help cut costs. Over half of all those surveyed said they wouldn’t be hiring removal men, opting instead for doing the shlepping themselves to save the pennies. Read more at HouseFund. New homes slump worst since 1945. 100,000 construction jobs are expected to go this year as the number of new homes being built plummets to its lowest level since 1945. Read more at The Guardian. Review calls … (8 comments)

london: I've been using Twitter for two weeks, so what do I think? - 06/09/08 04:04 AM
On Saturday afternoon, I was pretty much lazing around on my laptop and watching TV with no plans for anything cooler than that. On Saturday night, I went to Ultimate Fighting Championship at the O2 Centre in London with the CEO and COO of Zappos.com, partied with fighters and sponsors and eventually ended up in Mo*Vida for Mike Bisping’s after party. I had an amazing night and I have a strange source to thank…Twitter. By now most people have heard of Twitter, whether or not they use it or think it has any use for them is a different story. I … (8 comments)

london: Home improvement costs up by 20% in the UK... - 06/02/08 10:27 PM
According to new figures released today by RICS’ Building Costs Information Service, the average cost of home improvement work in the United Kingdom has risen by 20% over the past two years. The main causes of this increase being rising prices of oil and raw materials combined with cheap Eastern European tradesmen returning home. As we reported a while back, the number of Poles leaving Britain (now around half of the estimated one million who had come to the UK) was always going to drive up labour costs. Now it seems we’re feeling the affects.
Repairing overflowing gutters typically cost between … (2 comments)

london: British property news in a nutshell - Thursday 29/05/08 - 05/29/08 12:32 AM
Lots of activerainers contact me saying they're interested in finding out how the British property market is getting along in these difficult days, so I'm going to start doing a daily round up of the key goings on here on this little island! It may not all be relevant to you, but I firmly believe there's always a possibility to learn from each others markets - heck that's why I'm on this US site in the first place :-)
So, here's our hot property stories of the day...
House prices fall at fastest rate since records began. Okay that’s not necessarily … (4 comments)

london: Regional press suffering from a lack of property advertisers... - 05/22/08 09:53 PM
Sorry I haven't been here for a while, I've been finishing off my degree in Eastern European specialised Economics and it's been pretty tough! But I'm back now and hope to regularly update you with real estate news, trends and advice from London,UK :-D
For my first post back I'm going to focus on something dear to my heart, online property advertising. Regardless of any downturn in the property market, we’ve known for a long time now that press advertising was going to fall out of favour with agents. Advertising properties online allows anyone in the world to see your properties … (2 comments)

london: Let Google second guess you... - 04/11/08 06:17 AM
Google Suggest is one of my favourite products currently in Google ‘Labs’ mode. It’s very simple really, Google offers you suggestions for what you might like to search for in real time as you type in your query. Just typing in the letter M brings up a suggestion for MySpace, as the clever Googlebot has worked out that this is what you’re most likely to be looking for.
Now Google won’t just suggest anything, there has to be a high probability that the suggestion will be accurate. So I was very pleased to see that Zoomf now appears as an official … (40 comments)

london: Lunt - What's in a name? - 04/09/08 10:43 PM
When I was little I remember reading in Smash Hits magazine (a fine publication) that a girl had persuaded those who lived in her cul-de-sac to officially change the street name to ‘Spice Girls Close’. I was insanely jealous and expected my parents to move across the country immediately just so I could live in a street named after every 10 year old girl’s heroes. We didn’t move, I quickly got over it.
There are plenty of wonderfully weirdly named places in Great Britain, be it Donkey Town in Surrey or Splatt in Somerset. I certainly wouldn’t want to live in … (4 comments)

london: Zoomf, The Rebirth - 03/19/08 03:23 AM
Sounds like the name of the latest summer blockbuster, I envisage Zoomf being some sort of crazy alien that Sigourney Weaver spends 90 minutes trying to decapitate. But it’s not a movie, it’s just me announcing the latest redesign here at Zoomf towers.
For those of you who just know me as 'that girl that posts from London', Zoomf is the real estate search engine I work for. We always try to improve our product, but this redesign is the most significant in a while. New bits and pieces are being added as we speak so I’ll do a proper round … (2 comments)

london: UK Economy News, Budget 2008 has been announced...excuse me while I don't get excited. - 03/12/08 05:13 AM
Today is a big day in the United Kingdom. Today is the day the Chancellor of the Exchequer reveals the Budget.
Part of me feels like the only reason I started studying Economics was because one day I wanted to be the girl who held up that dashing red briefcase. Now, not so much. Who wants a handbag which you can only take out once a year? Well today the red case was proudly displayed, Alistair Darling’s first Budget was never going to be terribly exciting. The main highlights being an increase of 4p on every pint of beer, 14p on … (2 comments)

london: Don't judge a house by its door... - 03/05/08 03:11 AM
It doesn’t have quite the same ring to it as the famous ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’ phrase, but it seems that we are being a little bit prejudiced when it comes to house-hunting.
It can be very distracting to be viewing a house with horrifically ugly furniture, and some people will need the agent to keep reminding them that the heinous floral sofa won’t be there if you choose to move in. On the other side of the coin there are the super DIYers that have mastered the art of walking into a house with molding bathroom walls … (20 comments)

london: I live in Britian - GET ME OUTTA HERE!!! - 02/21/08 11:31 PM
Writing from the UK...giving an insight into our market :-D
The title is not the name of the latest prime time reality TV show, it is in fact the sad reality that the UK is facing as more and more of the talented workforce up and leave.
The UK has won the disappointing title of having lost the highest number of qualified professionals in the world to other countries, more than one in ten clever Brits have taken their skills elsewhere and now 3.247 million Britons live abroad. The level of people packing up and getting out is at its highest in 50 years. We've even beaten Mexico.
But is it surprising? … (5 comments)

london: Disgustingly expensive British properties... - 02/20/08 03:17 AM
Who remembers the year 2000? We approached it with such trepidation, terrified every computer in the country would become infested by the ‘millennium bug’.
Well, back then there were 322 streets in the UK where the average property fetched in excess of a million pounds. Today, you would expect that figure to have grown but you may be surprised by just how much. It’s now a staggering 2,183 streets (at least) that have an average price of 1 million pounds.
As much anxiety as there has been over City bonuses recently, estate agents estimate that £5bn worth of bonus money was … (5 comments)

london: British agents can't sell their houses, whilst one clever Brit doesn't pay for his house at all! - 02/12/08 09:41 PM
UK property ‘news' of late has seemed, to me at least, to be a little lacklustre on the ‘news' front. Most stories being a confirmation of house prices going down from another lender, survey or what have you. But there have been some interesting tales dotted around...
We all know the story on the house prices, but today we learnt the full extent of unsold stock on estate agent books. The average number of unsold properties per surveyor is 85, a number that hasn't been reached since Febraury 1999, and it's a 40% jump since September of last year.
It might seem like the perfect time to … (12 comments)