Invest & Fund Blog

Dairy Fields by Aspire Designer Homes

In the dynamic realm of property development, clients such as Aspire Designer Homes play a pivotal role in influencing the future of communities and meeting the diverse needs of homeowners, and that's why it was a privilege to work with them on their Dairy Fields project at Binney

Autumn Statement

This week's musings discuss the best rumours and whispers surrounding the Chancellor's Autumn statement. The statement is expected to land on November 22nd and to issue this with a sizable caveat; there is no requirement here for a spoiler warning. Nobody knows what it will contain,

Numbers go up.

In this week's blog, we again return to house prices to unpack the latest round of Nationwide stats and explore what this may mean for the market, what may be priced in, and how our predictions earlier in the year are playing out. Plunging straight into the data,

LABC Regional Award: Best Small New Housing Development: Lordswood Construction Ltd

One thing we are particularly proud of at Invest & Fund is the opportunity to work with fantastic businesses producing high-quality residential builds. It's lovely to see one of our long-term partners, Lordswood Construction LTD, has received the award of 'Best Small New Housing Development' from

Back in the New York Groove

In this week's blog, we begin over the pond in New York City and compare its retail rental market with London’s. The problems they have faced in the last year mirror our own domestic rental woes, but on a much larger scale, perhaps this is a glimpse

Confidence

At the point of writing, the hot topic of debate in the industry is, once again, inflation. The latest round of figures has come in flat, unchanged at 6.7% in the year up to September. The growing concern in the future is oil; with geo-political tensions and global conflicts

Keep building

At the time of writing, the Labour Party conference is well underway. With the housing and lending sectors being equally as keen to get a steer on what the future may hold after a regime change, we take the opportunity in this week's blog to unpack some of

Volcker Shock

At the time of writing, the decision had been voted on to hold the bank rate at its current level, deviating from the trend and allowing some optimism to return to the beleaguered mortgage market. NatWest and Nationwide have both cut rates, and the starting pistol may have been fired

Consensus Pick

At the time of writing, this week's first in two significant news announcements had just landed. At 6.7%, inflation data now shows that prices in the UK haven't continued to rise as quickly as previously feared, which may trigger a pause or at least a

Cooler heads prevail

At the time of writing, Andrew Bailey had stated to the select committee that rates were "much nearer" their peak than before. This is an interesting statement taken in isolation; you could argue that being perched on the Hillary Step is much nearer the summit of Everest than

Soft Landing

In this week's blog, we once again return to house prices ahead of the September 20th ONS data that will give the market a better steer on the rate of the retracement and what to expect in Q4 and beyond. We unpack how that will affect confidence in

Sold down the river

At the point of writing this week's blog, the latest round of government housing announcements pertains to removing environmental protections on the nutrient neutrality rules previously installed by Brussels. These rules were initially introduced to guarantee that property and commercial development schemes wouldn't cause unnecessary damage

Opposing views

In this week's blog, we look at a fundamental principle we have frequently proposed: building more houses will resolve the housing crisis. Interestingly, only some people believe this; after some brief research in what can only be dubbed a "lethargic news cycle pre-bank holiday" within the

Looking west

At the point of production for this week's blog, the breaking news is that house price inflation is finally showing signs of cooling, albeit slower than initially anticipated. The latest round of ONS data shows that house prices are below where they were at the peak of the

Brownfield

At the time of writing, Homes England has just announced a new £1 Billion brownfield land fund explicitly aimed at unlocking land fit to produce 40,000 new homes, prioritising local projects that can boost economic growth and increase supply in areas of low affordability. This action is overwhelmingly positive,

Housing hot takes

At the time of writing, the latest house price figures have been published, and an interesting phenomenon has occurred, multiple news outlets have published seemingly divergent commentaries entirely at odds with each other based on the same data sets. Depending on your periodical of choice, the light at the end

Stalemate

In this week's blog, we continue our "educated guesses" recaps and look at some of the day's big stories and how they may or may not fit into some of the big themes we have discussed over the last 12 months and what our

Educated Guesswork

In this week's blog, as a first in a series, we look back on some of the predictions and "educated guesses" we have made over the last 12 months of weekly blogs and what evidence we see of any of our musings coming to fruition. First

Alpha strategy

In this week's blog, as 2023 reaches its halfway point, many financial institutions and banks have posted their mid-year reports on the market, and their expert takes on where things are going next. We decided to run through a roundup of the top 4 and see what could

Dancing around the issues

At the time of writing, the Prime Minister has ruled out any support package to assist UK mortgage holders in tolerating the increased burden of further rate rises, so in this week's blog, we take a closer look at what this may mean for the broader housing market,

Rates

At the point of writing, the news headlines indicate that UK wages have risen at their fastest rate in 20 years as British workers continue to battle for a fairer pay deal. On the surface, this may seem like great news, but unfortunately, it's a further headache for

Planning ahead

When researching the pertinent topics of the day to talk about in our blogs, one alarming factor regarding the unfolding planning situation is that the same issues have been in the headlines every year since 2019, with the only real nuance being the severity of the problems ever increasing. This

This land is your land

At the time of writing, homebuilding is fast becoming one of the key political battlegrounds, with Labour stepping into the fray and announcing the promise of sweeping electoral reforms that will potentially uproot the  1961 Land Compensation Act and allow Councils to buy up land at the agricultural value rather

Lindy effect

In this week's blog, at the time of writing, two breaking stories of equal gravitas are battling it out to dominate the financial headlines; on the one hand, the IMF has announced that its upgraded its 2023 forecast for the UK, and even with a backdrop of high

Renters’ Reform Bill

At the time of writing, the long-awaited Renter's Reform Bill is poised to be debated in Parliament and with up to 30 back-bench rebels considering an opposing vote, citing the damage these reforms may have on the UK landlord sector, it's proving to be a very