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New Zealand's major cities are in the grip of a rental squeeze that is not only hitting students, but also pensioners and young professionals working as teachers, chefs and engineers.The demand has sent national rents soaring to...
The Rail Delivery Group’s so-called new deal is the opposite of fare simplication
The latest attempt to simplify our crazily complex rail ticketing system, hailed as a “once in a generation reform” is nothing of the sort. It is tinkering at the margins, which will result in some passengers being a little better off, a few a little worse off and Britain’s railway system still egregiously expensive and unfit for purpose.
The Rail Delivery Group’s (RDG’s) new deal largely consists of part-time season tickets, a guarantee that passengers will get the cheapest prices and smartphone-based ticketing across the UK.
Related: Rail industry proposes best fare guarantee in pricing overhaul
Related: UK house prices raised age of ownership by eight years since 1997
In 2018 buyers were 34 before half had bought their own home; in 1997 the age was 26
Britain’s increasingly unaffordable housing market has delayed the age when most adults become homeowners by at least eight years since 1997, according to official figures.
Among one of several signals that young adults are being forced to wait until much later in life to reach key milestones, the Office for National Statistics said it took until the age of 34 for more than half of the population to own their own home, compared to 26 in 1997.
The house and its colourful swimming pool featured in C4 television show 'Love It or List It', with Phil Spencer describing it as being ' like Hugh Hefner's Surrey retreat'.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom and wife Jennifer Siebel Newsom, maker of documentary films, have listed their home in Kentfield, Calif., for sale at $5.995 million.
Walls of glass bring views of San Francisco Bay, Mt. Tamalpais and the backyard swimming pool into the two-story wood-clad house, which...
A high-end Queenstown home on the market is distinctive for both its character and thermal efficiency.Built in Hawthorn Estates, in Dalefield, by Dowling Construction & Development (DCD), it's been owner Dennis Dowling's family...
For three men in their mid-20s, the goal was leaving dormlike life behind. Now they have a “hangout apartment” in the financial district.
A challenge to build the most spacious cabin possible while still small enough to avoid council red tape has spawned a new Northland business venture. The Tube Room started from a discussion between builder Mark Christiansen and...
Actress Vanessa Hudgens has listed her home in the foothills of Studio City for sale at $3.895 million.
At the heart of the Mediterranean showplace is a sweeping staircase leading to the second floor. Its wrought-iron railing echoes the ironwork on the front door. A variety of doorways in arch...
Reader inherited a flat in Athens 15 years ago and is now looking to buy a flat in London
Q I inherited a flat in Athens when my mum passed away over 15 years ago. I moved to London in 2010 and I have been renting here ever since. The flat in Athens has been let out since 2014. This flat is also mortgaged as I took out a loan in 2005 to fund my masters degree.
I have now managed to get enough money together to put down as a deposit on a flat in London and I am trying to figure out if I have to pay the higher rate of stamp duty or not and what can I do to avoid this.
Hilltop, a Lake Arrowhead estate once owned by MCA co-founder Jules Stein, has come on the market at $14.25 million.
The 3.85-acre compound, which the tax assessor dates to 1935, was a getaway for such Hollywood elite as actors Cary Grant, Rock Hudson and Marilyn Monroe during Stein’s time. Although...
Construction company and materials manufacturer and distributor Fletcher Building could declare an interim result 10 per cent down due to a cement plant outage, the slowing Australian economy and lower land development profits.Fletcher,...
A capital gains tax would "add huge complexity to one of the world's simplest tax systems" according to an Auckland-based investment expert, but a chief banking economist disagrees and backs its introduction.Paul Glass, executive...
Going plastic free starts with cloth bags and straws. Suddenly, you’re … making your own toothpaste?
Samsung’s new service allows people to bond over their choice of perishables. Time to throw out those mouldy vegetables
If you are single and looking for a cool new way to meet people, Samsung has just the thing. The electronics company recently launched Refrigerdating, a service that matches you with dates based on what is inside your fridge. It’s like Tinder but you swipe through pictures of food, rather than faces. “We hope people can meet under more honest or transparent circumstances with the help of the contents of the fridge, because that can tell you a lot about the personality,” a PR manager explained.
Speaking of transparent, Samsung didn’t launch this site for the love of matchmaking; it is a promotional tactic for its multi-thousand-pound smart fridges.
Some plants can no longer survive in the wild, but hand-pollinated seeds allow them to live on in your home patch
There is something fascinatingly weird about us gardeners. For as much as horticulture is all about the therapeutic art of nurturing and caring for plants, it is also often just as much about the feverish need to amass collections of them.
From the 19th-century oligarchs who would send teams of plant hunters to scour the earth for the undiscovered to 21st-century urban flat dwellers like me who will spend hours (and far too much money) on internet auction sites and rare plant markets to track down elusive varieties, this pursuit of rarity seems for many an intrinsic part of what it is to be a gardener. All too often, however, this desire can put pressure on wild populations, as plants are over-collected to fuel this insatiable demand.
Recent residential sales in New York City and the region.
Tenants and others who found unusual ways to keep a roof over their head in an era of record costs
Renting a property in the UK can be a bleak business. The average monthly rent rose to £932 last month and in London it is even more expensive at £1,588, according to new figures. It is of little surprise then that more young people are choosing to stay in the family home. Recent research showed nearly a million more young adults live with their parents than was the case two decades ago. The proportion of people aged 20 to 34 who live with their parents has risen from 19% in 1997 to 25% in 2017 – some 3.4 million people, according to the thinktank Civitas.
With spiralling rents leaving many people with barely any disposable income, let alone the means to save towards a deposit, some are now choosing alternatives.
The pond ice was an inch thick, so Allan Jenkins broke through with a heavy hoe and launched Operation Free the Frogs
Perhaps it is time I learned patience. First surgery, then snow, now pretty constant rain. The sacks of manure, split in the frost, still wait sullenly. The last shards of last year’s growth stand stark against the ground.
The hungry pigeons have stripped the kale and chard, as I hadn’t the heart to deny them. The chicory, too, is finally defeated, though I love the flowers where they have turned to seed. A lone treviso stubbornly clings on, a small hedge of puntarelle tires in the top corner. This is the last thing the pigeons will eat. It must be too bitter for them.
Bin the football posters and black leather sofas and break out the baobab scented candles
Along with other leftwing types, I was tempted to disparage some of the observations of a high-profile interiors analyst. Suzanne Roynon had been invited into a Daily Mail journalist’s home and proceeded to tell her host that she risked repelling men with her choice of decor. Roynon, I’m told, had achieved a measure of esteem among the soft furnishings community by publishing a guide to decluttering one’s hoose. Now she was issuing advice to refined single women on how to clutter them again… with chaps.
Roynon’s musings attracted some amused opprobrium from women, in particular, her advice to go easy on paintings of strong, single women because this may send out a signal to a prospective partner that they want to remain single. Cacti, being prickly, could also be a man-repellent for reasons I wasn’t entirely clear about, as could gloomy titles on your bookshelves. I’m not entirely sure that men take a considered view on the provenance of a woman’s artwork or her reading habits. As for cacti, well, they’re not really a native species in the west of Scotland and besides, it’s always nice to have a wee bit of greenery about the place.
A stunning architectural home that could be mistaken for an art gallery or a resort has come on the market.Owned by former Saatchi and Saatchi boss Kevin Roberts, the home in Remuera, Auckland, sits on more than 3500sq m of lush...
Forty years after she asked her father to buy the dilapidated Chevening flats in Wellington as a teenager, Susan Price this week gifted the restored 1920s apartment block to Heritage New Zealand.The four-storey classically styled...
OPINION: Does it still make sense to buy a house?
Many landlords do not readily offer leases to subletters, but there are laws to ensure that primary tenants don’t game the system.
Dating was always daunting for me.
I was as scared that a woman might say yes as I was scared she might say no.
You see, I was a middle-aged virgin.
This is probably the moment when you’ll want to know whether I rushed out to see “The 40-Year-Old Virgin” when it came out in 2005. I didn’t. At the...
The historic members-only Griffin Club in Cheviot Hills will open its doors to the public for a couple of days in March to host a wellness event where you can try out boxing and stationary cycling, B-12 shots, and join talks on resilience and mental health.
Put together by Local Mercato, a Los...
The onetime Palm Desert home of late Hollywood producer Jerry Weintraub returned to market last week for $6.9 million, and in three days had an offer in hand.
The striking contemporary-style home, which was designed and built for the mega-producer, was first offered three years ago for $16 million....
Allen Iverson’s former home, which he lost to foreclosure, has traded hands in Georgia for a dirt-cheap $725,000.
Wells Fargo & Co. took ownership of the estate in 2017 after suing the Hall of Famer for failing to make mortgage payments on the property, according to reports. Iverson paid $2.19...
A 1920s studio rule — that actors be able to get to L.A. in less than two hours for reshoots — put Palm Springs on the map as a getaway spot for Hollywood. Ever since, the resort community has been a draw to those in the entertainment industry.
Warner Bros. President Jack Warner decided to create...
A dog for president? There have been worse ideas.
Seven, a rescued Australian Shepherd and show-dog-turned-actor-model-therapy-dog, will be throwing his collar into the presidential ring at the first Rescuecon convention in Oxnard Feb. 23-24.
Admittedly, it’s largely a publicity stunt.
But animal...