Bag a Bargain in the UK

In these days when bad, bad news seems to rain down on us like, well rain really, it is nice to see that someone can still look on the bright side. All this doom and gloom has meant that anyone with a few bob to spend is now at an 'all you can eat' buffet. Nowhere is this more the case than in the UK where property prices have been tumbling at an incredible rate. Of course that is only part of the story with the UK, the dramatic slide in the value of Sterling v's the Euro has meant that this is the single biggest buying opportunity that those with an interest in property across the water are ever likely to see.

There is a very interesting article on the site about the potential for realising value in the UK market.

From the article: "The huge rise in repossessions in the UK represents a significant opportunity and distressed property in general is where the market is now. According to the Council of Mortgage Lenders the number of properties repossessed in the first half of 2008 was up 48% on the same period the previous year: the figures are expected to rise to over 70% by the end of the year. Thousands of home owners, investors, developers and banks are in financial difficulties and are desperate to sell all sorts of different properties. Most want cash as quickly as possible and are often willing to accept huge discounts. Banks, of course, are particularly desperate for cash as they try to rebuild their balance sheets, but this situation won’t last indefinitely. The banks are already under significant pressure from the government to increase lending and liquidity is likely to ease further as interest rates fall. Investors should capitalise on this window of opportunity."

It's a very interesting piece and well worth a view if you've any interest in UK property or purchasing value in the market. To view the full article click here. If you couldn't be bothered reading it but would still like to be sent some listings of foreclosed, below market value (BMV) or simply very good value product in the UK, just fill in this form and we'll do the rest.

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Ciaran Maguire Story Features in Sunday Tribune

The saga of the Ciarán Maguire Group (CMG) and its proposed Palm View Resort development in Cape Verde featured on page 10 in the news section of the Sunday Tribune yesterday. This in itself is nothing exceptional, the story was bound to feed into the media at some stage. What is odd is that OverseasCafe.com is quoted liberally in the piece, despite the fact that the website has never been contacted by the Sunday Tribune in relation to this topic. It is also made to look like the OverseasCafe.com has been threatened with legal action or had legal action taken against it by CMG, which is not the case.

It looks awfully like the journalist, Mark Hilliard, got the piece predominantly from putting together pieces from our previous blogs on the subject. There's nothing particularly wrong with this, but if we were to be quoted, it would have been nice to have a phone call or an email. CMG is quoted as well and we have no idea if they were contacted either. We didn't like to ask.

Anyhow, here's the piece for those who haven't seen it.

Property developer takes legal advice on website hosts

Mark Hilliard

AN exclusive Irish overseas developer has launched legal proceedings against a number of website hosts over highly critical remarks on a €2.2bn seven star resort planned for Cape Verde.

The Dublin based Ciaran Maguire Group has taken the action over what it deems to be "highly offensive" remarks made about its property development which is currently seeking investors.

The Palm View Resort in Cape Verde, off the western coast of North Africa, is comprised of hotels, a golf course, villas and apartments. As part of the high end scheme, the group has also announced plans to lease two Boeing 737 aircrafts for at least four years which will operate from Dublin, Manchester and London Gatwick airports.

Investors are invited to use exchange bonds as an alternative to cash deposits on the properties whose reservation fees run from €10,000 for a studio to €50,000 for a villa.

However, in recent weeks question marks began to appear around details of the development on a number of property related websites, blogs and forums.

When approached by the Irish website Overseas cafe. com to clarify many of the questions being raised, Flash Developments – an arm of the Ciaran Maguire Group – responded by confirming that legal action was now being sought.

"We have been made aware that numerous blogs and web forums that are posted in relation to Ciaran Maguire, Flash Developments and the Palm View Resort have gone past the point of asking questions and gone into the category of what we and our lawyers believe to be defamatory content," they said in a statement. 

"We have started legal proceedings against the identified hosts of these websites."

Although it is not clear which internet sites will be issued with legal proceedings, the workings of the Ciaran Maguire Group have been openly discussed on several popular forums.

The contact came in response to an earlier article on the website which alluded to the "very sudden" emergence of an Irish overseas property developer which they said was relatively unknown and seemingly prepared to operate in a very difficult economic environment.

"At a time when most newspapers couldn't sell an ad to save their lives, along comes Ciaran and his group and starts advertising liberally," Overseascafe.com claimed.

HAVE TO CUT FROM HERE (the piece below this only appears in the online version)

Contact between the site and the developers led to the tabling of over 50 questions, based on those same concerns that had fuelled recent internet debate.

Amongst the questions, the group was asked to clarify where it had suddenly come from, whether it actually owned land in Cape Verde, why the development was moved from its original location and whether or not there was even any access to the site.

Another question asked for clarification on exactly what 'star level' the development will have.

The Ciaran Maguire Group responded to a number of 'relevant' questions explaining that they had entered into an officially documented deal to purchase 98,000sq m of land from a Mr Martiano Oliveria and that they changed from the original site due to delays in processing paperwork. 

They clarified that a local company, Loids Engineers, have been engaged to begin work which should commence next year and that Flash Developments would extend a coastal road leading to the site. 

In relation to the star system, they wrote: "Different countries have different legislation in respect of this rating, Palm View is being listed as a seven star development in accordance with Cape Verdean legislation." 

"It has always been our goal to develop one of the world's most luxurious resorts and we are confident that we will achieve our goal.

"Some of the information being hosted and posted (on the sites) is deemed by Flash Developments to be highly offensive. We are outraged by allegations concerning our credibility, integrity, bona fides and business acumen skills."

December 21, 2008

You'll find the original story here.

Ryanair Bid for Aer Lingus

OK, so the Ryanair bid for Aer Lingus is old hat at this stage, even the second offer, which, based on Aer Lingus' current share price of €1.45, is obviously a long way short of its original offer, which was made at €2.80. It is a sign of the times and the amazing change in fortunes of the Irish government in the intervening two years that the government is now 'contemplating' accepting an offer that is almost 50% of the last one, which it deemed to be inadequate.

In case you're out of the loop on the current Ryanair bid for its rival Irish airline, here is a brief recap from France 24.

"Irish low-fare airline Ryanair said Monday it had launched a 748-million-euro (950-million-dollar) offer for rival Aer Lingus, in which it already has a near 30-percent stake.

The offer is a renewed bid by Ryanair after the group was refused ownership of Aer Lingus in 2006 on competition grounds.

"The board of Ryanair proposes to merge the two airlines into one strong Irish airline group under common ownership," Ryanair said in a statement.

It added: "Both airlines would operate as separate companies, with distinctive brands, thereby preserving the best features of both."

Ryanair failed in a bid to buy Aer Lingus in 2006 after the latter had been partly floated on the London and Dublin stock exchanges.

The bid had faced stiff opposition from major Aer Lingus shareholders, including the Irish government, company employees, pilots and their pension fund.

In December 2006, Ryanair withdrew its takeover bid after European regulators launched an in-depth competition probe.

The European Commission vetoed the takeover on the grounds that the merger of Ireland's two biggest airlines would have given the combined carrier a crushing grip on 35 routes."

The question we would have to ask, as an overseas property portal, is obviously whether a merger of our two main airlines is in the best interests of Irish travelling consumers or not. When all is said and done it is difficult to see how a single airline entity, particularly one as focussed on cutting costs as Ryanair is, could do anything other than remove all that is good in Aer Lingus and leave just a hollow shell.

You have to hand it to Michael O'Leary, he's a hell of a businessman - whether you love him or loathe him. He and his team probably deserves a lot more credit than they've ever been given for taking Ryanair from the bottomless money pit that it had been into one of the world's most profitable airlines (one of very few that actually makes a profit). But for all that you would have to remember that, being such a canny businessman, O'Leary isn't chasing Aer Lingus for the good of his health or simply to offer more people cheaper flights. It is widely known that all he wants out of this deal is access to Aer Lingus' more lucrative landing slots, particularly at currently impregnable UK and US airports.

O'Leary understands better than anyone that an airline only works if it's got a 'destination'. In Dublin, and particularly London, he's got two such destinations that will attract traffic. He also understands that Dublin will probably attract proportionally less traffic in the coming years, whereas cities like London and New York will hold their own a lot better. In tougher economic times Ryanair could actually make hay offering cheap flights to main hub airports as no other airline can match its low cost base. Unfortunately for O'Leary, his current London hub is Standsted, which with the best will and cheapest flights in the world is not the London airport to which most people wish to fly. He needs access to Heathrow, and Aer Lingus is the key to this access. At current market valuation this would seem like a very opportune moment to make a predatory bid. Although Ryanair has been absolutely slaughtered on its 30% stake in Aer Lingus, most of which was purchased between €2.50 and €2.80 per share, it has very deep pockets and will simply write it off as an investment in the future. If O'Leary can convice the government to sell its 25% share close to current values he would consider that Ryanair has, overall, made a very wise investment. And he'd probably be right.

The upshot would be that we would initially end up with a schizophrenic Ryanair, keeping costs down assiduously in its original entity and firefighting the unions on the Aer Lingus side. This would obviously not be good for the Aer Lingus side of the equation and you can be sure that this portion of the company would be radically restructured. Eventually it would be subsumed into Ryanair, with the excuse that it was not profitable as it stood. Aer Lingus would exist in name only and Michael O'Leary would have achieved the object of his unquenchable lust - Ireland's flagship carrier - the bane of his life in his early years at Ryanair. What a trophy.

With the best will in the world there is a certain cheapness and nastiness about Ryanair, which O'Leary admits probably reflects his own personality somewhat. Having that ethos seep into Aer Lingus would not be an attractive prospect. At the moment we have a balance - cheap and cheerless v's more expensive but with at least a passing nod to customer service. The two can, and should be allowed to, survive side by side.

Aer Lingus is by no means perfect, but for all that it is Aer Lingus and if its ownership should ever transfer to Ryanair it will be Aer Lingus no more, and that would be a huge loss to Ireland. The country needs a strong Aer Lingus as much as it needs a strong Ryanair. What we need is for the two of them to compete viably for routes to bring extra passengers to and from Ireland.

As an aside, Ryanair will be absolutely cock-a-hoop that it has won its battle against the European Commission (another of O'Leary's foes) on the terms of its agreement with Waloon regional airport, Charleroi (usually referred to by Ryanair as Brussels). You can see a report on this from RTE here.

"In its judgment the Court of First Instance said: 'The Commission's refusal to examine together the advantages granted by the Walloon region and by Charleroi Airport, and to determine whether, taken together, those two entities acted as rational operators in a market economy, is vitiated by an error in law.'"

Humber Valley Declares Bankruptcy

Those of you who have read our previous blog on the precarious financial situation at the Humber Valley Resort (HVR) near Corner Brook in Newfoundland, will not be surprised to hear that the company has officially declared bankruptcy.

Below is the announcement from Newfound NV (thanks to Crazy About Newfoundland for this):

December 2nd, 2008
Humber Valley Resort Corporation

Dear Owner,

You may recall from our presentation and earlier correspondence that, during the time Newfound has been financing the CCAA process, we also formulated a draft preliminary plan of arrangement that, in our view, gave the interested parties i.e. the creditors and the chalet owners the best result in the unhappy circumstances that Humber Valley Resort Corporation found itself in.

The plan that we had put forward asked the Government of Newfoundland to support it in 3 areas, namely;

* To assist in bringing flights into Newfoundland from the UK

* To work with the local Municipality in their takeover of running essential services on the resort

* Transferring into freehold, the amount of leasehold land that HVRC had already paid leasehold fees on, so that financing of new development could take place enabling the creditors to participate in the resultant profits.

It was not feasible to submit our proposed plan to the Court for approval, or to the creditors and chalet owners to vote on, unless we had some indication of support from the Government, in writing, to it. Conditional support would have been acceptable. The Government have had our proposal for consideration since 16 October. Whilst it is fair to say that we have had encouraging discussions, we have had no confirmation of the Government position, either verbally or in writing. Our initial requested deadline for a decision was 14 November.

I was promised on Monday 24 November that, after the Cabinet meeting of 27 November I would be informed of the decision, either way, in writing. I explained during that conversation that we had run out of time as our CCAA protection was due to expire and if I could not submit the plan then I would have no choice other than to withdraw our proposal, which would mean imminent bankruptcy for HVRC. The alternative would be for Newfound to risk a great deal more money as a creditor to HVRC and I do not have Board authority to do so. I was very careful to stress to the Government on Monday 24 November, that I wanted to and was able to continue, but was clear that close of business on Friday 28 November was our absolute deadline for a Government reply.

This was, sadly, not forthcoming. I understand, from a third party, that the proposition was discussed as cabinet but there was no resolution. Despite our best efforts, there is nothing further we can do. I am deeply disappointed, as I still believe our ideas were the best possible result in the circumstances.

In these circumstances, I am afraid that we join you all as another creditor, and confirm that HVRC will have to file an Assignment in Bankruptcy, and that bankruptcy is now imminent. I am so sorry not to bring you better news. Should you have any questions, you may, with immediate effect, address them to Mat Harris and his team at Ernst and Young. Derrick White will no longer be in a position to formally help you.

Yours sincerely,
Jayne McGivern
CEO Newfound NV

Oddly enough if you visit the Newfound website you will still find the company extolling the virtues of the Humber Valley Resort. In the investor relations section it states:

"Newfound is a creator and operator of international luxury resorts and destinations. The Company has a high quality portfolio of resort projects at Humber Valley in Canada and in Nevis and St. Kitts in the Caribbean.

Humber Valley Resort, with 2,200 acres, currently has over 200 privately owned properties the majority of which are available for rent. It is an all-season, luxury resort offering golf, world-class salmon fishing, sailing, skiing and a luxury spa.

Newfound has an integrated business model based on destination master-planning, which generates revenues from multiple sources, including freehold land sales, construction and development, services to owners, the provision of leisure activities and the operation of concessions. Newfound is building an industry leading, world-class luxury lifestyle brand offering exceptional holiday experiences in luxurious homes, situated in locations of outstanding natural beauty.

Newfound's shares commenced trading on AIM on September 26, 2006. Newfound N.V. is incorporated in the Netherlands with operations in Canada, St Kitts & Nevis, UK, USA, Netherlands and Germany. "

It is possibly time to take all this waffle off the site as the company, while it may have an 'integrated business model', very obviously doesn't have a business model that works in this day and age.

According to the Resorts section of the Newfound site:

"To date, Humber Valley Resort has sold over 400 vacation properties to buyers from the UK, Ireland, Europe, the US and mainland Canada. More than 200 chalets are completed with several others under construction. In addition, the resort has recently released a number of beautifully finished and extremely spacious one- and two-bedroom apartments. The majority of properties are available for holiday rental and benefit from first-class services and amenities including fine-quality appliances, furnishings and linens, whirlpool baths, saunas and outdoor hot tubs."

The board of Newfound are:

Jayne McGivern, Chief Executive Officer
Stephen Bentley, Group Finance Director
Richard Foley, Development Director
John Morgan, Interim Chairman
Robert Weisz, Non-Executive Director

The closure of the Humber Valley Resort is a great shame as it was a wonderful place to visit and will be a great loss to the Corner Brook area of Newfoundland. It is also obviously a time of great distress to owners of property on the resort, some of whom lived there full time, who bought into the dream only for it all to dissipate in front of their eyes.

Should this bankruptcy affect you in any way Newfound can be contacted at its Global Corporate Office:

42 Bruton Place, London W1J 6PA
Telephone +44 (0) 20 7892 8300
Fax +44 (0) 20 7892 8301
Email: headoffice@newfoundnv.com

If you are looking for updates on the Humber Valley story you'll find Gary Kelly's blog and the Crazy about Newfoundland blog to be exceptional resources.

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Fortuna Estates Raided by Fraud Squad

It would appear that rumours bubbling under the surface about the company best known as Fortuna Estates have proven to be correct judging by events last week.

Mark Stucklin reports in his Spanish Property Insight website: "The Spanish land investment scam run for years by Fortuna Estates has finally been busted, with the Spanish fraud squad swooping last week on several office in Mijas and Fuengirola, arresting at least 2 people, and questioning 20 others. This could be one of the biggest Spanish property scams to date, with hundreds, if not thousands of British and Irish victims. The Spanish authorities estimate that Fortuna Estates made at least 65 million Euros out of this fraud."

The company ran its operations over the past number of years under a range of pseudonyms including Fortuna Land, Euroland, Sol y Nieve, BPA Blueskies and ultimately Oanna Group. It sold a number of land developments including Bella Fortuna, Sierra Fortuna and Cazadores Reales. Investors were informed that the companies had submitted planning applications for a number of projects including hotels, a wedding chapel, a retirement home and a solar farm.

The Spanish press has reported that there could be more than 2,000 victims, mainly middle class investors from the United Kingdom and Ireland. The company's modus operandi was to promise victims high returns based on land reclassification on projects purported to be in operation in rural Andalucia. Many of Fortuna’s victims invested the minimum amount allowed, which was €10,000, but many others will have invested far more substantial sums than this.

Fortuna Estates first appeared on our radar in 2002 and has, since that time, been an ever present at multi-agency exhibitions across Ireland and the UK. The company also ran high profile marketing campaigns in the press. It denied strenuously that it was a 'boiler room' operation (a telesales office set up simply to promote a useless/fraudulent investment vehicle), an accusation that had been made against the company on the back of many similar scams relating to land banking operations in the UK.

Fortuna offered clients ‘shares’ in greenfield projects purporting to turn land in out-of-the-way parts of Andalucia into commercial property investments. It is not yet clear how many Irish investors are affected, but it will certainly run to many hundreds.

Mark Stucklin also reports: "The Fortuna Land scam was run out of offices on the Costa del Sol using companies registered in places like Cyprus and Delaware (USA). Currently the Fortuna Land website (fortunaland.es), claims they have “implemented a strategic relationship with The Oanna Group to realise your investment projects in Spain,” and instruct visitors to direct all future communications to oannagroup.com. The Oanna Group appears to have its main office in London.

In November clients visiting the Oanna Group website were informed that the company had moved its "international office from Spain to the UK" claiming "it previously provided outsourcing services to clients on mainland Spain through offices owned by Fortunaland SL." The notice went on to say that "with the downturn in markets it has not proved feasible to maintain separate offices" and was "focusing on centralising activities from the UK." It also claimed "that there are significantly better opportunities to access capital in London." It said that those who had been dealing with Fortunaland SL should direct their enquiries to "their management / representatives and/or company lawyers."

The address given was: Oanna Group UK Office, 3 More London Riverside, London SE1 2RE with a phone number of 0203 283 4090. The notice finished with the following statement: "With the onset of the credit crunch there are a number of lucrative opportunities in commercial and residential property worldwide. We are also developing some exclusive distressed property products and will provide our customers and clients access to these products. Please refer to the website www.oannagroup.com for further updates."

The Spanish police think that the main directors have already moved overseas. In a cruel final insult Fortuna Estates' investors are now being targeted by a new scam. This particular ruse involves a company contacting investors promising to attempt to recover money paid to Fortuna/Oanna for a fee of 10% of the original investment, paid in advance of course. The company involved in this particular operation is called European Mediation and has an address at Jaguar House, 6 Harthill Street, Manchester, M8 8AG.

When contacted by OverseasCafe.com questioning how it had managed to come by Fortuna Estates' client database European Mediation gave the following response:

"Our service is to mediate where there has been a dispute which has come to an impass (sic). Clearly we must maintain confidentially (sic) at all times, as required by the rules of data protection. But also by keeping matters out of the public domain we are able to be more effective. Due to the nature of our business we trust you understand the Companies (sic) response."

Indeed we, and others, do understand the company's response all too well.

You'll find a number of forums and articles discussing this issue, here are a few:

Spanish Property Insight

Ask About Money

The Singing Pig

House Price Crash

Fool.co.uk - scroll to the end of the article

Fool.co.uk - supplementary message board set up for Oanna victims as comment system on previous link reached capacity.

Investment Property Rumours - Excellent background on this scam

Rip Off Report

Lawbird Tribune

BeLegal thread on Oanna/Fortuna

BeLegal thread on European Mediation

El Pais - Article in Spanish

Sunday Times - Case study on Chris Redford, organiser of the UK Client's group.

Client groups exist in Ireland and the UK, you'll get full information if you email afle9876@iol.ie (Ireland) or chrisredford@aol.com (UK).

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For a selection of property from around the world click here.

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For a list of upcoming overseas property exhibitions around the country click here.

Indian Investors with Larionovo

Further to our previous blog on Irish overseas property agent, Larionovo, going into receivership, investors in the company's Indian developments will have been met with somewhat of a surprise this morning to find the following updated message on the company's website.

"Please be advised that Paul McCann was appointed Provisional Liquidator of Larionovo Limited on Tuesday 25th November 2008. If you have invested in a property development through Larionovo Limited but have not completed the purchase, please email ian.barrett@grantthornton.ie the following details:

Your:

1) Name

2) Address

3) e-mail contact details

4) Amount of money invested

5) Name of development

Kindly note that we will contact you by email by 12 December 2008 with an update on the position.

With regard to investors in the Indian development project the developer has indicated that he will return deposits to Larionovo Limited to be held in trust for investors. On receipt of these funds the Provisional Liquidator will in turn arrange for these funds to be returned directly to investors."

This final paragraph is worrying investors in the three Indian developments (Hill View, Cape Corinth & Green Valley) greatly as they have a number of fears. Firstly they feel that the money will merely be merged with the other debts of the company and never be seen by investors, despite assurances from Grant Thornton that this will not happen. They also feel that not all funds may have been transferred to India to begin with and that this will, obviously, affect the amount that may subsequently be returned to investors. The group has tried to get the liquidator to speak to them on this issue with no success to date.

An independent buyers group has also been formed for those with issues regarding Larionovo's Indian products. For further information email Karen Marshall on karen@maka.ie.

Update:

On Sunday January 18th 2009 the following piece appeared in the Sunday Times under the heading:

Agent borrowed €1m

The liquidator of Larionovo, the defunct estate agency, is investigating loans taken out by Ray Norton, the co-founder.

An Irish estate agent whose firm went into liquidation in November, leaving hundreds of buyers of overseas property out of pocket, took out “significant” director’s loans beforehand.

Ray Norton, who co-founded Larionovo with his brother-in-law, Andrew Brett, is understood to have borrowed more than ¤1m since mid-2007. A “large proportion” of this was loaned to Norton in the final six months of last year when the company’s business was drying up.

Grant Thornton, the company’s liquidator, is seeking a meeting with Norton to establish whether he took out the loans while he was aware Larionovo was nearing insolvency. The liquidator, which was appointed by a creditor, has said Norton’s firm sold few, if any, properties in the final six months of last year. It also wants to know why the company collapsed so abruptly given that its most recently filed accounts, for August 2007, showed reserved profits of more than €2m.

Investors who paid deposits on Indian apartments that were never built held meetings last week to establish how to recoup the estimated ¤4m they are owed. More than 300 Irish people, including a senior garda and a retired solicitor, invested in properties in Mumbai, India’s commercial capital. Sums deposited range from €5,000 to €112,000, with many buyers reserving multiple units, said Karen Marshall, speaking for the investors.

“We were told last year that we would all get our money back because the scheme wasn’t going ahead,” she said. “Larionovo said that there were problems with property rights for foreigners in India and difficulties with repatriating money out of India.”

About 30 investors got some or all of their money in the summer, but remaining buyers have had no contact from Larionovo since last month. The investors established that the money sent to Sigrun, the builder of the scheme in India, was returned. “We have a money trail leading to a company in Dubai called Profile, in which directors of Larionovo are involved,” Marshall said.

Norton, 38, and Brett, 48, are majority shareholders in the Profile Group and are directors of Profile Property in Ireland. Grant Thornton is trying to organise a meeting with Profile’s directors in Dubai.

Norton and Brett, who both live in Ennis, Co Clare, could not be contacted for comment.

You'll find the story in the Sunday Times here.

UK Property Prices Tumble

A recent report by Knight Frank has said that prime residential prices in central London fell by 3.6% in November, the second largest fall on record after the decline of 3.9% recorded in October. This latest decline in prices leaves them 14.1% lower than this time last year, having fallen by 9.3% over the last three months alone.

According to the report all areas and property types have been hit by falling prices but houses are depreciating at a faster rate than flats. 

On the upside for agents in the UK the weak pound is beginning to re-stimulate foreign interest in prime London property, an interest which had fallen off greatly over the past year.

Liam Bailey of Knight Frank commented: “These dramatic falls may be painful to vendors, but prime London property is increasingly looking like very good value, particularly to foreign buyers who also benefit from the weak pound. Indeed, a fall of 15% may translate to a fall of as much as 35% to someone watching the market from the USA, as the pound has fallen by 20% against the dollar since the beginning of the year. There has been a increase in interest from such buyers over the past few weeks, which has not yet been translated into activity."

You'll find the full story, with a month by month price fall breakdown, on our website here. 

There is also an interesting piece in London's Evening Standard on the 'Return of the £100,000 home." It is a run down of prices at a Lodon auction house where "18 lots changed hands for £100,000 or less, an extraordinary total given that only 42 homes were sold in the whole of London in this price bracket in August."

You'll find the full article here. 

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