Recently in Residential Category

There was a 234% increase in the number of £1m-plus homes sold in London this August compared to last said Knight Frank on Friday. This was enough to persuade a gullible FT to make it the lead story on Saturday.

But the supposedly numerate paper failed to ask the obvious question; how many houses were actually sold in both months in question? The answer that Bloomberg had the wit to elicit from Knight Frank is 250 - against 75 in August 2008.

If you want to cut through the hype that surrounds the sale of high price homes, take a look at the Land Registry figures, also produced on Friday. 

The data is admittedly three months behind the percentages that KF carefully timed to come out on the same day. But the Registry publishes the actual numbers. 

Exactly 238 homes worth more than £1m were sold in London during May 2008. In May 2009 the figure was just 131.Nobody has of course troubled to write "sales of £1m homes in London plunges by 49%." 

A drive past the Candy Brothers residential development at One Hyde Park  in Knightsbridge yesterday shows that builders Laing O'Rourke are progressing well. But will building 86 super-luxury flats do well for Nick and Christian Candy and their Qatari partners?

Yes - if £4,000 per sq ft can be achieved for the 384,500 sq ft of net sellable space; after all, that is just over £1.5bn for these rather low-ceiling flats.

                                                   One Hyde Park

Last December Nick Candy said the costs added up to no more than £800m. This includes a £550m construction bill, which is 50% higher than the original estimate thanks mainly to a huge triple basement to satisfy the needs of the neighbouring Mandarin Hotel.

He also said that half the flats have been sold for £750m.  So, all will be well. Well, probably. But One Hyde Park agents Savills are also advising on a development of 60-odd super-luxury flats just up the road that also overlook a park - this time, Holland Park.  

These are the flats planned by Chelsfield at the Commonwealth Institute, where a revised application was submitted last week. And what price per square foot are the longer-in-the-tooth developers Sir Stuart Lipton and Elliott Bernard counting upon ? Just under half that being counted upon at One Hyde Park by all accounts - and that will also buy a bit more headroom.

The scandal of hobbit-sized new homes was finally bought to wider public attention last week by the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE) who surveyed 2500 buyers of new homes and found that most felt cramped. 

No wonder. England builds the smallest new homes in Europe - and England is the only place without minimum space standards.

The Home Builders Federation (HBF) told their usual fib when faced with this uncomfortable truth: "If you increase the size of homes without more land becoming available the cost to the end user will go up." 

Pointing out to the HBF that lower densities reduces the price of land rather than increases the price of new homes (which are fixed to the price of old homes) is next to useless.

The only thing that will make developers build bigger homes is, of course, the introduction of the sort of minimum space standards laid down in the 1960's by Sir Parker Morris, a civil servant who did the job for the government. 

The Homes and Communities Agency is already insisting on "Parker Morris plus 10%" for homes it subsidises.  Mayor Boris Johnson is also leaning on private developers in London.

Can CABE do more? Of course. But first the organisation must choose between ex-Architects Journal editor and all-round good-egg, Paul Finch, rather good ex-Arts Minister Alan Howarth and an obscure academic from Manchester to run the organisation under threat from Tory Quango hunters.  White smoke is due any time now. (2-1 on Howarth, fingers crossed for Finch).

Then the new man can please Boris (and his fellow Tories) by adopting the HCA standards as their own and then lobbying for their introduction into planning guidance. 

Who knows, the move might even ameliorate the effects of a Conservative cull on an organisation where style has, until now, trumped substance.

Sales volumes, not prices, are what matter to residential agents. Land Registry figures out yesterday show they remain awful. The numbers will inevitably be overshadowed by the good news on prices stabilising. 

That is not a lot of comfort to those who make their living on sales commission. The number of new homes sold in England and Wales in April 2009 was 36,233. This is 42% down on last year, almost matching the year on year fall for March.

Savills, Knight Frank and Strutt & Parker will no doubt welcome the news on prices. But posh house sales remain minuscule. Just 36 homes over £2m were sold in April 2009, down from 100 this time last year - and three less than in March this year.That can only mean one thing for the above; continuing pressure on sales commission - and even less income.

But look on the bright side. This morning's New York Times leads with the news that US house prices are stabilising, which is fine. But the story also contains the far better news that June sales volumes in the US jumped by the biggest percentage in eight years.

The consultation phase of an RICS inquiry into the scandalous levels of commission added by landlords and/or their managing agents to residential block insurance premiums completes this week.

In late autumn the organisation will (hopefully) call for transparency on a practice that can routinely add 40%-100% to the cost of insuring a block.

Not that guilty landlords and agents will take a blind bit of notice.

The only thing that will make a difference is the threat of excommunication by the Financial Services Authority of any regulated insurer or broker who does not insist that the basic premium and all additional commissions are shown on the service charge statements given to occupiers.

There is far too much easy money involved for all concerned for anything less than regulation to work.

It took the natty Roger Southam of managing agents Chainbow two years of pestering to get the RICS to even examine a subject that provides some of its members with very easy money: members who are already examining ways of circumventing the report before it is even published.

Aviva has come out of the woodwork this morning in the Financial Times as being interested in doing a deal with the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA). The property division of the old Norwich Union run by the agreeable Ian Womack (pictured left) is planning a £1bn fund that will invest in purpose-built residential blocks.

Schroders and Legal & General were two other funds previously mentioned here as possible candidates to partner with the HCA in setting up these residential funds, which rely upon  government rental guarantees for up to five years.

Removing the initial void risk removes one of the obstacles to making money from the rented sector.  The other obstacles are of course accepting miserable income returns and managing miserable tenants. But our man at the HCA says the funds are prepared to accept a 7-8% gross yield.

This seems miserably small. But the funds (and the HCA, who will want a cut,) no doubt have their fingers crossed for decent capital appreciation and low running costs.  Aviva is counting on the latter by giving the work to a yet-to-be-announced US property manager on the advice of CBRE.  What Sir Humphrey would call a "courageous" decision. 

The most amusing story of the day has to be the news in the normally more serious Times that PR Maestro Max Clifford has taken on a property client.

No it's not Land Securities; it's a breezy looking 36 year-old with the odd name of Brett Alegre-Wood (picture left).

Young Brett runs Your Property Club Group out of Islington, for the benefit of forgetful individuals who don't remember he told them to invest in buy-to-let in April 2008.

So, expect a trickle of stories over the next year on the broadsheet property pages about C-list celebs who have discovered the joys of property investment.

For Brett says, "the market is coming back around. I don't think this is total recovery, but we are heading back in -- and I am also releasing a book in September."

To property fund managers the private rented sector (PRS) has long been the runt in the litter: small and slightly pathetic - with no prospect of ever growing strong and sturdy like the office,retail and industrial sectors.

But watch out for news from the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) in the next few weeks. The government's housing quango has winnowed down 64 expressions of interest to three or four from funds keen to invest in a scheme that will see the HCA provide rental guarantees to kick start the building of new homes.

It is not going to change the world, but those working on the idea think it entirely possible that within 12 months or so around 5,000 PRS homes per year could be under construction worth about £1bn.  

Legal & General has of course already expressed open interest. Schroders have long been keen. But expect some surprise names from America. Firms like Le Frak for instance have been nosing round the UK market for some time now. 

A look round the Olympic Village yesterday brings some news for residential agents prepared to be patient.

Olympic Delivery Authority chief executive David Higgins said he thought that the government will begin to market the 1,800 private flats just before the Olympics start in July 2012.

For those who wish to start thinking about making a pitch, here, revealed for the first time, are the detailed particulars:

The flats are in eight storey blocks, most with double aspect vision, many with balconies. There is underground parking.

The average size of the 109 four-bed flats is 119 sq m. The 543 three-bed flats average 90 sq m. The 959 two-bed flats are 70 sq m and the 203 one-bed flats are a generous 51 sq m.

One interesting innovation is that sprinkler systems are being installed. That will negate the need for lobbies and fire doors to every room and so give more living space.

Don't get over-excited. Four-hundred of the private flats are being sold though a housing association.

Many of the others will be in blocks currently being tendered for by the likes of Barratt and Taylor Wimpey. And those that buy will have to wait at least a year while the units are made habitable again after the athletes have gone.