Home-building boom

Get straight to the good stuff every day with the Multiply Minute; a lightning-quick round-up of the money news and how it affects you.

We’re building more homes

161,022 new homes were registered in 2019 - that’s the highest since 2007. Not all of them are bricks and mortar just yet; from a developer registering a new home, it usually takes nine to 15 months to finish building work. The home-building boom was biggest in London, where 21,726 new builds were registered - an uplift of 37%.

First-time buyer favourites revealed

Aspiring homeowners are keenest on Barking and Dagenham (paywall) according to search data from Zoopla. First-time buyers are looking to spend around £300,000 in the east London boroughs, which have seen a spike in popularity thanks to more affordable prices. Last year’s favourite was Wolverhampton, but it's now fallen to fifth place amid prices rises of almost 5%.

GSK break-up

GlaxoSmithKline has published plans to break up with itself, and it’s going to cost £2.4 billion (paywall). It's one of the world’s biggest drugs companies, and it wants to start a spin-off to focus on a joint consumer venture with Pfizer. Why? The demerger is set to give the business more money for new research.

Harrods spender loses appeal

Remember the woman who hit headlines for spending £16 million in Harrods? She’s just lost her legal challenge against the UK’s first Unexplained Wealth Order (UWO). It’s the first outing of the new “McMafia” laws which are designed to make it easier for UK authorities to crack down on dodgy money coming into and out of the country.