world news

Two of America’s most celebrated pandemic-era property markets — Florida and Texas — have reversed course and are now leading…

The UK housing market is fracturing along regional lines in ways that the national average figure entirely obscures. The North West recorded annual asking price growth of 1.9 percent in August 2026 while London fell 3.1 percent, the capital’s largest annual August decline on record. Scotland, Wales, and the North East are all outperforming England’s south. The regional divergence reflects different affordability profiles, structural differences in housing stock, and the uneven impact of leasehold complications and investor withdrawal. For Jamaica, where regional differences in property market performance are similarly significant but far less documented, the UK data offers a framework for thinking about geography as a defining variable in property investment decisions.

The White House signalled this week that President Trump is considering a significant change to how home sale profits are…

After five consecutive weekly increases that pushed the 30-year fixed mortgage rate to 6.91 per cent — its highest level…

Andy Burnham became UK Prime Minister on 20 July 2026, immediately raising the prospect of rent controls for England—the first sitting Prime Minister to do so. Against that political backdrop, the housing market data for the past month has shown prices barely growing at £299,253, mortgage rates remaining elevated amid global uncertainty, rents hitting record highs in six of nine UK regions despite slowing nationally, and the new administration launching a VAT consultation on social housing land. For Jamaican diaspora investors and housing policymakers, the convergence of political change and market fragility in Britain carries direct and immediate relevance.

Kingston, Jamaica, 12 August 2026 San Francisco has reclaimed a title it briefly looked like it might have lost for…

The week of 7 August brought the first Making Tax Digital quarterly filing deadline for UK landlords earning above £50,000 — a compliance milestone most were unprepared for. Alongside it: Andy Burnham’s VAT removal on electricity from October, NRLA data showing 41 percent of landlords considering selling in 2026, the approaching launch of the national PRS database, and the Good Landlord Charter arriving in Downing Street as a potential national policy template. For Jamaican diaspora investors with UK property, the compliance demands of the past month have been substantial and cumulative.

Kingston, Jamaica, 12 August 2026 The American property market delivered another instalment of its defining 2026 paradox on Tuesday: sales…

New research from Crisis and Citizens Advice has found that fewer than two in every hundred private rental properties listed in Britain are now affordable for people receiving housing benefit. With more than 100 renters a day seeking help, foodbank referrals up 80%, and the October Budget approaching as the last realistic opportunity to act, the findings expose a structural failure in the link between state support and the real cost of housing. The dynamics have direct resonance for Jamaica, where no equivalent support mechanism exists and where the gap between working incomes and housing costs is quietly widening.

About 75 Dutch churches close every year, and Arnhem’s former Sint-Jozefkerk is now a padel court, but a survey found two-thirds of Dutch people would rather see closed churches become libraries, cultural centres or homes.

Sales of new build homes in London fell 37 percent in the first half of 2026 compared with the same period a year earlier, according to property consultancy Molior. A record 4,629 new builds worth an estimated £3.5 billion remain unsold, the highest level ever recorded. British owner-occupiers have almost entirely withdrawn, leasehold concerns are deterring buyers, and international investor demand that once sustained the market has faded. For Jamaican developers and investors watching the premium property sector, the London data is both a warning and an illustration of what happens when new build supply outpaces real buyer demand.

About 75 Dutch churches close every year, and Arnhem’s former Sint-Jozefkerk is now a padel court, but a survey found two-thirds of Dutch people would rather see closed churches become libraries, cultural centres or homes.

Kingston, Jamaica, 8 August 2026 The United States economy shed 23,000 jobs in July, a figure that landed well below…

Kingston, Jamaica, 7 August 2026 The American housing market has fractured into two entirely different experiences, and which one you…

Bishop Joseph Gontrand Décoste of Jérémie told Aid to the Church in Need that gangs have forced the closure of 40 parishes in Port-au-Prince and 25 more elsewhere, while Catholic schools have been burned or turned into gang bases.