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Are online estate agents already outdated? Settled co-founders and The Garage Soho Britain’s most successful technology start-up investor, who was the first to back lastminute.com , notonthehighstreet.com and made.com believes we are already set for a second generation property technology regeneration, to be led by true technology firms, not online estate agents, who have simply placed the high street model on the internet. Thomas Teichman, Co-founder of The Garage Soho  and Chairman of Spark Ventures Thomas Teichman, Chairman of Spark Ventures and co-founder of brand incubator ‘The Garage Soho’, has backed property technology start-up Settled, an online platform that empowers buyers and sellers, removing the dependency on an estate agent. Teichman explains: “Online agents launched with big fanfares and many have referred to their high street peers as dinosaurs of the property world. Really though, online agents are effectively replicating bricks and...

The ONS has been experimenting with data from mobile phone users, electricity smart meters, Twitter and property site Zoopla, in four pilot studies aimed at making the survey’s output more relevant to modern life. It said this would provide insight into mobility and migration thanks to geo-located tweets and mobile phone tracking. It will identify long-term unoccupied properties from electricity smart meters and enhance the country’s address register — including park caravan homes — using data from Zoopla. However, critics have warned the changes would raise concerns among privacy campaigners and could make the census incomparable with past versions. Jane Naylor, head of the ONS’s Big Data Project, said she was aware of the ethical and privacy concerns but said: “It isn’t just about saving money, it’s about updating and modernising the output that we can produce, keeping relevant and meeting our user needs.” The ONS hopes the introduction of alternative sources will red...

His Excellency Mr. Alexis Tsipras Prime Minister of the Hellenic Republic Athens, Greece Dear Prime Minister, Thank you for your letter of April 2, in which you ask about the IMF’s position regarding the program negotiations with Greece. My view of the ongoing negotiations is that we are still a good distance away from having a coherent program that I can present to our Executive Board. I have on many occasions stressed that we can only support a program that is credible and based on realistic assumptions, and that delivers on its objective of setting Greece on a path of robust growth while gradually restoring debt sustainability. Otherwise it would fail to re-establish confidence, with the implication, among others, that Greece would soon again be forced to adopt yet more measures.  Of course, any speculation that IMF staff would consider using a credit event as a negotiating tactic is simply nonsense. As you and I have discussed several times, including rec...