New figures from the Halifax have shown the house price recovery has not just stalled but is now in reverse gear. The predictable decision by the Bank of England to keep interest rates at 0.5% is the only relief home owners with mortgages can expect now they face another dip into negative equity and the impending house price crash.
According to a new poll many young people, as many as 40%, are putting their future life plans on hold until house prices come down to affordable levels.
A YouGov survey, commissioned by the National Housing Federation (NFA), indicates that home ownership dreams have been shattered for many potential first time buyers. …read more
According to a report in The Daily Express the average house price has risen by £7,000 on the preceding 6 months. This equates to the price of a normal 3 bed semi-detached house rising from just under £153,000 to nearly £160,000.
This was welcomed by the property professionals as great news and as more evidence of a recovering housing market. They are saying that strong demand and weak supply has buoyed the market, which has lately brought more sellers in as they gain confidence from what they are seeing. …read more
From Monday the 23rd November to Friday 27th November is the National Week of Action on Empty Homes. The Empty Homes Agency (EHA) has reported that one in twenty properties has been unoccupied for over 6 months. That means that the number of empty properties has hit a record on one million. At the point of last year’s week of action the figure stood at about 760,000.
The Empty Homes Agency “is an independent campaigning charity, which exists to highlight the waste of empty property in England and works with others to devise and promote sustainable solutions to bring empty property back into use.” …read more
Nationwide’s profits have halved as its commercial property business experiences hundreds of millions of pound worth of impairment. Low interest rates have also had an adverse impact.
Graham Beale, the Nationwide Chief Executive, paints a very gloomy picture for the immediate future of the UK property market saying there will continue to be a “very difficult trading environment” with a continued weakening housing market. …read more
A lot has been made in the recent past of the First Time Buyer (FTB) to the continuing health of the UK housing market. Access to mortgages and the deposit required by FTB takes up a lot of news columns and they are continually seen as the lifeblood of the residential market. Because of this we tend to ignore the other, equally as important, people involved. …read more
The press often gives the impression that our economy is irredeemable. However, it is important to realise that the world economy never stopped growing in the course of this recession and that the UK is very much part of a globalised economy. We live in a time where billions of people are chomping at the bit to join the high-consuming middle classes. Unlike in times gone by, these people now have the education and infrastructure to achieve their goal. The world, therefore, has the potential to grow at an explosive rate and there is every reason to believe that a Britain full of international banks and multi-national corporations will be able to join the party. …read more
An Office of Fair Trading draft report into the state of the property market has slammed the estate agency profession for dishonesty when presenting properties to the buying public. One of the most recent highly publicised cases was that of the agent selling a cottage neglecting to mention the nuclear reactors next door. …read more
According to the Edinburgh Solicitors’ Property Centre (ESPC), house prices in Edinburgh rose by 15.4% over the year to an average of £221,875. The EPC, which consists of over 230 member solicitor estate agents in East Central Scotland, puts this down to a higher proportion of larger houses being sold. 42% of October sales comprised of 3 and 4 bed-roomed houses compared to 36% last year. …read more
