A surge in demand caused by the credit crisis has meant that a £200 million government scheme to help first-time buyers on to the housing ladder has fully allocated its cash for the financial year. The Open Market HomeBuy scheme which offered loans to first-time buyers to buy onRead More →
Alistair Darling is under pressure to revive the house market by bringing forward a new funding scheme. Under influence from the Council of Mortgage Lenders, the chancellor is considering extending the Bank of England scheme to exchange mortgage-backed securities for government bonds. The move is aimed at boosting theRead More →
People who live in the suburbs are eight times more likely to live in their dream home than those who live in the countryside, a survey from Legal & General has found. Around 34 per cent of people who live in suburbia have their ‘ideal’ property, compared to 4Read More →
A report looking at how asbestos is managed and removed from people’s homes has revealed major differences in how local authorities and registered social landlords notify tenants of the likely risks. The report, from construction union UCATT, recommends that all social landlords maintain an asbestos register of properties, andRead More →
Experts, analysts, forecasters, crystal ball gazers – call them what you will, the pundits are all laying different odds on when the property market will return to the peak levels of 2014. Most predictions agree that the recovery will begin in 2017, but the Centre for Economics and BusinessRead More →
Meanwhile, the financial incentives given to councils to speed up housing planning applications to meet the 13-week target has had some ‘perverse’ consequences, a parliamentary committee has found. The MPs found that while the incentives have helped double the number of developments, they have had a number of unforeseenRead More →
The Bank of England slashed interest rates by 1.5 percentage points to 3 per cent yesterday, their lowest level in more than 50 years, as the International Monetary Fund forecast that the UK would be the world’s worst-performing major advanced economy next year. Britain’s economy will shrink by 1.3Read More →
Buy-to-let investors are back in favour with mortgage lenders for the first time in two years, raising renewed concerns that first-time buyers could once more be squeezed out of the market for one and two-bedroom properties by landlords. Brokers said that a number of lenders have started to focusRead More →
Latest mortgage lending figures from the Council of Mortgage Lenders show the total value of new lending in August was down £21.8 billion – a 12 per cent drop from July – and 36 per cent lower than in August last year. It is the lowest monthly figure sinceRead More →
Fears that millions of homeowners could soon be paying a heavier price for rising unemployment have been fuelled by the news that more than 20,000 people have, this month, seen the cost of mortgage payment protection insurance (MPPI) jump by about 20%. Yorkshire building society has pushed up theRead More →