Nationwide House Price Index: UK house prices hit a new record high April 29, 2015 UK’s house price growth rose by an annual rate of 5.2 per cent in April, a small rise from March’s figure of 5.1 per cent. This put the average cost of a house in the UK at £193,048, the highest since records began. The figures According to data from Nationwide, UK house prices rose one per [...]
London house prices: West End buyers shrug off stamp duty rise and mansion tax threat as sales rise April 27, 2015 The West End residential market saw no let up in activity over the first quarter of the year, figures show, despite changes to stamp duty and the threat of Labour’s proposed mansion tax. Property advisory firm CBRE said sales transactions jumped by 33 per cent on last year as it agreed sales on £54.7m worth [...]
Miliband’s disappointing stamp duty pledge won’t make the tax less stupid April 27, 2015 Housing, and its affordability crisis, is a bigger issue at this election than in any other for decades. Sadly, that hasn’t translated into policies that could effectively solve the problem, and yesterday’s announcements by Labour leader Ed Miliband will not change that. Labour plans to introduce a three-year stamp duty exemption for first time buyers, [...]
General Election 2015: Labour bids to woo first time buyers with stamp duty pause April 27, 2015 Labour will today announce that it would scrap stamp duty for first-time buyers on properties worth up to £300,000, for the first three years it is in government. The move is seen as a bid to win over younger voters and pull ahead of the Conservatives, as polls continue to show the two parties neck-and-neck [...]
General Election 2015: Rent controls pledged by Labour to woo “generation rent” April 26, 2015 Ed Miliband is seeking to woo a generation of voters priced out of the property market with a promise to stop landlords making significant increases to rents. The Labour leader has pledged to cap rent rises at no more than the rate of inflation over the term of a three-year tenancy if elected at the [...]
London house prices: Kensington and Chelsea is now growing more slowly than Bristol April 24, 2015 London has lost its housing crown: for the first time since 2005, central London price growth is being outpaced by cities across the UK. According to data from HomeTrack, the triple-threat of electoral uncertainty, mansion tax fears and affordability issues have conspired to slow growth in the country’s most-valuable areas. Boroughs such as Chelsea and [...]
Mortgage lending lull ends as March registers upturn as General Election uncertainty fails to make slow demand April 23, 2015 Mortgage lending has picked up in March following a slow start to 2015, data released yesterday by the Council for Mortgage Lenders (CML) show. Gross mortgage lending reached £16.5bn, 21 per cent higher than in February and seven per cent higher than March last year. Lending remains below levels seen last summer and is far [...]
London house prices: Could the General Election outcome send the wealthy packing? April 23, 2015 London has a unique property market. Prime and emerging-prime areas of London are driven by people who move to larger and “better” located properties not because they really need to, but because they want to. Nothing soothes a burgeoning ego more than an SW3 postcode. Political rhetoric aimed at plundering this – apparently under-taxed – [...]
General Election 2015: David Cameron, Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg on how they’re going to solve the housing crisis (and which is their favourite room) April 23, 2015 House prices are too high and there aren't enough homes on the market, a new – not altogether surprising – study has suggested. But with an election just days away, property search giant Rightmove, which conducted the research, decided to take it to the leaders of each party to see what they're going to do [...]
UK house prices: Is this the return of the first-time buyer? April 23, 2015 As UK house prices have risen, so has the story of the death of the first-time buyer. New data suggests this despair may have come too soon, however. A third of people feel better placed to move home than they did 12 months ago, despite wage growth lagging far behind house price inflation. The figures [...]