General Election 2015: Ed Miliband promises £5bn for 125,000 new homes funded by Help to Buy ISA April 4, 2015 Ed Miliband has promised billions of pounds of funding to build 125,000 new homes over the next five years. The policy, due to be announced by the Labour party today, is based on the Help to Buy ISA revealed by Chancellor George Osborne in the latest Budget and aimed at getting first-time buyers on the [...]
David Cameron courts first-time buyers as 50,000 sign on to home discount scheme April 3, 2015 Over 50,000 people have signed up to the government's programme to give first-time buyers a 20 per cent discount on their new home. An extension of the controversial Help to Buy initiative, the programme means new properties up to £250,000 and £450,000 in London will be subject to deep discounts. However, only those under the [...]
Living close to Waitrose could boost your house price by 12pc April 3, 2015 Premium properties within easy reach of a Waitrose can command a 12 per cent (£38,831) higher price than similar properties in other areas. According to research from Lloyds Bank, houses close to supermarkets enjoy, on average, a seven per cent higher price than other properties in the same town. Lloyds compared the average house prices [...]
UK house prices: Sutton, Cambridge and Watford top the list of the UK’s property hotspots April 2, 2015 It's home to Channel 4 series PhoneShop. And, er, other things. Alright, so Sutton might not be the most glamorous place in the commuter belt – but it turns out that when it comes to the race up the housing ladder, the town is heavily in-demand. That's according to online estate agent Emoov, whose latest Property [...]
UK house prices: We can ramp up housebuilding by turning offices into flats – if the planners let us April 1, 2015 The UK suffers from an acute housing shortage, and this has led to prices outpacing incomes in nearly every year since the early 1990s. Most government initiatives to address this problem, however, have merely resulted in greater demand for properties. In fact, the only way to tackle the issue properly is to increase supply. But [...]
Wealthy Russians are pushing up London rental prices by paying an entire year’s rent upfront – as stamp duty and the mansion tax scare buyers into becoming tenants March 30, 2015 Wealthy tenants from Russia, Ukraine, Nigeria and China are pushing up high-end rents in the capital by paying for an entire year of tenancy upfront, a new study has suggested. Upmarket lettings agency EJ Harris said the number of wealthy foreign investors paying annual rents upfront has doubled in the past year, from one in [...]
UK property prices: A third of all house sales are now to first time buyers March 30, 2015 A third of all house sales are now made to first-time buyers, a new report has found, suggesting the UK's housing market is becoming less hostile towards those attempting to climb the first rung on the property ladder. The report, by the National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA), said 30 per cent of all house [...]
London rents more than double UK average as high property prices lift sector demand March 29, 2015 Rents in London rose by eight per cent in February compared with the same month last year, as high property prices forced more people into the rented sector. For the UK as a whole, average rents increased by seven per cent in February compared with last year, figures released by estate agents Barnard Marcus show [...]
UK house prices: March’s Nationwide house price index reveals more proof the property market is cooling March 27, 2015 House prices in the UK inched up just 0.1 per cent in March, a further signal the property market is continuing to cool. That number took annual growth to 5.1 per cent, down from February’s 5.7 per cent, the seventh consecutive monthly slowdown in growth. That means growth is now at an 18-month low. “Economic [...]
Housing shortage hits first-time buyers despite government help March 26, 2015 The UK’s chronic housing shortage is forcing first-time buyers to accept lower quality properties. Natural light was cited as not being vital by 51 per cent of prospective buyers, survey figures released today by estate agents Your Move and Reeds Rains show. Additionally, 63 per cent would go without a bath while 11 per cent [...]