Rightmove: 74,000 house buyers to narrowly miss stamp duty deadline March 17, 2025 Rightmove’s stamp duty report has identified an estimated 74,000 moves, which includes 25,000 first-time buyers, that will just miss the March 31 deadline and complete in April. They form the unlucky section of a “massive log-jam” of 575,000 movers hoping to complete ahead of the tax change, Rightmove said. Collectively, the buyers are set to [...]
UK housing market returned to growth in 2024 March 17, 2025 The value of the UK housing market returned to growth last year after mortgage rates dropped and affordability constraints eased. According to Savills, the total value of the UK housing market expanded by 6.3 per cent in 2024 to £379bn. The increase in spending on housebuying was fuelled by first-time buyers, who collectively increased their [...]
Persimmon: Housebuilder posts uptick in profit amid housing market recovery March 11, 2025 Housebuilder Persimmon has reported an uptick in house completions and profit after two years of steep declines. The York-based company completed 10,664 homes in the year ended December 31, up seven per cent year on year. Revenue from new housing rose £2.86bn from £2.54bn while underlying profit before tax rose 10 per cent to £395.1m. [...]
Buy-to-let market ‘resilient’ despite fears of landlord exodus March 11, 2025 UK landlords are more optimistic than previously thought about buy-to-let as the market gears up to absorb economic and regulatory challenges, according to a new survey. A survey of 300 UK landlords has found that a third of landlords plan to expand their portfolios this year, while 43 per cent expect yields to improve. “It [...]
How to avoid the 60 per cent income tax trap March 10, 2025 As more taxpayers have part of their earnings taxed at an effective rate of 60 per cent, financial advisers are working to help clients avoid the so-called income ‘tax trap’. A freedom of information request submitted by Bowmore Financial Planning to HM Revenue & Customs revealed that in 2023-24, 634,000 taxpayers earning between £100,000 and [...]
Atom Bank wants to inspire staff back to the office March 10, 2025 The boss of Atom Bank said he wants to inspire his staff back to the office as he announced plans to relocate its headquarters to Newcastle. Chief executive Mark Mullen has confirmed plans to move its head office from The Rivergreen Centre in Durham to The Pattern Shop in Newcastle. The Pattern Shop was where [...]
Housebuilder Persimmon to post higher profit amid slow recovery in demand March 9, 2025 Housebuilder Persimmon is expected to report a rebound in profits next week after two years of steep declines, after the housing market made a slow recovery in 2024. The FTSE 100 company will post its financial results for last year on Tuesday In January, Persimmon said profit would come in towards the top end of [...]
UK mortgage brokers expect interest rates to jump March 7, 2025 According to a new study, over two-thirds of UK mortgage brokers expect interest rates to stop falling and resume their upward trend by the beginning of next year. Butterfield Mortgages surveyed 300 brokers and 69 per cent said they believed the Bank of England base rate would be higher than the current level of 4.5 per cent [...]
Co-op Bank mortgage applications soar following takeover March 7, 2025 Mortgage applications boomed at Coventry Building Society’s new subsidiary, The Co-op Bank, in its first batch of financial results since the acquisition. The bank recorded £116.2m in pre-tax profit for 2024, down from the £120.9m booked in 2023 but in line with company expectations. It said lower mortgage margins and increased savings rates weighed on net interest income, dampening [...]
15 years on from The Big Short, securitisation is back March 7, 2025 The Big Short hit bookshelves 15 years ago, but the era of securitisation it depicts is far from over — in fact, it’s booming, says Tim Focas Fifteen years ago this month, Michael Lewis’s The Big Short hit bookshelves, exposing how Wall Street’s reckless financial engineering fuelled the 2008 financial crisis. It was a cautionary tale to [...]