Home-builders ramp up incentives to lure hard-up first-time buyers December 2, 2010 HOME-BUILDERS have always offered buyers deals, but some are more valuable than others. Take, for example, the West Bromwich Building Society’s offer in 2004 of a free Rover car worth over £7,000 – a year before the car-maker went into administration. The downturn has left house-builders with new-builds sitting empty all over the country, and [...]
UK recovery confounds City experts December 1, 2010 FAR from slowing down, Britain’s recovery is intensifying. Yesterday’s economic data was remarkably good, with the purchasing managers’ index (PMI) suggesting that manufacturing is now growing at its fastest rate since 1994. Manufacturing accounts for under nine per cent of UK employment but remains vital to exports, despite the growth in recent years of financial [...]
House prices down 3.9 per cent on June December 1, 2010 HOUSE prices fell by another 0.3 per cent in November, mortgage-lender Nationwide announced yesterday. The news follows an even sharper drop in the previous month, as prices fell 0.7 per cent on September. Prices have either fallen or stagnated since June, according to Nationwide’s statistics. The average house price in the UK is now £163,398, [...]
Spending hits ten-year low in households November 30, 2010 FAMILY spending in the UK has fallen to a ten year low, according to government figures released yesterday. The average weekly spend dipped to £455 per household last year, down from £471 in 2008, said the Office for National Statistics (ONS). The figures reflect households tightening their belts amid recession, as the economy shrunk by [...]
October’s mortgage approvals lowest since Feb November 29, 2010 THE number of mortgage approvals in Britain fell to its lowest in eight months in October, but mortgage lending rose twice as fast as expected, according to official data released today. The Bank of England said mortgage approvals numbered 47,185 in October, down from 47,369 in September. This is the lowest level since February 2010, [...]
Ireland’s bailout won’t halt contagion November 28, 2010 ONLY the naïve will believe that Ireland’s bailout will halt the Eurozone crisis. It is too late for that; the best that the EU/IMF/UK plan will achieve is to slightly delay contagion. The 6 per cent interest rate on the EU portion of the loans is far too high, especially given that Eire’s inflation rate [...]
Learn the lessons of financial history November 25, 2010 THERE is nothing more enlightening than financial history – yet perhaps the only real lesson of all kinds of history is that we never learn from it. Let me attempt, nevertheless, to draw a couple of key conclusions. The first lesson from market history is that slumps and market crashes can always be much, much [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING November 25, 2010 FINANCIAL TIMES AIRLINE FINANCING RIFT DEEPENS Ryanair and Emirates have taken the unusual step of joining forces with eight other airlines as a multibillion-dollar row over aircraft financing starts to split the world’s largest airlines into two rival camps. The Irish budget airline and Dubai’s Emirates normally shun industry alliances. But yesterday they revealed they [...]
Nationwide profits up after cost cuts November 23, 2010 NATIONWIDE Building Society’s profits rose 26 per cent to £147m in the first half of 2010, from £117m the previous year, as it cut costs and reduced loan impairment charges. Pre-tax profits rose 83 per cent to £259m in the six months to 30 September 2010, from £143m in the same period in 2009. Impairment [...]
Nationwide says house price slump unlikely November 23, 2010 Nationwide Building Society, Britain’s second-biggest mortgage lender, reported a 26 per cent jump in first-half profit, and said it did not expect big house price falls despite signs of property market weakness. Nationwide, which publishes a closely watched monthly house price survey, said major price falls were unlikely in 2011 because continued low interest rates [...]