Housing Market

News covering issues affecting the UK residential property market, house prices, interest rates and buying and selling trends.

  • Starter homes image
    Latest property news

    Average London couple unable to buy Starter Home until 2028

    Says JLL in latest residential research findings.

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    Latest property news

    Property slowdown is a myth for majority of London

    ‘Normal’ neighbourhoods defy price drops, says Stirling Ackroyd.

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  • Latest property news

    73 per cent of Britons dream of home ownership

    And 78 per cent believe that availability of housing is a serious problem.

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    Housing Market

    Transforming Generation Rent to Generation Buy

    Housing Minister says new Housing & Planning Act will ‘unlock the door to homeownership.

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    Housing Market

    BoE: “Very volatile boom and bust conditions”

    The Bank of England has announced plans to introduce more stringent checks on buy-to-let lenders amid concerns that the property investment market is moving into bubble territory.

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    Housing Market

    Interest in buy-to-let could plummet

    Interest in new purchases from buy-to-let investors dropped 27 per cent in March compared to the same month last year as April 1st tax change starts to bite, according to Rightmove. The fall reverses the upward trend between December and February which brought a 24 per cent year-on-year increase in buy-to-let enquiries, indicating a potential slowdown in new investor purchases at least in the short-term. Demand from home-hunters is at an all-time high with a record number of Q1 enquiries, so the pause from investors could give some first-time buyers more of an opportunity to make a move. Some buy-to-let investors took a break from looking for new properties in March as the new tax changes deadline loomed, the new data from Rightmove reveals. Whilst Rightmove recorded its busiest ever Q1 for enquiries to estate agents, the intentions of buyers shifted in March, with the number of people saying they were planning to buy a property to rent out dropping by 27 per cent compared to the same month last year. This contrasts with the increase in interest seen from investors between December and February (+24 per cent year-on-year) as they tried to make last minute purchases before April’s additional…

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    Latest property news

    Property sales boost was no April Fool

    31st March was a busy day for My Home Move, completing a record number of property transactions. To help people complete their property transactions before the 1st April stamp duty changes came into play, My Home Move – provider of mover conveyancing services – alongside many others in the industry worked around the clock to complete a record of 1,210 property transactions on 31st March. This was a significant jump of 40% from the previous record in December last year. My Home Move completed more cases on 31st March alone than 93% of conveyancing firms completed in the whole of 2015. As a result, this marked both a record day and record month of completions for the business and is likely to have been a similar story across the industry. The record day also made it a record month, with My Home Move completing a total of 6,178 mover transactions in March, a 22% increase from its previous monthly record in October 2015 (5,060 completions). Doug Crawford (left), CEO, said, “There was a great amount of dedication last Thursday and in the preceding days and weeks to help customers purchasing an additional property and win the race to save on…

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    Housing Market

    Does buy-to-let still stack up?

    Investors rushed to snap up homes before April’s buy-to-let tax changes - but what’s next? Marc Da Silva reports.

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    Latest property news

    We are addicted to property

    Ever since Margaret Thatcher declared her belief in a ‘property-owning democracy’ and introduced Right to Buy in 1980, the UK was converted into a nation obsessed with residential properties. Let’s be honest, many of us are preoccupied with our homes and particularly how much they are worth. Just turn on the TV or pick up a newspaper on almost any given day and you will find a story about property prices or mortgages and how they are becoming easier or harder to obtain. A new survey by Direct Line Home Insurance shows that 63 per cent of Britons browse property websites even when they are not looking to buy. Some 2.6 million browse portals like Zoopla or Rightmove at least once a day and 38 per cent admit they checked the price of someone else’s home online in the last year. The most enthusiastic property browsers were in Sheffield where 74 per cent confessed to window shopping for homes followed by 72 per cent in London and 70 per cent in Newcastle. People say that they look at online property portals to keep a check on house prices, look at design trends and also daydream about a future home. “We…

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    Housing Market

    Chancellor’s assault on buy-to-let “is mystifying”

    The Chancellor George Osborne has been slammed for his outright assault on buy-to-let investors following the introduction of a stamp duty surcharge last week, while also exempting landlords from fresh cuts to Capital Gains Tax, and planning further tax increases on property investors. The former Editor of The Times and the London Evening Standard, Simon Jenkins (left), questioned in his latest column for The Guardian columnist whether George Osborne was really a Tory. He also described Osborne’s “assault” on buy-to-let as “mystifying”. He wrote, “With the withering away of public housing, private renting is how evermore people live, especially in cities. They include the migratory rich, millennials, those unable to afford a house and those who are just very poor and cannot get a council tenancy. Between 2001 and 2011, private renting in London went from 17 per cent to 26 per cent of the housing market, and is continuing to rise.” Jenkins believes that encouraging the release of under-occupied space is the one sure answer to the housing shortage, and the most efficient way of doing this is by encouraging letting, especially in London. “Renting is the most efficient use of urban property. It keeps things flexible. It is…

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