Hometrack
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Latest property news
ZPG snaps up Hometrack for £120 million
Zoopla Property Group (ZPG) has bought Hometrack, the London-based property information company co-founded in 1999 by entrepreneur Giles Mackay, one of the richest men in the UK. Mackay (pictured, left) was Hometrack’s CEO for many years before stepping aside in 2013 to become chairman and is likely to be adding several million to his estimated £354 million fortune now that ZPG has agreed to pay £120 million for the company. Hometrack is the UK’s leading provider of residential property market data and works with over 400 partners including lenders, new home developers, investors, housing associations and local authorities. The company is best known for its Average Valuation Model (AVM) which is used by 15 out of the top 20 lenders such as Barclays, Abbey and Nationwide, mainly as a tool to value homes for mortgage lending purposes, without the need for a site visit. ZPG says the acquisition creates ‘the UK’s most valuable residential property resource’ and that it is part of a strategy to develop its data services business. The acquisition also gives ZPG a door into the Australian property market, where Hometrack is one of the leading AVM suppliers. Hometrack is also a fast-growing company despite its vintage and…
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Latest property news
Mortgage lending up to £18.2 billion in May
CML reports the highest figure since 2008 and they “don’t expect significant house price falls.”
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Housing Market
Annual property price growth set to hit 10%
With demand from buyers continuing to heavily outweigh the supply of homes coming on to the market, residential property prices in Britain’s 20 biggest cities is expected to be increasing by 10 per cent by the end of this year, according to a new report. The latest research by property analysts Hometrack revealed that annual home price inflation is currently running at 8.4 per cent but it estimates that this rate of growth will rise in the coming months, fuelled by high demand and low supply, as well as a strengthening domestic economy, which is fuelling optimism in the market. The report also found that the average price of a residential property rose by 4.3 per cent in the last quarter to reach £226,200, with quarter-on-quarter gains led by Oxford, up 8 per cent, followed by London (6.6 per cent) and Glasgow (6.4 per cent). In contrast, Aberdeen was found to be the weakest performer with no real movement in home prices during the first half of 2015. “Rising demand for property against a backdrop of low supply continues push city level house prices higher,” said Richard Donnell, Director of Research at Hometrack (left). “It looks increasingly likely that city…
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Uncategorised
Buzzing builders and buyers
REPORT HEADLINES Rightmove: “House prices close to all-time high – will ‘granlords’ drive them higher?” Home.co.uk: “Home prices take a spring leap.” NAEA: “A third of all house sales made to first time buyers.” RICS: “Steadier demand and tight supply push price expectations higher.” Halifax: “House prices in the three months to March were 2.6 per cent higher than in the previous three months.” Agency Express: “Confidence continues.” Land Registry: “The February data shows a monthly price increase of 0.5 per cent.” Kate says: “It’s great to see that we have a much healthier market in 2015. Although most places are still stuck with a shortage of homes, especially versus the number of agents fighting for business, we have a market that is moving, but not ‘too fast’ and not ‘too slow’ at the moment. And better still, it’s being driven mostly by first time buyers getting themselves on the ladder, relieving some of the pressure on rental stock (or mum and dad’s house!). The other good news is that it is driving more sales of new builds. I haven’t seen so many new build sites buzzing with activity as I travel up and down the country since the start…
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Housing Market
Get on the right track
There used to be the Halifax house price index and one from Nationwide. That was it. They were definitive; house prices went up or down, and you knew exactly by how much. Now, there’s a much wider range of residential property indices. IPD, LSL, Hometrack, Rightmove, Primelocation, it can be a confusing landscape, with some telling you prices are rising, other that they’re falling. They don’t even agree on the average house price. Academetrics, which produces the LSL index, points out that the average house price in 2010 might have been £220,000 or £170,000, depending on which survey you chose to believe. If you’re confused, you’re in good company, back in 1998 Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank of England, complained that the Nationwide and Halifax indices had diverged widely and neither he nor his economists could really understand what was going on with house prices. Nationwide was reporting a 12 per cent rise in prices, Halifax said it was 5.6 per cent, and the Bank, after careful research, thought it was probably about nine per cent. So why do these indices give such different answers? And do we need them all? To understand why the indices have different results,…
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