residential property market
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Housing Market
Mansion Tax would be bad for property, warns agent
With just over a week until the General Election, London based estate agents Sandfords has joined a chorus of other industry experts and warn of the possible ‘disastrous consequences’ for the residential property market if Labour is elected into power. The estate agency firm is particularly concerned about the party’s plans to introduce a mansion tax on all homes worth more than £2 million, and the potential impact that the levy could have on the housing market in London as well as other parts of the country. _“In the immediate run up to the Election we are seeing a lot of influential individuals, economists and agents shouting about the reality of a Labour Government and the effects their proposed mansion tax will have on the whole property market, and not just in London,” said Tim Fairweather, a Director at Sandfords. “We have voiced our fears of Labour’s taxing policy on numerous occasions ever since its proposal but it’s now increasingly apparent that it will provoke far reaching problems that will have an effect on millions of everyday people,” he added. Although Labour insist that they want to help aspirational homeowners gain a foot on the housing ladder, Fairweather claims that…
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Housing Market
Housing market continues to cool
The residential property market continued to slow in December, as lower demand led to the slowest rate of property price growth since the start of 2014. The annual rate of growth slowed to 7.8 per cent, which is 2.4 per cent lower than the high witnessed in July, and the lowest since the 7.3 per cent of January 2014, the latest data from mortgage lender Halifax reveals. The quarterly rate of growth has now fallen for five months in a row, with prices in the three months to December just 0.3 per cent higher than in the previous quarter, the lowest rate of quarter-on-quarter growth since November 2012. Halifax’s figures act as a further indication that the housing market may be far more muted in 2015. Halifax estimates that house prices will rise this year by between 3 and 5 per cent, which would be around half the rate of growth seen in 2014. “The deterioration in housing affordability as a result of rising house prices, earnings growth that has been consistently below consumer price inflation until very recently, and speculation of an interest rate rise, have combined to temper housing demand since the summer,” said Martin Ellis (left), Halifax…
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