New research from Hometrack shows house prices in England and Wales slipping in July, for the first time in 15 months. The housing intelligence firm has recorded a 0.1% decline as the market continues to take up the impact of a surge in new instructions, alongside a 1.3% drop in new buyer enquiries. Hometrack director, [...]
New figures from HM Revenue & Customs show the number of homes sold in the UK rising to 86,000 in June. Completed transactions on properties worth over £40,000 increased by an annual 15%, having leapt 21% on May. The summer bounce also took volumes for the first six months of the year up 21% on [...]
Mid-year figures from Charity Bank and Triodos Bank show both lenders are on track for a record year of lending. During the first six months of this year, Charity bank agreed £20.9 million of new loans. This is compared to a total of £22.9 million for the whole of 2009. Figures from Triodos show new [...]
Gross mortgage lending increased in June, to an estimated £13.1 billion, with the total up 15% on a month earlier and 7% year-on-year, according to the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML). During the second quarter of the year lending stood at around £35 billion, having risen 17% compared with the previous three months and showing [...]
Home owners coming onto the market have dropped their asking prices for the first time this year, according to Rightmove. The property portal reported a 0.6% decline in the average new vendor’s ambitions in July, amounting to £1,435 in hard cash. The website is currently accommodating an additional 30,000 properties a week, up 45% compared [...]
Mortgage borrowers who moved home in May saw their mortgage interest payments accounting for the lowest proportion of income since the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) began collecting data, in 1975. CML members made 27,100 loans to home movers, up 19% on a year earlier, while the proportion of income spent on mortgage interest stood [...]
A report by Action Fraud, the national fraud reporting centre, has revealed more than 15,000 people have been the victims of fraud during the first six months of the year. The majority of the cases were online shopping and auction frauds and advance fee frauds – where services were not delivered. However, “romance” frauds (where [...]
Bovis has reported a steady half year in terms of sales, although the new homes market remained “subdued” with first-time buyers limited by “liquidity issues”. However, the house builder delivered “solid” weekly private sales rates in the six months to the end of June 2010, and achieved prices that were ahead of expectations. During the [...]
UK house prices fell by 0.6% in June, following a similar decline in May, Halifax has reported. The average value of a home stood at £166,203, with the annual rate of gain easing back to 6.3%, compared with 6.9% in May. That being said, prices in the April to June quarter were largely unchanged compared [...]
House builder, Persimmon, has reported a rise in sales during the six months to the end of June 2010, with legal completions increasing by over 16% compared with a year earlier, to 4,657. Since early May, private sales have slowed down, partly in line with seasonal trends and partly due to uncertainty prior to the [...]
Connells Survey & Valuation has reported a surge as seller confidence in June, the first clear month in which Home Information Packs have been abolished. The nationwide property valuation service saw a 20% rise in valuations, compared with a year earlier, taking volumes in the second quarter of 2010 up 13% on the same period [...]
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) today reported business investment in Britain soared in the first quarter of the year, suggesting the economic recovery is gathering pace. According to the ONS, business investment grew 7.8% to £29.14 billion in the period – an improvement on the 6% increase initially reported, but 7.7% down on the [...]
UK house prices managed a 0.1% rise in June, compared with a month earlier, taking the average value of a home to £170,111, according to Nationwide. A flurry of new instructions following the abolition of Home Information Packs may have slowed the rate of gain, which fell back from 0.5% in May. The smoother three-month-on-three-month [...]
Housebuilder, Taylor Wimpey, has declared that the underlying shortfall of new build housing and strong levels of demand will continue to underpin UK house prices. The developer is wary of the “ongoing political and economic uncertainty” and warns that a shortage of building land will “artificially constrain” the recovery in new house building, in the [...]
House prices in England and Wales slipped by 0.2% in May, according to Land Registry data. The average cost of a home stood at £165,314 during the month, with the decline taking the annual rate of inflation down to 8.2%. However, the Registry points out that May was the seventh month in a row in [...]
The number of homeowners who saw their properties repossessed by lenders fell to a two-year low in the first three months of 2010. New data from the Financial Services Authority put the total the number of repossessions at 10,500, down 11% on the final quarter of 2009. In addition, new mortgage arrears declined by 2%, [...]
In its latest overview of the UK property market, Assetz has reported that the average value of a home was 7.8% higher in May than a year earlier. The firm, which compiles monthly average figures from five of the major house price indices, calculates that the annual rate of growth dropped back from 9.1% in [...]
Gross mortgage lending totalled an estimated £11.3 billion in May, the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) has reported. The figure is up 7% from £10.5 billion in April, and 10% from £10.2 billion a year earlier. While the mortgage market is more buoyant than a year ago, it remains “subdued”, according to the CML, with [...]
House prices were 10.1% higher in April than a year earlier, having gained 0.4% during March. New figures from the Department for Communities and Local Government put the average cost of a UK home at £207,516, taking into account a 0.9% rise over the three months to the end of April. However, the quarterly increase [...]
The number of properties for sale in the UK has reached its highest level since January 2008, according to Findaproperty.com. Stock levels increased 9% between May and June, and are now 35% higher than in January 2010. However, the average asking price of a home rose 0.3% this month to £220,308, the highest level for [...]
Phone fraudsters stealing bank card pins
Fraudsters using a phone scam to trick bank card holders into revealing their pin numbers stole £750,000 in the first four months of this year. This is the same amount stolen through this scam in the whole of last year. The fraudster telephones a bank customer, often someone elderly or vulnerable, telling them that their [...]
FSA rules out ban on interest-only mortgages
Speculation that the Financial Services Authority would ban interest-only mortgages as part of its Mortgage Market Review has proved to be unfounded. However, lenders will be required to monitor the performance of the investment product taken out by the customer to repay the mortgage at the end of its term. Investments are performing poorly because [...]
Bank of England may end free in-credit banking
A director of the Bank of England has warned that official intervention could be considered to end the ‘dangerous myth of free in-credit banking’. Andrew Bailey has already spoken out against free banking in relation to the mis-selling of financial products. In a speech made available to media, he reiterated his concern, saying that it [...]
Bank of England votes against more economic stimulus
The Bank of England voted against a further round of quantitative easing, at its latest Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting. Just one member, David Miles, voted for further asset purchase to encourage growth in the UK economy, while the other eight members voted to keep the Bank’s quantitative easing programme steady at £325bn. The minutes [...]
Catalogue debt growing says helpline
Calls from people concerned about their debts with mail order catalogues accounted for more than 12 per cent of all calls received by National Debtline last year, compared with just 8 per cent in 2007. More people were concerned about catalogue debt than about payday loans, mortgage or rent, according to the Money Advice Trust [...]
Homeserve faces mis-selling investigation
HomeServe, which provides emergency insurance cover and domestic repairs to households in the UK, is to be investigated by the Financial Services Authority (FSA). Issues over the possible mis-selling of household emergency policies were uncovered last October during an internal review at the Walsall-based company. Homeserve’s call centre staff were found to be selling ‘Complete [...]
OFT warns Wonga over debt collection methods
Payday loan company Wonga used aggressive and misleading methods to collect debts from customers, the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has found. Wonga sent letter and emails to certain customers suggesting they had committed fraud and threatening to report them to the police if they did not act in the way Wonga suggested. The company [...]
NS&I re-launches investment account
National Savings & Investments (NS&I) has re-launched its Investment Account at a higher interest rate than it previously offered. The account now offers 0.75 per cent before tax, compared with between 0.2 and 0.3 per cent previously, depending on the account balance. Deposits and withdrawals on the account can no longer be made at Post [...]
Rightmove reports property downsizing trend
Two in five property owners planning to sell in the next year are planning to ‘trade down’, compared with one in four who plan to ‘trade up’. A survey by property website Rightmove found that moving to a smaller home is the main reason for moving in nine out of the ten regions in the [...]
More people failing to save for retirement
The proportion of people with no pension savings has grown from 20 per cent to 22 per cent over the past year, according to Scottish Widows’ latest survey. The pension provider surveyed 5,200 adults in the UK, aged 30 or over, and earning at least £10,000 a year, for its annual review of pensions. Ian [...]
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