News

Further turbulence in the Buy-to-let sector

Published: 1 Dec 17

According to the latest research from Paragon Bank, almost one third of landlords may stop using letting agents if the proposed ban on them charging fees to incumbent tenant does go ahead as planned. Read More...

House price growth pretty flat

Published: 30 Nov 17

The increase in house prices continues to remain subdued according to the latest, November, figures released today. Read More...

Re-mortgaging at nine year high

Published: 29 Nov 17

Re-mortgage activity in October, just before the Bank of England’s (BoE) decision to raise interest rates by 0.25 per cent, was at its highest level since the financial crash. Read More...

First-time buyer mortgage borrowing in London leaps to ten year high

Published: 23 Nov 17

Borrowing by first-time buyers in London has reached its highest level in a decade but the matter of affordability remains a challenge. Read More...

House prices continue to move inexorably upwards

Published: 8 Nov 17

According to the latest figures from the Halifax house prices rose 0.3 per cent in October against the previous month, a rise of 4.5 per cent year-on-year. Read More...

Why use a mortgage broker?

Published: 7 Nov 17

It seems that over half of UK borrowers are currently failing to recognise the benefits of using a broker when searching out a mortgage. Read More...

UK Bank rate finally starts to rise

Published: 2 Nov 17

As widely expected, the Bank of England (BoE) has announced the first increase in interest rates for a decade, up from 0.25 to 0.5 per cent. Read More...

Surge in the Number of Five Year Fixes

Published: 1 Nov 17

The number of people re-mortgaging on to five-year fixed products hit a new high in September as customers planned ahead of a probable rise in Bank of England (BoE) base rate tomorrow, Thursday. Read More...

Chancellor shuns Communities Secretary’s housebuilding plan

Published: 25 Oct 17

Communities Secretary, Sajid Javid seems to have had his recent plans to borrow £50bn pounds to deal with the nation's chronic housing shortage by rapidly increasing housebuilding, rejected by the Chancellor, Philip Hammond Read More...

Gazumping under the spotlight

Published: 24 Oct 17

A ban on gazumping, first mooted in May of last year by the Department for Business Innovation and Skills looks set to be revived by the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG). Read More...

Housing supply moves to the higher ground

Published: 23 Oct 17

First a new housing strategy for England, which included giving councils powers to pressurise developers to start to build on land they own, then an extra £2bn of funding to build an additional 25,000 social homes. Now its borrow to build. Read More...

Borrowers hedging their bets

Published: 9 Oct 17

August saw an eleven per cent jump in re-mortgaging figures as borrowers tried to beat a potential rise in interest rates. Read More...

First Help-to-Buy, now it’s the rented sector

Published: 5 Oct 17

The Government yesterday pledged a further £2bn-worth of funding to provide a ‘new generation’ of council housing. Read More...

Help to Buy scheme under fire

Published: 4 Oct 17

Yesterday I reported on the Government’s plans to fund the Help to Buy scheme with an extra £10bn. Both the Adam Smith Institute and the homelessness charity, Shelter spoke out against it. Now it’s the turn of another organisation, The House Builders Association to speak out. Read More...

Help to Buy scheme to be extended

Published: 3 Oct 17

The Government has announced plans to fund an extra £10bn for the Help to Buy scheme enabling an estimated extra 135,000 people get on the property ladder. Read More...

A future Labour Government to curb private rents

Published: 27 Sep 17

Jeremy Corbyn has announced that a future Labour government will introduce controls into the private rental market aimed at protecting tenants, prompting further concerns for the buy-to-let market. Read More...

Housing transactions looking flat

Published: 22 Sep 17

Recent figures from HMRC, and supported by other data, suggests that the housing market is beginning to look very flat with too few new instructions each month. Read More...

Buy-to-Let Market, still in turmoil?

Published: 19 Sep 17

These past two years have seen some big changes in the buy-to-let market and there are still more to come. Are landlords prepared for them and, indeed, are they all aware of them? Read More...

The Buy-to-Let Market

Published: 11 Sep 17

A record number of Buy-to-Let (BtL) mortgage products are currently available to landlords despite a pronounced reduction in BtL activity during the first quarter of this year. Read More...

House Prices Gain Momentum

Published: 8 Sep 17

The latest figures from the Halifax house price index show prices still on a steady increase, taking the average house price across the UK to £22,293. Read More...

UK house sales flat in March

Published: 13 Apr 17

There’s a definite gloom beginning to set in over the state of the housing market reinforced by data, published today, by the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS). Read More...

Annual house price growth slows

Published: 7 Apr 17

According to the latest Halifax house price index the growth in house prices declined to 3.8 per cent. The important word, though is growth, rather than declined. Read More...

Rogue Landlords

Published: 6 Apr 17

Two days ago I wrote about ‘Portfolio Landlords’, today it’s all about ‘Rogue Landlords’ who could face fines of up to £30,000 for flouting licensing rules and putting tenants at risk. Read More...

Portfolio Landlords

Published: 4 Apr 17

Changes in the Buy to Let market, to be introduced from September 30th this year, are set to create a new species, to be known as the ‘Portfolio Landlord.’ Read More...

Home ownership on the decline

Published: 27 Feb 17

Home ownership, since the financial crisis, has fallen faster in UK than almost all of the rest of Europe with the exception of Germany, Austria and Denmark. Read More...