The number of buyers in the UK housing market has risen three months in a roll, as lower prices boost interest, according to figures from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS). But it said first-time buyers were still largely frozen out of the market, as lenders demand high deposits. Existing homeowners are the main source of the increased interest, as well as investors.
Archive for the ‘Property Prices’ Category
Buy enquiries still on the rise
Wednesday, February 18th, 2009Base rate falls while house prices rise
Friday, February 6th, 2009
The Bank of England cut interest rates to a new record low of 1% on Thursday. While the Halifax reported that house prices rose 1.9% during January. This is in contrast with Nationwide’s figures last week which showed 1.3% drop in house prices. As the credit-crunch has shown, the supply of finance has driven up house prices. There will be no full scale recovery in the UK property market until finance becomes easier to obtain, especially for first-time buyers. And with rising unemployment, who knows what the future will bring!
2000 jobs axed at Persimmon
Saturday, July 12th, 2008
Builder Persimmon today axed 2000 jobs as it fights the worst slump in the housing market for 30 years. the firm has cut 1100 of its full-time workforce since the start of the year and plans to lay off 900 temporary staff. It followed 1000 job cuts at rival Barratt Developments and 900 at Taylor Wimpey - with hundreds more expected at the likes of Bovis Homes and Redrow before the bloodletting is over.
Persimmon also said house sales fell 31% in the first half of the year with the average selling price down from £189,255 to £181,500, leaving revenues 34% down on last year. Shares in the housebuilding sector have crashed by around 90% since early last year as the housing boom ground to a halt.
£300bn wiped off value of British homes
Thursday, June 12th, 2008Britons have collectively seen nearly £300 billion wiped off the value of their homes since house prices first began to fall in September last year, research by property valuation website Zoopla.co.uk has showed. This is equivalent to more than £1 billion a day being wiped off the collective value of British homes. But it added that the recent price falls should be seen in the context of strong gains in recent years, with the value of Britain’s housing stock soaring by £750 billion during the past three years and £1.7 trillion during the past five years.
Mortgage approval slumps as banks run out of cash
Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008In a year, mortgages for people buying a home have dived by 46% as Britain’s banks run out of money to lend. Figures from the British Bankers Association (BBA) showed mortgage approvals for house purchase in March tumbling to its lowest figure since records began in 1997. This shows the extent to which banks are tightening their belts as they find themselves unable to secure funding for mortgages. Borrowers needing to remortgage or purchase a home are finding lenders have raised rates to reflect their own higher borrowing costs and increase margins on mortgages. Many are also demanding higher deposits to protect against house price falls and to raise the quality of their loan books. The rising cost of securing funding on the money markets has seen the inter bank lending rate Libor rise to 0.9% above the bank rate of 5% - the historical average is 0.13%. This has substantially pushed up the cost of new tracker rate mortgages, which are heavily influenced by Libor. The BBA said it expected lending to continue to weaken due to the continuing decline in mortgage approvals.
London’s negative equity locations
Sunday, April 20th, 2008The London postcodes at greatest risk from the housing crisis was revealed today by the Evening Standard. Tens of thousands of home owners across the capital will be plunged into negative equity this year if property prices fall by 20%. People who have taken on huge mortgages compared with the value of their property will owe more than the building is worth. The worst hit would be buy-to-let investors who tried to cash in on the housing boom, according to analysis obtained by the Evening Standard. Below are the top 10 streets and London boroughs most likely to be affected. Find out more at thisismoney.co.uk.
Top 10 London streets most at risk:
Calderwood Street SE18
Erebus Drive SE28
Queenstown Road SW8
Woolwich Common SE18
St Saviours Estate SE1
Glashier Street SE8
Greenhaven Drive SE28
St John’s Estate N1
Great Dover Street SE1
Borough High Street SE1
Risk level by London boroughs:
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£5k fee to take out your next mortgage
Wednesday, April 16th, 2008Homeowners are facing fees of up to £5,000 to take out a mortgage. A devastating report released yesterday shows that the average cost has almost doubled in a year. Interest rates charged by banks have also gone up. Separate Government figures out yesterday brought further bad news in that house prices are falling at their fastest rate since records began. After all the panic in the mortgage market, people may be tempted to grab the best headline rate deal but the fees must also be taken into consideration. HSBC charges up to £5,000 for its recently introduced ‘Rate Matcher’ deal, which lets homeowners whose current fixed-rate deal is about to expire get the same rate with HSBC for another two years. The mortgage meltdown continued yesterday with the number of deals available falling to just over 4,000 from 15,599 last summer.
Northern Rock axes 125% mortgage
Friday, February 22nd, 2008Northern Rock has pulled its 125% mortgage after heavy public criticism for the super-size homeloan. The troubled bank will no longer offer the Together mortgage to new customers as it seeks to move towards low-risk lending and shrink its mortgage book. Alliance & Leicester, Abbey, Coventry Building Society and Godiva all pulled their 125% homeloans earlier this week. The only lender still offering 125% mortgages is Birmingham Midshires and experts have suggested it will soon take the product off the market. Fears have been raised that those coming to the end of 100%-plus mortgages may be in for a payment shock and unable to find credit elsewhere. Mortgage lenders have been reassessing their ranges in response to tighter market conditions and have become more reluctant to lend to those with chequered credit histories or high loan-to-value ratios.
Government rakes in £31bn in stamp duty
Thursday, February 21st, 2008Homebuyers have forked out £31.5bn in stamp duty over the past ten years. Last year alone, the figure reached £6.5bn - a staggering 675% increase since Labour came to power. In 1997-1998, just £830m in stamp duty was paid. Increases introduced by Gordon Brown when he was Chancellor, which were widely criticised at the time, are forcing record numbers of homebuyers to pay stamp duty. Before Labour came to power, the tax was charged at just one per cent on all properties sold for £60,000 or more. Today, it is charged at 1% on houses costing between £125,000 and £250,000, 3% on those worth from £250,000 to £500,000 and 4% for those sold for more than £500,000. In London, the average asking price for a home is £402,000, which would mean stamp duty of more than £12,000. The majority of first-time buyers are now forced to pay the tax, which - coupled with the recent property boom - makes finding enough money to buy a home even harder.
