UK Property News

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2010-04-28T16:40:00.001+01:00

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Property prices in Northern Ireland

2009-11-24T19:20:00.000Z

House prices in Northern Ireland have risen by more than 2% in the last quarter — raising hopes that the property crash has run its course.

The latest figures from the University of Ulster House Price Survey released yesterday put the average property price here at £164,017 during the third quarter of this year. This is a far cry from the heady days of the 2006/07 boom when the average house price here rocketed to £250,000.

And although the most recent figure is up 2.1% from £158,886 in the second quarter, housing experts have claimed any talk of dramatic house price growth is premature with house sales still sluggish.

The optimism of surveys earlier this year appears to have dissipated with some parts of the province experiencing falling property prices over the quarter.

And while homeowners in North Down are enjoying prices up by a whopping 26.8% this quarter and 7.6% in Belfast, the north and west of the province have seen prices plummet.

UK Property Auctions Guide

2009-11-16T17:34:00.001Z

Find out how ordinary people just like you are saving a fortune buying UK property...
Here's what you can get from the UK Property Auctions Guide:

All the latest hard to get info on forthcoming UK property auctions

A complete new guide to buying properties at UK auctions - giving you the most up-to-date top tips

A special new report on How to Find Repossessed Properties (the only one available in the UK)

Find out the tricks of the trade like How to finance your purchase when you don't have a cash deposit and many more. Written in a user friendly, jargon free style that assumes no previous knowledge of property auctions or business.

Stamp Duty relief Extended Until end 2009

2009-04-25T16:25:00.001+01:00

The Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT) of residential property sales up to £175,000 is to be extended to 31 December 2009. The SDLT threshold will revert to £125,000 (£150,000 in disadvantaged areas) from 1st January 2010.

This is good news for potential buyers as it was due to end in September this year. Unfortunately, as mortgage lending has been so restrictive, few people have been able to benefit – especially first-time buyers. However this extension gives a bit more time for lending restrictions to ease and hopefully more people will be able to take advantage.

UK Property News: First upturn in house price index

2009-04-03T13:08:00.000+01:00

UK Property News: First upturn in house price index

Tenants in Arrears

2009-04-03T12:53:00.002+01:00

The National Landlords Association (NLA) has published research revealing 37 per cent of landlords currently have tenants in arrears.

44 per cent of landlords have experienced rental arrears in the last 6 month. This goes some way to explaining the significant rise in repossessions and why a growing number of landlords are having problems meeting their mortgage repayments.

When faced with arrears, only 50 per cent of landlords attempted to recover the loss of earnings through the courts.

David Salusbury, Chairman, NLA, commenting on the rise in this significant rise in rental arrears, said:

"This is becoming a serious problem for landlords all over the UK. Paying the rent has to be right at the top of tenants' priorities as even one month's arrears, in this climate, could be the straw which breaks the camel's back. The mortgage has to be paid and the vast majority of landlords do everything in their power to make sure this happens.

First upturn in house price index

2009-04-03T12:34:00.003+01:00

March 2009 - Nationwide has reported the first increase in house prices for 16 months.

The house price index showed an increase of 0.9% in March 2009 The annual rate of house price falls is now 15.7% This may yet turn out to be an anomaly. In January Halifax showed an increase in house prices, only to be followed in February by a substantial reversal again.

That still puts them average house prices at around five times average earnings which by historical standards is a lot above the average income multiple that prevailed between 1950-1980.

Perhaps a more reliable indicator of the general state of the housing market is the number of loans actually taken out by home buyers. The Bank of England said the number of loans taken rose by 19% in February, with 37,937 loans approved during the month, leading to suggestions that activity in the market may have bottomed out.

Spring traditionally is a very busy time in the housing market and so what happens over the next 2 - 3 months will give a much clearer indication of whether we are nearig the bottom of the housing market, or if this just a flase dawn.

Repossessions - 6 months period of grace

2008-12-01T08:24:00.004Z

It has been announced today that the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), who also own the Natwest bank, will be allowing mortgage payers who default on repayments, a 6 month period of grace before legal action is started.

Under current legislation, legal action and repossession proceedings can be taken after 2 months if mortgage payments are in arrears.

RBS is now 60% owned by the government, and will have been under extreme pressure to show a more lenient approach to repossessions. It is expected that other banks will follow this move.

Although the current legal limit at which repossession action may be started is 2 months, most banks already give a longer period of grace than this, os in practical terms it is unclear how this will affect the rate of repossessions which has been rising rapidly in recent months.

Find a property to buy or rent

2008-11-29T20:38:00.004Z

Right Move has dominated the market for people looking for property to buy or rent, but they only cover up to around 50% of the property available at any one time.

What if your ideal property to buy or rent is in the other 50%?? Until recently your only course of action was to trawl through other property sites such as those produced by Team, or members of Prime Location, and the individual sites of Estate Agents.

Now, with the launch of a brand new search engine, you can find all properties for sale or rent easily. The search engine is Globrix.com. It is highly specialised and aims to gather all the property for sale or rent, whether on RightMove, Primelocation or on local Estate Agents' websites, all in one place.

The searches can be very loose or highly focused around specific requirements, such as location, type of house, number of bedrooms and outside space. A formidable number of properties can be sometimes be returned, but this can be very quickly narrowed down to meet your specific requirements.

Globrix.com has the potential to be THE search engine of choice for property in the UK.

House Swap - Lion Television Series

2008-11-17T19:16:00.005Z

Lion Television are working on a pilot for a new BBC1 property daytime pilot/show House Swap. House Swap aims to locate people and properties desperate to move and find their perfect match/home.

This will be a very positive show, raising awareness in a new trend of moving on, without losing out and hopefully generating a quicker sale/swap for the home owner. The main objective is to get home owners moving, to make this an enjoyable experience for all those involved.

The company is looking for couples, families or individuals desperate to move and looking to find their perfect match / home or are considering a move, possibly from one part of the country to another, although they are keen to talk to anyone thinking of moving, at this stage. They are in production at the moment with a pilot episode so will need to source the main participants as soon as possible. They are searching for great contributors; couples, families or individuals to feature, who are in the process or considering a move, possibly from city to country/seaside or vice versa with a bit of background why; new job, growing family, marriage.

With the help of their presenter and an expert negotiator they will guide the contributors through the process; finding their dream property, and helping them to negotiate a deal. They will meet, greet and road test potential home swappers.

If you would like to know more and at this stage without obligation to swap or be filmed, please contact Lucy Welch on 020 8846 2081 Or Lisa Kirk on 020 8846 2190.

What does the shock one and a half per cent interest rate cut mean for the Uk property market

2008-11-06T19:04:00.004Z

Concerns over the deepening recession in the UK economy has led to the Bank of England cutting interest rates by a massive 1.5%. This move was totally unexpected and has caught economists and the markets by surprise.

So what does this mean for the UK housing market.

Well if you have a tracker mortgage then you will benefit immediately from this 1.5% interest rate cut. Savings could be as much as £90 per month on a £100,000 mortgage. Interestingly a number of tracker rate mortgages have been withdrawn from the market as banks and building societies take stock of a rapidly changing financial environment. If your have a fixed rate mortgage then you will see no immediate benefit. If interest rates stay at a lower level then you may be able to get a lower fixed rate when your mortgage comes up for renewal. For those with a Standard Rate Variable mortgage then it is very much a case of "wait and see" as many economists do not expect the full benefit of the interest rate reduction to be passed on.

Will this 1.5% interest rate cut help the slide in house prices?Somehow I doubt it. There is still a strong sentiment that property is overvalued and the cut in interest rates is unlikely to free up the mortgage market for first time buyers. The affordability level is simply way too high, and banks are not going to go back to the reckless days when they would lend 5 times salary any day soon.

While the interest rate cut was made to help stave off a deepening recession, it may not succeed. Most things we buy these days comes from abroad and you may have noticed that sterling has been falling against both the US dollar and the Euro over recent weeks. This is pushing the price of imports up. As reported by NEXT, you are more likely to see an increase in prices in the near future than a fall.

So what does this 1.5% interest rate cute mean for the housing market. Well I expect it will have very little immediate effect, either on prices or the volume of sales. The winners this time are those with tracker mortgages who will have a few more pounds to spend this Christmas if the fuel bills don't take all the money.

Survive Negative Equity

2008-11-03T21:02:00.001Z

New research from Standard & Poor’s, the ratings agency, coincides with evidence that banks are aggressively seizing homes whose owners have slipped just a few hundred pounds behind on their mortgage payments. Economists believe house prices will fall by up to 35% from their peak by 2010. This compares with a drop of only 20% in the early 1990s.

Recent forecasts as to the number of people likely to fall into negative equity include:

The Bank of England: Calculations that the numbers caught in negative equity could soar from about half a million at present to 1.2 million by 2011

Standard & Poor’s Estimate that at the end of October 2008 335,000 homes were worth less than their mortgages. The figure represents a rise of 260,000 in four months.

Capital Economics: The City consultancy, expects up to 2m properties will be in negative equity by 2010 — more than in the recession of the early 1990s.

Citigroup: Three million homeowners, or more than a fifth of households, could end up in the trap of negative equity, with mortgage debts larger than the value of their property, as house prices continue to plunge. Michael Saunders, of Citigroup, says that the Bank of England's estimates are too optimistic since they are based on a survey of households where homeowners are asked for details of their own debts, financial assets and property value. Mr Saunders points to previous Bank research which showed that individuals tend to overstate the value of their homes by up to 20 per cent, and understate debts by 10 to 15 per cent.

Adjusting for this bias, he calculates that a likely further drop of 15 per cent in house prices — on top of the 15 per cent slide over the past year — will leave between 2.5 and 3 million homeowners in negative equity. This would exceed the peak of 1.8 million, the number of people who were in this predicament in the early Nineties.

Any advance on this anyone? It seems there is now almost a feeding frenzy of analysts predicting ever increasing levels of negative equity.