Letting agency clients of leading property software services provider, Eurolink, are calling on the lettings industry to unite to block the government’s proposed ban on lettings fees and help prevent lost income totalling over £1 million. Continue reading
Housing market slumps: Transactions could fall by almost 11 per cent
Inflated house prices and economic uncertainty has caused the housing market to stall, as homeowners looking to sell are now waiting up to 10 months to attract interest their properties.
Estate agents are predicting the number of completed transactions will fall further in the coming months.
Measures aimed at fixing Britain’s ‘broken housing market’ being unveiled
Measures aimed at fixing Britain’s “broken housing market” are being unveiled by ministers.
Communities Secretary Sajid Javid is saying the proposals will help people currently priced out of buying a home, and bring more stability to renters across England.
House price inflation picks up with Luton the 2016 hotspot
A town best known for its airport, Vauxhall vans, and as the home of Bake Off winner Nadiya Hussain, was the UK’s property hotspot last year, according to the UK’s largest mortgage lender.
Luton saw house prices rise 19.4% in 2016, the Halifax said.
Annual house price inflation ticked up again last month across the UK, the lender said, with prices rising by 6.5% in the year to the end of December. Continue reading
Fears of a ‘massive’ global property price fall
Property prices have climbed to dangerous levels in several advanced economies, raising the risk of massive price falls if markets overheat, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
Catherine Mann, the OECD’s chief economist, said the think-tank was monitoring “vulnerabilities in asset markets” closely amid predictions of higher inflation and the prospect of diverging monetary policies next year.
Why a house price crash is on the cards in 2017
House price growth is a constant in many people’s minds. The idea that they could fall seems unlikely according to homeowners who have enjoyed a long period of profiting from bricks and mortar.
However, things could be about to change. Just as during the credit crunch there was a crisis of confidence in the UK economy that hurt house prices, 2017 could see fears surrounding Brexit negatively impact on them. Continue reading
Revealed: the extent of the buy-to-let market collapse
New research has exposed the scale of the fall in buy-to-let purchases in the year that the Government hiked stamp duty by 3pc on such transactions.
The number of properties sold to buy-to-let investors has fallen 63.7pc in the year to November in England and Wales, according to the estate agency Haart, dropping 8.2pc last month alone. In London, the number of such properties sold fell by 40pc.
Buy-to-let crackdown will ‘end the dreams’ of middle-class investors
Property investors will face tough new mortgage affordability tests from next year which will herald the “beginning of the end of the middle-class buy-to-let dream”, experts have warned.
Business leaders urge government to tackle UK housing crisis
Business leaders have urged the government to tackle the housing shortage by expanding the rental sector and creating incentives for older homeowners to vacate large properties.
The CBI set out 10 recommendations to get more people into suitable housing ahead of the publication of a white paper by the Department for Communities and Local Government on tackling the housing crisis.
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More than 120,000 British children face being homeless this Christmas
More than 120,000 children across Britain face spending this Christmas homeless and in temporary accommodation, according to analysis by Shelter.
The charity, which used government data to make the findings, said the estimated figure is the highest since 2007 when over 133,000 children were living in temporary accommodation by the end of March that year. Continue reading