Latest industry news
Remortgages dropped by both value and number in April, but first-time buyer purchases increased, the latest figures from UK Finance show.
The number of remortgages fell by 6.2 per cent to 9,140 in April when compared to the same month last year.
The value of remortgages also fell by 8.1 per cent to £3.3bn over the same comparison period, although there was an increase in the number of home owners remortgaging to borrow more.
The property market showed signs of stabilising in May as new buyer enquiries held steady and other measures improved, according to the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.
Its latest findings show that the downward movements in the number of sales agreed, new instructions and prices paid that its members have reported in recent months seem to be slowing.
While all of these measures continued to fall, the decline was less than in previous months, which RICS says appears to follow the decision to extend the deadline for withdrawal from the EU till the end of October.
News that the Competition and Markets Authority will investigate mis-selling claims in the leasehold sector has been welcomed by leaseholders and campaign groups. But is this the right course of action – and what should developers do to put things right?
Stories of mis-selling have been rife ever since the ‘leasehold scandal’ hit the headlines. Various reports including Leasehold: A Life Sentence? by NAEA Propertymark and the Leasehold Reform report by the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee have suggested developers were not just at fault occasionally during the sales process, but routinely.
The fact that many leasehold properties were sold using the Help to Buy scheme compounds leaseholders’ complaints. Both the name of the government scheme and developer’s marketing literature led them to believe they were buying a home. But it was only when the deal was done and contracts signed, that their true position as a freeholder’s tenant became clear. Read More
The South of East of England is where the biggest discrepancies between asking and selling prices lie, according to data collected by Property Solvers.
Within the region, South West London has the largest difference, at £85,142. This is followed by North West London at £80,299, and West London at £59,192.
Property Solvers points out that the only area in the top 20 of this list is Inverness, in Scotland, which has an average gap of £18,860.
Almost a million people may have stalled plans to move home over the past three years due to Brexit uncertainty, a new survey reveals.
The research by Gocompare found that over the past three years 1.5 million people have delayed moving house and of these 60 per cent cited Brexit as the main cause.
It means that more than 900,000 would-be movers may have stayed put or pushed back their plans because of the UK’s drawn-out negotiations with the EU over leaving.
The share of mortgages above 90 per cent loan-to-value advanced in the first quarter of 2019 rose to 4.5 per cent from 3.3 per cent a year earlier, Bank of England data shows.
The proportion of higher LTV lending is the highest the Bank has seen in almost two years, it says.
The figures come after the boss of the Bank of England’s Prudential Regulation Authority warned that regulators should be watching “like a hawk” as lenders seemed to be increasing their activity at high LTVs and loan-to-income ratios in the face of fierce competition on rates.
31% of borrowers going direct to a lender didn’t know how an adviser could help their mortgage search, according to new research from Legal & General who say thousands are missing out on a better mortgage deal as a result.
60% who didn’t seek advice when they took out their last mortgage didn’t know mortgage advisers were there to help the borrower, and just over a third (34%) thought a mortgage adviser was there to support the lender.
The findings also showed that more than two-thirds (69%) of borrowers who went straight to a lender hadn’t remortgaged in the last five years and nearly three-quarters (74%) stayed put because they felt they had ‘a good deal’.
Average house prices edged up to £237,837 in May following monthly growth of 0.5%, according to the latest Halifax house price index.
In the quarter to May, house prices were 2.5% higher than in the preceding three months and were 5.2% higher than in the same three months in 2018.
Halifax says the high annual growth figure comes against the backdrop of a “particularly low growth rate in the corresponding period in 2018, which has had an impact on year-on-year comparisons”.
House prices increased 5.2 per cent in the 12 months to May 2019, according to Halifax.
This resulted in the average house price being £237,837.
Month-on-month, the lender reports that average house prices grew 0.5 per cent, and on a quarterly basis by 2.5 per cent.
A Labour government would seek to bring in a progressive property tax to replace council tax and eradicate stamp duty for those buying property to live in themselves.
This would be payable by owners rather than tenants, and empty homes and second homes would be taxed at a higher rate, along with the capital gains earned from second homes and investment properties, details a report published by the party. It also suggests that business rates should be replaced with a land value tax.
Entitled Land for the Many, Labour’s latest paper argues that that land values have risen by 544 per cent since 1995, and by 2016, make up 70 per cent of the price of a home. This, the paper says, along with the practice of land banking and other forms of owning and controlling land, has caused house prices to explode beyond the means of many people.