Category Archives: Property

China to cut mortgage rates as part of plan to prop up property market

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Local authorities will be allowed to turn unsold homes from developers into affordable housing

China will cut mortgage rates and allow local authorities to turn unsold homes from developers into affordable housing, in a series of drastic measures by Beijing aimed at propping up the country’s faltering property market.

The People’s Bank of China said it would scrap the minimum rate of interest and reduce down-payment ratios to 15% for first-time buyers and 25% for second homes. It will also create a 300bn yuan (£32.8bn) facility to support local state-owned companies to buy homes at reasonable prices, it said in a series of statements on Friday.

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Nationwide stops lending on some flood-risk properties

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Banks may follow suit after UK weather-related claims on home insurance reach new high

Britain’s biggest building society has stopped granting mortgages on some properties where there is a high risk of flooding but said this affected only “a very limited number” of homes.

Nationwide’s head of property risk, Rob Stevens, said the lender used mapping technology to identify which homes were vulnerable to flooding, and it would decline to grant a mortgage to buy a property it deemed to be at high risk.

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Forced home moves cost renters over half a billion pounds a year

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There were 830,000 unwanted moves in England over the past 12 months, meaning 40% have been forced to relocate

Unwanted home moves cost renters more than half a billion pounds a year, with tenants coughing up an average of £669 every time they are forced by landlords to leave their home, a survey has revealed.

Analysis by the homelessness charity Shelter estimated that there had been 830,000 unwanted moves in England over the past 12 months, meaning 40% of renters who move house are doing so because they have been compelled to look for other accommodation.

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UK rent rises forecast to outpace wage growth for three years

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Average 13% increase by 2027 will put millions of households under further pressure, says thinktank

Rent rises in Britain are forecast to outpace wage growth, despite having already surged at the fastest pace on record after the Covid pandemic and the cost of living crisis.

The Resolution Foundation expects added pressure on millions of households and said average rents could increase by 13% over the next three years as current high growth in the private rental market work their way through existing tenancies.

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Secret home insurance commissions raking in millions for landlords in England and Wales

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Insurers have made huge hidden payments for buildings cover over many years, experts say

Landlords of developments in England and Wales where residents face hefty service charges face calls to disclose millions of pounds in “secret commissions” raked in over the years for arranging buildings insurance.

Experts say these hidden commissions, paid to landlords including City investment funds that hold freeholds and managing agents, have been worth tens of millions of pounds a year. The arrangements were made without residents being told and resulted in higher service charges.

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Outrage as residents in England’s ‘affordable’ housing forced to pay thousands of pounds extra in service charge

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Pressure on Michael Gove to act as householders see bills rise 40%, with many saying that they cannot afford to pay

Some of the UK’s largest housing providers have dramatically increased annual service charges by thousands of pounds, plunging residents into financial crisis, an Observer investigation has found.

Many residents who bought shared-ownership properties built as affordable homes have been sent bills in recent weeks with increases of more than 40%. Some say they are unable to sell the properties having now been lumbered with “extortionate” charges and no cap on future increases. More than 1,000 people across the country are now threatening to refuse to pay.

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Part of billionaire family’s empire named on London’s rogue landlord list

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Subsidiary of Lazari Investments fined £67,000 for breaches of HMO licence conditions on Camden flats

A family-owned property empire whose holdings include the former Fenwick department store building on London’s Bond Street has seen one of its subsidiaries named on the city’s rogue landlords register and hit with fines totalling £67,000.

The Lazari family have an estimated fortune of £2.5bn, placing them 72nd on the Sunday Times rich list. It is based on a property portfolio that includes some of the most luxurious addresses in central London as well as rental flats in the north of the city.

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UK house prices rise by 1.5% in biggest increase for 10 months

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Data from property website Rightmove finds average asking price has reached almost £370,000

An increase in buyer demand and stronger house sales during March have combined to push the average UK home’s asking price up by a further £5,279 to almost £370,000, as the market picks up after a “muted 2023”.

According to the UK’s biggest property website, Rightmove, this month’s 1.5% price growth is notably higher than the historical March average of 1%, and is the biggest monthly increase for 10 months.

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Mortgage reforms have excluded first-time buyers, say UK building societies

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Report calls for overhaul of rules on loan affordability and repayment, and more flexible mortgage products

Mortgage reforms introduced after the 2008 banking crisis have “tilted too far” in support of financial stability to the point that first-time buyers are being excluded from the housing market, building societies have warned.

A report commissioned by the Building Societies Association has called for an overhaul of affordability and repayment rules, which they say have contributed to a steady decline in first-time buyer mortgages since the mid-2000s.

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Private tenants in Scotland face ‘big rent rises and mass evictions’ from April

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Campaigners say renters served notices of increases of 30% to 60% in advance of cap and other emergency protections ending

Private tenants in Scotland are facing big rent rises and mass evictions as emergency protections expire at the end of next month, campaigners have warned.

The Scottish government has “in effect rubber-stamped rent increases from April”, says Ruth Gilbert, the national campaigns chair of the Scotland-wide tenants’ union Living Rent, while transitional measures are inadequate and confusing, leaving many unaware what their legal rights are.

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UK house prices rise at fastest rate since January 2023

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Lower mortgage rates lead to increased buyer and seller confidence, says Halifax

UK house prices rose 2.5% in the year to January, recording the biggest increase since January last year, as lower mortgage rates and fading inflationary pressures led to increased buyer and seller confidence, Halifax has said.

January marked the fourth consecutive monthly rise, with a 1.3% uplift on December, the UK’s biggest mortgage lender said, with the average home costing £291,000, £3,9000 more than in December.

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Private rents in Great Britain hit record high, data shows

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Rightmove says average advertised price outside London is up 9.2% on a year ago despite fall in some regions

Average private rents in Great Britain have climbed to new record highs, though in some regions there has been a small fall in the amount new tenants are being asked to pay, data shows.

The typical advertised private rent outside London for new properties coming on to the market rose to a record £1,280 a calendar month in the final quarter of 2023, according to the property website Rightmove. That is £2 higher than the £1,278 figure recorded in the third quarter – a sign that rental growth is slowing.

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Lifetime Isas: calls to increase price cap that ‘fines’ first-time buyers

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People who want to buy property costing more than £450,000 say they unfairly face losing money

Campaigners are pressing for changes to a UK government scheme for would-be first-time buyers that “fines” people if they use it to buy a home costing more than £450,000.

Martin Lewis, the founder of MoneySavingExpert.com, is among those calling for an urgent revamp of the rules that apply to lifetime Isas, which let people save for a first home or for their retirement.

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London borough of Richmond is ‘happiest place to live in Great Britain’

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Access to huge parks, restaurants and transport links plus a Ted Lasso-factor lead area to top Rightmove’s ‘happy at home’ index

It is home to London’s largest royal park as well as big-hitting tourist attractions such as Kew Gardens and Hampton Court Palace, and has more recently become a place of pilgrimage for fans of the hit TV comedy Ted Lasso. Now, the borough of Richmond upon Thames in south-west London has been named “the happiest place to live” in Great Britain.

It received the accolade from property website Rightmove, which runs a “happy at home” index – now in its 12th year – where it asks residents how they feel about their area based on 13 “happiness factors”.

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UK house prices rise for third straight month as mortgage rates fall

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Nationwide says average property price was £258,557 in November, £5,231 down on same month last year

UK house prices rose for a third consecutive month in November as the market responded to hopes that mortgage rate costs had peaked.

Nationwide, the UK’s biggest building society, said prices rose 0.2% month on month in November, after a 0.9% rise in October and a 0.1% rise in September. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast a 0.4% fall in prices in November.

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UK needs more lab space if it wants to be science superpower, ministers told

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Leading property firms also call for more tax breaks and improved transport links to hubs ahead of autumn statement

The UK needs to build more laboratory space, improve transport links and offer more tax breaks to achieve Rishi Sunak’s ambition of becoming a science superpower, two leading property firms have argued ahead of the autumn statement.

Demand for laboratories in the UK is growing fast, with lab vacancy rates of just 1% in Cambridge and London, and 7% in Oxford, according to a report by British Land, one of Britain’s biggest property developers, and the upmarket estate agency and advisory firm Savills.

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Average UK house sale price suffers first annual fall for 11 years

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ONS says average price dropped 0.1% year on year in September, with those in London decreasing 1.1%

The average price of a home in the UK dropped by 0.1% in the year to September, official figures show – the first annual fall for more than a decade.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures, which are based on completed sales, have shown annual price inflation slowing since July 2022, when the headline rate stood at 13.8%.

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UK housing market is past its ‘peak pain’, declares Savills

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Upmarket estate agent says prices will start to bottom out in 2024 as interest rates fall and will return to growth in 2025

Britain’s housing market is past “peak pain” and prices look likely to bottom out by next summer, according to the estate agency Savills.

The average UK house price is projected to fall by 3% in 2024, after a 4% drop this year, the upmarket estate agent and property advisory firm said in its five-year outlook.

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Tory MPs to challenge government if leaseholds ban does not apply to flats

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Exclusive: Measure in planned bill stopping sale of new properties under leasehold in England and Wales likely to only cover houses

Tory MPs are preparing to force the government to toughen up its planned leasehold reforms in England and Wales, with Downing Street expected to launch a bill that falls short of campaigners’ demands.

Conservative backbenchers say they are ready to bring amendments to the long-awaited leasehold reform bill, which will be one of the centrepieces of next week’s king’s speech but will not end leasehold on the majority of properties.

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UK house prices will not stop falling until 2025, Lloyds predicts

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Britain’s biggest mortgage lender forecasts 5% drop over this year and another 2.4% decline in 2024

UK house prices will continue to slide this year and in 2024 and will not start to recover until 2025, Lloyds Banking Group has forecast.

The lender, which owns Halifax and is Britain’s largest mortgage provider, said that by the end of 2023 UK house prices would have fallen 5% over the course of the year and were likely to decrease by another 2.4% in 2024.

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