The housing market could be back up and running in just a few weeks after the industry body for surveyors confirmed it will unveil ‘practical guidance’ to enable home valuations to restart safely. A spokeswoman for the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors told This is Money that it is readying a new set of guidelines … Read more
Hundreds of thousands of home sales worth a total of £82billion that were agreed before the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic are now on hold due to the lockdown, new research shows. Property website Zoopla said some 373,000 property transactions are suspended in the pipeline as Government restrictions are effectively stopping people from moving home. … Read more
It’s now easier to get a mortgage on a zero hours contract as HSBC becomes the latest lender to relax the rules for those not in full-time work HSBC relaxes its application rules for zero hours contract workers Applicants will now have to submit less evidence of income and tax paid Bank says this will help … Read more
Almost 2,000 more first-time buyers get on the property ladder each month, as they take advantage of cheaper homes, generous mortgages and stamp duty cut First-time buyer numbers jump by 5.8 per cent compared to last year July saw a year-high in the amount lent to people buying their first homes Fewer homeowners are remortgaging than … Read more
What happens after you stop the property market? In an ironic twist for some house price watchers, who regularly deride its index as meaningless due to being based on asking prices, this week Rightmove declared its latest statistics on values, property coming to market and sales agreed were ‘not meaningful’. The pause button was pressed … Read more
The pace of house price growth seen since the start of the year had already begun to slow down in February before the market was frozen by the virus lockdown, new official data shows. While property prices have risen by an average of £2,000 to £230,000 in the last year, the monthly upturn in prices … Read more
The property market has seen an ‘abrupt turnaround’ from its best start to a year since 2016, with homes put up for sale collapsing since the UK went into lockdown. Property website Rightmove said the average house price ‘of the daily dwindling number of properties coming to market’ rose 2.1 per cent to £311,950 in … Read more
Revealed: 1.2million households have already taken a mortgage holiday – but experts warn some could struggle to remortgage as a result Some 1.2m households have taken a mortgage repayment holiday so far The vast majority of these will have been financially hit by coronavirus But experts warn these borrowers may be looked upon unfavourably in future … Read more
House prices have risen across the country for the first time in 18 months amid a surge in confidence among buyers and sellers following the Tory election triumph. There has been ‘a noticeable pick-up’ in the housing market since Boris Johnson defeated Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn in December, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors said. But … Read more
Talk to people about the green belt and many will lament the loss of England’s green and pleasant land disappearing under ugly new build housing developments. That, or they’ll explain to you just how these areas are single-handedly causing all the country’s housing woes by preventing new homes from being built. But new government figures now … Read more