The Help to Buy Isa for first-time buyers launches today: Here’s everything you need to know, including which banks and building societies will provide it and how much you can borrow December 1, 2015 It was now many moons ago that George Osborne introduced the Help to Buy Isa (Help to Buy-sa to its friends), which will give savers £50 for every £200 they save, up to £12,000. Nine months after it was first announced, the scheme is finally ready to be unveiled, with the launch slated for today. In other words: first-time [...]
UK house prices: High first-time buyer confidence heats up the housing market in August September 25, 2015 The market for new buyers, who have been boosted by government schemes such as help-to-buy, has had a strong summer. First-time buyers sales climbed 11.9 per cent in August compared with the same month last year to match July’s eight-year high of 30,200, figures released today by estate agents Your Move and Reeds Rains (YMRR) [...]
House prices rebounded in September after the Brexit vote lull September 19, 2016 UK house prices are rebounding from the lull that immediately followed the Brexit vote, according to data from Rightmove. Asking prices have increased 0.7 per cent month-on-month, Rightmove said. In the weeks after the Brexit vote, Rightmove found that prices fell by 0.9 per cent. But first-time buyers are finding it increasingly difficult to get on [...]
Quarto turns the page as talks with mystery buyer end August 16, 2017 Shares in book publisher Quarto closed down 18 per cent today, after a brief flirtation with a mystery potential buyer came to an abrupt end. Just last week, the London-listed company announced that it was in talks with an unnamed potential bidder following an unsolicited approach. But this morning it said that discussions had been [...]
“Really, is that it?” – reactions to the government’s housing white paper February 7, 2017 In the year that the US President signed an executive order to build a wall, UK politicians got together to write a housing paper that was lacking in concrete ideas. There were some general indicators of where the government is going on housing, however. Here's how the property industry reacted: On the lack of content [...]
easyProperty lands biggest ever property deal for an online estate agent September 23, 2016 EasyProperty has landed the biggest ever property deal conducted by an online agent, acting for a private family trust. The property portal sold a £35m property portfolio that comprised 208 properties across east London and Essex; 114 of the assets were residential, 94 were commercial. Contracts between the parties were exchanged seven days after the off-market [...]
Revealed: The “deeply worrying” decline of buy-to-let sales after the government’s “war on landlords” December 9, 2016 Sales of buy-to-let homes have plummeted more than half in the last 12 months, after the government launched a "war on landlords". Figures by estate agent Haart showed the number of properties sold as rental homes in England and Wales fell 63.7 per cent in the year to November, while the number of landlords registering [...]
Government’s starter homes programme won’t help London’s first-time buyers August 27, 2015 Londoners hoping to buy their first home will not get much help from the government, according to a new report out today. In the report, Shelter, the housing and homelessness charity, takes issue with the government’s affordable house building policies, saying its flagship “starter homes” programme will fail to help most first-time buyers. Prime Minister [...]
Lotus Evora GT430 review: The first Lotus to break £100k has the racing chops to justify its price tag November 6, 2017 This summer, Lotus became part of the same family as Volvo and the London Taxi Company. It made a deal with Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, hoping the Chinese company can work the same magic on its Norfolk cars as it did on Volvo. Jean-Marc Gales, the ever-enthusiastic Frenchman responsible for turning a profit at Lotus [...]
The housing minister just suggested the government’s 200,000 starter homes pledge might include rental properties September 13, 2016 The remit of the government's promise to deliver 200,000 so-called starter homes by 2020 could be expanded so it includes purpose-built rental homes in the figure, the housing minister suggested today. During a question and answer session at the Resi 2016 conference in Wales, Gavin Barwell said there was "a little bit of tension between the overall [...]