Top Property News

It's good news for first time buyers this week, as the Government has launched a new equity scheme, FirstBuy, whereby house hunters will only have to raise a deposit of 5 per cent for a 75 per cent mortgage. The Government and housebuilder will offer a loan of up to 20 per cent, boosting the purchaser's chance of getting a foot onto the property ladder.

According to Rightmove, house prices have risen for the sixth consecutive month, up to £240,394, which equates to a 0.6 per cent month-on-month increase and a 1.3 per cent year-on-year rise. However, forecasting shows the second half of the year is unlikely to be so positive. Elsewhere, research has found that homeowners in the best performing economic areas of the UK have seen the price of their property rise by almost £150,000 over a decade. The East London areas of Canary Wharf and Docklands come out on top. Eight out of ten areas with the lowest levels of economic activity were in Wales and the North West.

And finally, savvy homeowners are renting a room out to lodgers in a bid to earn some extra money. One in ten householders currently does so, the combined efforts of which are worth £3.9 billion a year in payments, averaging out at £182 per month.

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What's hot in the property world this week

This week the government announced plans to release public land for sale to house builders in the hope of creating up to 100,000 new homes and 25,000 jobs by 2015. This will help to address the current shortage of housing and a new map of land and buildings in each area will be unveiled later this year.
According to Halifax's house price index, prices rose by 0.1% in May compared with April, although they are 4.2% lower than this time last year – the biggest annual drop since October 2009. The future looks bright however as the bank has predicted the slight improvement in the economy and low interest rates will help the market. In other news, fixed mortgage rates are at a six month low. This mainly stems from competition amongst lenders, as homeowners look to take advantage of low interest rates by fixing their mortgage before a hike.
And finally, the UK's most expensive home outside London has gone on sale for £75 million. No surprise that it's located in neighbouring Surrey; Updown Court boasts 103 rooms, five swimming pools, two penthouse apartments and a helipad and is currently owned by a property development tycoon; anyone we know, I wonder?
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Round-up of top property news w/e 3 June

Last week the extent to which house builders have been supporting first time buyers was revealed. The likes of Taylor Wimpey, Persimmon and Barratt have ploughed almost £1billion into shared equity schemes to help those struggling to buy a home, which has resulted in 28,000 sales.

In other news, the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) predicted that house prices could rise by almost 16 per cent by 2015, although they will continue to fall for the rest of 2011. The positive from this is that banks could see improvements to their balance sheets meaning strict lending criteria would be loosened. Elsewhere, it seems not everyone is so keen to jump on the digital bandwagon, including property letting agents, of which 90 per cent admit that technology could improve their service, but they are reluctant to invest the money.

And finally, there's no doubt estate agents need to be cunning when trying to secure a sale, but describing one £3.6 million property in County Durham as having countryside views, while neglecting to mention the gasworks and scrapyard next door is taking it a bit too far!
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