We Know Property

MPs have recently called for a cut on VAT from 17.5% to 5% on the price of repairing and maintaining a rental property to incentivise landlords to keep up with the maintenance on their properties.

The recommendation has been put forward by the House of Commons’ communities and local government select committee in their report The Supply of Rental Housing. The committee has identified that some landlords are struggling to keep their properties in good condition due to the high cost of refurbishment, (more…)

A report released by the National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA) has found that the property market picture is still very regional but elements of the market appear to be stabilising.

The NAEA report asked its members to comment on a number of key areas. The number of viewings made on a property prior to selling was 14, which has increased by two from this time last year. The average difference between asking and selling price was 4.7% which the NAEA saw as sellers becoming ‘more realistic’ with the prices (more…)

Property sales in Spain plummeted by -36.1% in March when compared with a year earlier, according to the National Statistics Institute (INE).

Official data in February also showed a -24.4% drop in property sales year-on-year. In March, there were 180,075 urban property transactions which is a -31.9% decline year-on-year and a -15.7% drop when compared to the previous month. INE believes that both figures could have been affected by the timing of the Easter holiday this year.

In addition, home loans declined by -41.9% in March from a year earlier to €9.975bn.

HSBC banking unit First Direct began offering mortgages to new customers yesterday after pulling all new products on 1st April. Products were stoped due to a massive influx in applications on some of its mortgage deals.

This news follows Halifax cutting interest rates on some of its mortgage deals recently and Abbey and Nationwide doing similar cuts to their products within the last few weeks due to decreasing borrowing costs.

More people want house prices to fall than to rise, BBC research has found.

That is the surprise finding of the first poll to test the assumption that house price falls are unpopular and therefore politically damaging.

Barely a fifth of people want house prices to rise - fewer than the number of people who want them to fall.

The poll of 1,005 people, commissioned by the BBC, found that only 22% said they wanted prices to go up (more…)

LONDON (Reuters) - Asking prices for property in England and Wales rose to a record high in May, a survey shows, with house price inflation accelerating despite expectations for a much weaker housing market this year.

Property Web site Rightmove said average asking prices rose 2.2 percent on a year ago between April 13 and May 10 to hit an average 242,500 pounds, compared with a 1.3 percent annual rise in the month before. (more…)

The Abbey has become the second big lender this week to make slight cuts to some of its mortgage rates.

LONDON (BBC News ) - All flexible and tracker rates are being cut by 0.05% while new borrowers with 25% deposits are seeing fixed rate deals being cut by up to 0.17%.

On Tuesday, the Nationwide building society cut some of its fixed rate loans for new borrowers by up to 0.3%.

The Abbey is making the reductions in anticipation of a cut in its own borrowing costs.

It said it hoped to benefit from the Bank of England’s recent plan to lend more money to commercial banks, in the hope of reducing their borrowing costs as measured by the London Inter Bank Offered Rate (Libor). (more…)

LONDON (Reuters) - Strong rental demand will underpin the buy-to-let market and help the country avoid a more painful housing crash, though some investors will be caught out as a number of mortgage lenders exit.

The buy-to-let market has surged in a decade that has seen house prices triple, attracting a range of investors since the market began in 1998 and growing to represent 10 percent of the total market and 12 percent of new mortgages in 2007. (more…)