House sales in the UK were 5% higher in August 2024 compared to the same month in 2023, according to figures from HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC). An estimated 90,210 homes were sold across the UK, reflecting this increase, though the number was slightly down—by less than 1%—from July 2024. The housing market’s resurgence has …
When your children have grown up and left home, your house can suddenly feel a lot bigger and emptier. But despite there being many compelling reasons to move to a smaller property, many of us stay put. So should you be thinking about downsizing? According to a study by Zoopla, more than nine in ten …
Although the government has made tackling inflation one of its core priorities for 2023, the rate of price increases remains stubbornly high – staying stuck at 8.7 per cent in the year to May. As a result, many analysts and observers are expecting the Bank of England to continue hiking up interest rates for some …
Interest rates have been heading in one direction for more than a year now, rising from 0.1 per cent in December 2021 to 4.25 per cent today. That’s had a very real and tangible impact on households in the form of higher mortgage repayments, and also pushed up the cost of borrowing for businesses too. …
This March saw the prices of residential properties rising at the fastest rate since just before 2007’s financial crisis, with the average price of a home in the UK increasing by 10.2% in the year up until March. The stamp duty holiday introduced by the Government certainly played a part in this development. Having been …
Over the past year we’ve seen tens of thousands of people lose their jobs. We’ve seen businesses up and down the country cease trading and we’ve seen enough uncertainty to last most of us a lifetime. At the moment the forecasts are that the UK economy will be back to pre-Covid levels by the second …
Home-owners with equity to speak of and would-be first time buyers are having particularly different experiences of the housing market at the moment. Cash-rich borrowers have access to mortgages seemingly getting cheaper by the day, whilst those who are trying to buy their first property with small deposits have very few options, if any at …
At the virtual Conservative Party Conference on 6th October, Prime Minister Boris Johnson gestured towards a plan in the pipeline to introduce 95% Loan To Value mortgages in an attempt to reinvigorate home ownership and in his words, “help turn generation rent, into generation buy.” While the details of this plan remain unclear, the PM …
The effects of the so-called ‘Stamp Duty Holiday’ have dominated the recent property news. According to Rightmove, recent weeks have seen the highest number of agreed house sales in a single month since it started tracking them a decade ago. However, there has been some slightly less positive news that will affect many first-time buyers …
In his 8 July summer statement, Chancellor Rishi Sunak confirmed that the stamp duty threshold will be immediately raised to £500,000 in England and Northern Ireland, in what some have dubbed the ‘stamp duty holiday’. The rise in threshold lasts until 31 March 2021 and will apply to both first-time buyers and previous owners. Sunak …
