Planning Permissions for Housing Rise 49%

This article by Alex Johnson of The Independent on September 24th, 2013 shows that 49% year-on-year increase in the number of planning approvals for new homes between April and June in 2013.

Figures from the Home Builder’s Federation show a 49% year-on-year increase in the number of planning approvals for new homes between April and June in 2013. Although this is a slight drop from the previous three months, there were 77,686 permissions granted in the first six months of the year, a 26% year-on-year increase.

Stewart Baseley, Executive Chairman of the HBF, said: “The overall trend in residential permissions is very positive. It reflects house builders’ increasing confidence in the market and also the positive principles of the new planning system. With Help to Buy forging ahead strongly and developers looking to increase output, we need to see the increase sustained.

“However, at a time when developers are looking to build more much needed homes, we are increasingly concerned by the conditions attached to many of these permissions that prevent actual work starting on site. Local Authorities must ensure planning conditions are not overly onerous or unrealistic otherwise despite the success of Help to Buy, the much needed increase in housing supply will be held back. Despite the increase in permissions granted, we are still well short of the 220,000 permissions required annually to meet housing need.”


House haggling

A study of 2,000 UK adults by Gocompare.com suggests that 89% of those who ask for a discount are successful in their negotiations. Cars and motorbikes (34%) top the list of goods and services people successfully haggled over, followed by electrical products (30%) and furniture (28%). Around a quarter said they had haggled over the price of a house.

New buy-to-let ranges

Virgin Money has launched a new range of buy-to-let mortgages with rates starting from 3.38% for a 2 year fixed rate with a £1,995 fee. Following the fixed or tracker period, all mortgages from the new range will revert to the Virgin Money Buy-To-Let Variable Rate, currently set at 4.99%.

Meanwhile, Accord Buy to Let has launched three new mortgages with zero completion fees, all available at a maximum of 75% loan to value with rates starting from 3.79%. They also offer £500 cashback on completion. The full details are:

* Two year fixed rate at 3.79% with £195 product fee and £500 cashback

* Three year fixed rate at 4.09% with £195 product fee and £500 cashback

* Five year fixed rates at 4.69% with £195 product fee and £500 cashback

Article Source: http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2013/09/24/planning-permissions-for-housing-rise-49/

How A House Price Cap Could Work

This article by Hilary Osborne of TheGuardian on September 13th, 2013 basically explores how a cap would work. The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors has called for the Bank of England to cap house-price rises at 5% a year.

Why does Rics want a cap?

The organisation says limiting house prices would prevent a dangerous new property bubble, reckless lending and a build-up in consumer debt. By letting people know that they can only expect prices to rise by up to 5%, the Bank of England would stop homebuyers and lenders gambling on rising prices. During the last property boom lenders such as Northern Rock offered 125% mortgages, based on an expectation that prices would rise and borrowers would not end up in negative equity for long – but when prices crashed some people were left stuck with huge loans. Rics argues that everyone would be more cautious if there was a price cap.

Why set it at 5%?

Rics says it is "not wedded" to the figure, which it based on the average annual growth in UK earnings, plus an allowance for price pressure caused by a lack of supply of homes for sale. Growth is currently exceeding that level, according to Halifax's latest house price index.

Is that the index that would be used?

Not necessarily. Rics has said it is "agnostic" about which measure of prices is used. The Bank has previously considered all of the major house price reports when making interest rate decisions, but there is now an "official" ONS index published monthly. Its last report showed prices rose by 3.1% in the 12 months to June.

If prices were capped, would that mean I would have to reduce the price of my house?

No. The cap wouldn't restrict individual buyers' and sellers' transactions, so if you were selling a property at a profit equivalent to more than 5% a year that would be fine. What the cap would do is force the Bank of England's new Financial Policy Committee to use powers it has to restrict mortgage lending.

What are those powers?

If it believes the housing market is overheating, it can direct the banking regulator, the new Prudential Regulatory Authority (PRA – also, confusingly, an arm of the Bank), to tighten the screw on mortgage lenders.

The PRA would use so-called sectoral capital requirements to give banks pause for thought before they make risky loans. They could force lenders to set aside more capital against all residential property lending, for example, if they thought the entire market was frothy – or pick on particular areas, such as high loan-to-value ratio mortgages. In practice, whichever types of loan the PRA singled out would become scarcer and more expensive.
  
What are the problems with a cap?

The main problem is that the headline rate of growth disguises massive regional variations. In the London market (itself a multiple of the entire New Zealand market) house price rises are already up 10.2% over the past year, according to the latest figures from the property portal Rightmove.co.uk. Yet in the north, north-west, Yorkshire and Humberside and south-west regions, house prices are up less than 1% over the past year.

Also, it does not address the real problem with the UK housing market – the lack of supply of properties.
  
So price rises in London could trigger a cap and stop me getting a mortgage in Newcastle?

Spot on. Houses in Newcastle could represent good value and be affordable to first-time buyers, but lenders would be constrained from granting loans if a London boom pushed up UK prices.

Article Source: http://www.theguardian.com/money/2013/sep/13/how-house-price-cap-work

Report Shows First Total Rise in Northern Ireland House Prices Since 2007

House prices in Northern Ireland have shown an increase across the board for the first time since 2007, according to this new report by BBC News on 21th of August, 2013.

The NI Residential Property Price Index indicates that residential property prices rose by 2% between the first and second quarter of the year.

All property types have increased in value.

This is the first time since the second quarter of 2007 that all property types have shown an increase.

However, prices are still 3% lower than this time last year, and 11% lower than in the first quarter of 2005.

The figures, released every three months by the government's statistics and research agency, are considered the most accurate measure of the state of the housing market in Northern Ireland.

Finance Minister Simon Hamilton said the results of the index were promising and confirmed "the views of local commentators that the property market here is beginning to stabilise".

In the second quarter of 2013, the most rapid rise in price was in the north of Northern Ireland at 6% (Ballymoney, Coleraine, Londonderry, Limavady, Moyle and Strabane ).

The Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency has calculated that in the second quarter of 2013 the average house price in NI was £96,327.

The average price for a detached house was £153,063, semi-detached £95,903, terrace £62,690 and apartment £76,884.

Economist John Simpson said houses were still worth less than they were 12 months ago.

Article Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-23777997

Who Lives in a House like this? Some Vendors will go to Great Lengths to sell their Property

This very interesting and informative article by The Independent on July 30, 2013 simply suggests homeowners the dos and donts in selling their houses to potential buyers.

What’s the best way to sell your house to a potential buyer? Put a pot of coffee on to brew before they arrive or make sure there are fresh flowers in every room when your estate agent comes around to take some pictures for its online listing? Well, one enterprising vendor in east London has given their bedroom a boudoir feel by leaving a racy fuchsia negligee, complete with bottle of red and two glasses on the bed for the estate agent’s snapper to capture.

Dodgy estate-agent pictures are a bit of an internet meme right now and there’s even a blog called Terrible Real Estate Agent Photographs on Tumblr. But this saucy shoot – which is gleefully doing the rounds on Twitter – for up-market estate agent Foxtons, takes the concept of “dressing” a room for sale to a whole new level.

Sadly it isn’t the worst example of property pornification, though. “The worst case of this sort of property ‘dressing’ I’ve seen is a set of sexy silk underwear draped seductively over a mink bedspread in a £20m mansion near One Hyde Park in Knightsbridge. All it needed were burly Russian bodyguards to complete the picture,” says Tracy Kellet, director of BDI Homefinders buying agents. “And perhaps unsurprisingly, it’s usually a male developer or interior designer that thinks it’s a good idea to sex up a property.”

Kellet isn’t the only property insider to have come across an unlikely scene. “I once saw a set of photographs with a man asleep in the second bedroom,” says Jo Eccles, the managing director of Sourcing Property, a search-and-relocation company. “And on a viewing once I saw an owner go a step beyond fresh flowers and set out a full jug of Pimms complete with ice, chopped mint and freshly chopped strawberries.”

So does all of this help sell your house? “In the end all it does is detract from your home, so potential buyers spend more time thinking how odd you are, rather than imagining themselves living in your home,” warns Eccles.

Article Source: http://www.independent.co.uk/property/house-and-home/property/who-lives-in-a-house-like-this-some-vendors-will-go-to-great-lengths-to-sell-their-property-8680507.html