UK Property Asking Prices Up 5.5% Year/Year in Aug

According to Rightmove on Monday Britain's asking home prices are 5.5% up compared to last year as revealed on this article by Reuters on August 18, 2013.

Aug 19 (Reuters) - Asking prices for homes in Britain are 5.5 percent higher than a year ago, property website Rightmove said on Monday as it urged the government to boost the supply of new homes to avoid a house price bubble.

Rightmove figures, which are not seasonally adjusted, show the price of property coming on to the market has risen 8.8 percent in the first eight months of the year.

Record low mortgage rates, government lending incentives and rising optimism in Britain's economic recovery have fuelled a marked pick up in house price inflation in recent months.

Mortgage lender Halifax reported prices rose an annual 4.6 percent in July and a survey last week from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors suggested house prices were rising at their fastest pace since 2006.

The rally has been most marked in London where prices are up 10.2 percent on the year, according to Rightmove.

With house prices already rising faster than inflation, the government is under pressure from some quarters to abandon plans to offer state-backed guarantees to riskier homebuyers.

The scheme, part of the "Help to Buy" initiative announced by the government in their March Budget, is due to take effect in January.

"Demand is already on the up, and that's before the roll-out of phase two of the Help to Buy stimulus," said Rightmove director Miles Shipside. "It is now critical that the supply of property improves so that the goal of a significant increase in transaction numbers is not over-shadowed by an unsustainable boom in property prices."

The first phase of the government's "Help to Buy" scheme took effect in April and offers subsidies to buyers of new-build properties.

Article Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/18/britain-property-rightmove-idUSL6N0GH1KA20130818

Yorkshire Helps Regional Property Deals Hit the Heights

This interesting article by Mark Lane of Bdaily Business News on 5th of August, 2013 is about Yorkshire helping regional property deals reached heights in Q2 2013 according to LSH.

The Yorkshire region has played a major role in seeing demand for regional property stock reaching a two-year high in Q2 2013, according to new research by Lambert Smith Hampton (LSH).

During that period, LSH estimates that £3.24bn has been invested in commercial property outside London (excluding portfolios), with investment volumes in Yorkshire significantly high due to a number of notable transactions.

Deals in the region reached approximately £334m in Q2 2013, representing an increase of 267% on Q1 2013, at £91m.

This can be attributed to a number of large deals including Legal & General’s purchase of The Light in Leeds for £91m, the sale of Vanguard Shopping Park in York for £62.55m, Tritax Assets’ purchase of The Range in Doncaster for £37m and the £42m sale of The Green student scheme in Bradford.

The major investors in regional property were UK buyers – accounting for 89% of the quarterly total. In Yorkshire, the figure was just under 60%.

Deals across Yorkshire recorded an average yield of 8.3% in Q2 2013 compared with Q1 2013 where this figure was around 12.1%

The average deal size in Yorkshire also rose from £7.6m in Q1 2013 to £20.9m Q2 2013, in contrast to the rest of the UK where the average deal size fell from £28m in Q1 2013 to £16m in Q2 2013.

Abid Jaffry, Northern head of Capital Markets at LSH, said: “The regional investment market is currently dominated by UK investors who have been priced out of the Central London market and are seeking to take advantage of the greater value that can be achieved within the regions.

“A significant proportion of the transactions were of considerable size which is indicative of investor conditions across the North and highlights the groundswell of cash in the market at present."

Article Source: http://bdaily.co.uk/industrials/05-08-2013/yorkshire-helps-regional-property-deals-hit-the-heights/