HOUSING NEWS

Homebuyers racing to beat the Help to Buy equity loan deadline of 31 March now have a further two months to complete their purchase. Homes England has announced it will extend the deadline until 31 May for completion of the build and purchase to give buyers and builders more time to take advantage of the […]

The recent uplift in UK house prices “could be running out of steam”, the Halifax has said after it found that property values dropped last month. The lender’s latest survey showed prices fell 0.3% in January, the biggest monthly fall since April 2020. However, prices still climbed 5.4% over the past year, leaving the average […]

House hunters are taking advantage of lockdown rules to travel hundreds of miles to view homes, according to estate agents. Many buyers are keen to take advantage of the stamp duty holiday which is due to end on 31 March. In July, the government suspended stamp duty on the first £500,000 of all property sales […]

Low-deposit mortgages have made a return as the market emerges from a Covid-related slowdown. Mortgage products for homeowners with a deposit of 10% of their property’s value have risen more than fourfold compared with last summer’s low. The increase, based on figures from financial information service Moneyfacts, could offer some relief to first-time buyers. But […]

Rightmove said prices for flats and houses advertised between 6 December and 9 January were down 0.9% on the previous month. The property website said that dragged its measure of annual growth to 3.3%, from 6.6% a month earlier. Rightmove reported that the market was still busy, with the number of buyers contacting agents up […]

Greg and David saved throughout their 20s to afford their first home – but now their property plans have been thrown into doubt by the pandemic. The couple successfully applied to the government’s Help to Buy scheme, allowing them to afford the deposit for a new townhouse in Salford. But Covid-related delays mean the property […]

Planned reforms of the controversial leasehold system in England are set to clamp down on high costs when extending a lease. The government’s proposals should help those with shorter leases fearing bills of many thousands of pounds. Former council tenants who bought their homes in the 1980s are likely to be among those who could […]

UK house prices climbed 7.5% in 2020, the highest growth rate for six years, building society Nationwide found. Prices ended the year 5.3% above the level prevailing in March, a resilience that seemed unlikely at the start of the pandemic, it said. Housing demand has been buoyed by a raft of policy measures and changing […]

The governments said it does not plan to extend the temporary relief offered to house buyers via the stamp duty holiday. More than 22,000 people signed a petition calling for the stamp duty holiday to be extended for six months after 31 March 2021. The petition stated: “Extending the stamp duty holiday for an additional six-months […]

Sales of homes continued to rise ahead of Christmas, but surveyors are expecting a slowdown early next year. Many buyers have been trying to benefit from temporary stamp duty holidays, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) said. But there were signs that demand was “losing a bit of steam” in some areas of the […]