HOUSING NEWS

The rate of house price growth in the UK slumped to just 1.8% in the year to February, according to the country’s largest lender, the Halifax. That is the lowest rate of increase since March 2013. The Halifax said that the average price of a home has fallen from £226,408 in November, to £224,353 last […]

UK house prices have recorded their first month-on-month fall since August, according to the Nationwide. The building society said average UK property prices in February were 0.3% down on the previous month. This monthly change is generally regarded as a volatile measure of house prices, but the Nationwide said it reflected the wider picture. The […]

A way of buying flats or houses introduced 14 years ago – known as commonhold – has failed to take off, according to the Law Commission. That is despite the fact that it could provide a much better alternative for those who have leasehold agreements. Four million people in England own leasehold properties, but there […]

More young people are renting, as home ownership among people aged 25-34 has collapsed over the past two decades. As new figures revealed the scale of the decline in young middle-earners joining the property ladder, Labour announced proposals for tenants in Britain to be allowed to keep pets. This got Reality Check thinking about private renting […]

The extent to which young people are locked out of the British housing market has been revealed in new figures from economists. The biggest decline in home ownership in the last 20 years has been among middle-income 25 to 34-year-olds, the Institute for Fiscal Studies said. In 1995-96, 65% of this group owned a home, […]

More first-time buyers took out mortgages in 2017 than in any year since the financial crisis. There were 365,000 first-time buyers in the UK, the highest number since 2006 and an increase of 7.4% compared with 2016, UK Finance said. Yet this growth is expected to cool in 2018, the lenders’ trade body said. The […]

The number of landlords who are seriously behind with their mortgage payments has jumped by 20%, according to UK Finance. There were 1,200 buy-to-let mortgages in “significant arrears” in the last quarter of 2017, a fifth higher than in the same quarter in 2016. Significant arrears means they owe more than 10% of the outstanding […]

House prices have fallen for the last two months running, according to the UK’s largest lender. The Halifax said prices fell by 0.6% in January, following December’s fall of 0.8%. It is the first time since the summer of 2016 that prices have declined in two consecutive months. However, on an annual basis the Halifax […]

One of several organisations that resolves disputes in the property market has announced it is going to withdraw from the sector. Ombudsman Services said it would no longer offer “a broken solution to a broken market”. It is one of at least four services that offers redress in arguments between property agents – including estate […]

Online estate agency Purplebricks has defended its business after critical comments by analysts. On Thursday, stockbrokers Jefferies issued a research note questioning its claim it sold more than three quarters of homes listed with it. Jefferies said Purplebricks’ sales success rate was just over 51% and near the middle of the pack of its study […]