James Pickford

But landlords are buying a lower proportion of properties overall

Ground rents, rates and insurance add to mortgage costs

Buy-to-let property sales are on the rise

Speculation that Labour will align CGT with income tax rates

Stagnating prices have made it hard to build equity, research reveals

A growing number of holiday homeowners letting out their properties are moving to pay business rates to avoid sharply rising council tax bills. There were 78,000 holiday lets registered for business rates on March 31 2024, up from 63,000 in 2020, according to analysis by estate agent Hamptons. But the number of homes liable for second homes council tax — recorded at October each year — has stayed at 263,000 over the four years. Council tax on second homes is going up in many holiday spots, whe…

Monthly rents outside London at a record after 7 per cent annual increase

Surge of transactions ahead of the UK general election

Credit card debt is cutting into people’s ability to get a mortgage, as high interest rates and living costs have put household finances under strain, brokers have warned. Outstanding balances on credit cards are rising at an annual rate of 9.9 per cent in the 12 months to March 2024, according to figures released on Tuesday by industry body UK Finance. About half of these (49.8 per cent) incurred interest. Mortgage brokers, however, said more people seeking to take out a home loan were saddle…

On average, buying a home with a capital and interest mortgage is 11 per cent more expensive than renting

FT Money wants to hear from readers in a rent or buy dilemma

The gap between budgets planned and money spent is at a decade high

Zoopla data puts annual rise at 6.6 per cent, a 30-month low

A home in London is more likely to sell above its asking price than elsewhere in England and Wales for the first time since 2016, underlining evidence of a rebound in the capital’s housing market. A quarter (25.1 per cent) of London homes for sale have gone for more than their asking price in the first three months of this year, slightly ahead of the 24.5 per cent figure for England and Wales as a whole. Five years ago London lagged substantially behind on this measure. Some 17 per cent of hom…

Mortgage brokers have welcomed an “innovative” home loan aimed at first-time buyers, which requires a deposit of just £5,000 for homes worth up to £500,000. The mortgage, launched this week by Accord, an arm of Yorkshire Building Society, is pitched at those looking to buy a first home but struggling to save a deposit. The £5,000 deposit mortgage is a five-year fix at an interest rate of 5.99 per cent — more expensive than the average five-year products which are typically just above 5 per cen…

Modest cuts to fixed mortgage rates are likely over the coming weeks, brokers and housing market analysts said, following positive inflation data and an upbeat outlook from the Bank of England. Simon Gammon, managing partner at mortgage broker Knight Frank Finance, said the combination of lower than expected inflation figures and the BoE’s decision to hold rates firm — amid optimistic comments from the Bank — had added “stability” to the mortgage market. “One major lender [NatWest] dropped its…

Rising UK home sales in first quarter data underline hopes of a market revival

Downsizing one’s home in later life can deliver a big boost to retirement funding as a result of long-term growth in UK property prices, research has shown, but the rewards are spread unequally across the country. Savills, the estate agent, calculated that someone with no mortgage moving from a four-bed house — with an average price of just over £560,000 in England and Wales — to an average two-bed home would unlock £305,000 in gains. A person aged 65 has a life expectancy of about 20 years, a…

Barclays and Santander have announced cuts to their mortgage rates, adding to momentum for cheaper UK home loan deals after HSBC and Halifax reduced rates last week. Santander led its announcement with a sub-4 per cent deal available to new and existing customers with a deposit of at least 40 per cent on a five-year fixed rate mortgage. It said its residential fixed rates would fall by up to 0.82 percentage points from Wednesday. Barclays will from Wednesday offer a two-year fix at 4.17 per ce…

When can investors expect inflation to fall and central banks to ease the pressure on interest rates? This was the question that dominated stock markets in the US, UK and eurozone in 2023. After the US Federal Reserve raised rates to tackle soaring inflation, investors agonised over whether the Fed had done enough to tame rising prices. Or had it, in fact, overdone its approach, risking a painful recession? At the end of 2023, it appears markets have drawn their own conclusions, by and large s…