People across Scotland are to be helped on to the housing ladder with a £120 million funding boost announced today by Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon. The funding will be available over the next two years to both first time buyers and existing homes owners who are buying a new build home. Buyers who successfully apply to use shared equity will be able to purchase a home by paying a majority share in it, while the Scottish Government pays the remaining amount under an agreement with the buyer. As well as helping house buyers the scheme will stimulate the construction industry, creating growth within the house building sector.

Not content with the usual splash of Farrow and Ball and smell of coffee, a Stanmore homeowner has decided to offer an unusual enticement to potential buyers of his six bed house. The black Bentley GTC Mulliner-edition convertible, with 19,500 miles on the clock and a full service history, will be handed over to the buyer of the house, named The Bentley, which is located in Bentley Way and backs onto the Bentley Priory Nature Reserve. Can you see a bit of a theme emerging here?

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) reports that UK house prices went up by 2.7 per cent in March. This follows a 1.9 per cent rise in February and reinforces the view borne out by recent housing market surveys that the property market is improving.

The Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) reports that gross mortgage lending went up by 4.3 per cent in April to £12.1 billion.

"The UK's inflation rate fell to 2.4% in April, according to the Office for National Statistics, down from 2.8% in March". "Inflation as measured by the retail prices index (RPI) fell to 2.9% in April, from 3.3% the month before". So far this month everything has been manipulated from horse race winners to oil prices.

House prices have shot up so far that buyers must earn more than £62,000 - twice the UK's average salary - to afford the average asking price of quarter of a million pounds. New figures show that vendors are asking an average £249,841 - nine times the typical salary in the UK of £26,500. With mortgage firms typically lending a maximum of four times people's salary, borrowers on the UK's average wage could only obtain a mortgage of just over £106,000 - far below the new average asking price.

Posted by hpwatcher @ 08:18 AM 7 Comments

"Nationwide plans to issue a new form of so-called loss-absorbing debt in order to bolster its capital position". "Loss-absorbing debt is used by financial companies to protect themselves against a potential market downturn. Under certain circumstances, the debtholders would incur losses, thereby easing the burden on the issuer. Nationwide could raise between 300 million and 500 million pounds through the issue of so-called core capital deferred shares (CCDS), though a source close to the building society said the size and timing of the issue had not yet been finalised".

"Rising private rents, lack of affordable housing, benefit cuts and low levels of home-building force costly short-term solution, investigation finds" says the article. However, tens of thousands live "under the radar" in Newham, many turning up with just the clothes on their backs and the address of the benefit office. Welcome to London!

In these penny-pinching times, a question we know you've all been pondering: how much does a penthouse cost in London? You know it's wrong; it makes you feel a bit grubby ... but you want to know.

The UK has spent almost £2bn since 2009 housing vulnerable homeless families in short-term temporary accommodation: enough to build 72,000 homes in London. Genius!