icLiverpool - Is your money safe as houses? Could you cope if house prices crash? Jane Hall looks at measures you can take to help cushion the fall....includes quotes from HPC.
The Guardian | 4% house price rises this year, says study House prices will not go into reverse, but will rise at a healthy rate for at least the next two years, according to a new report from one of the City's most respected housing market analysts.
BBC NEWS: Halifax mortgage offer criticised The UK's biggest lender, the Halifax, has been called "wholly irresponsible" for encouraging customers to take mortgage payment holidays to pay off Christmas debts.
Telegraph: How to discover your neighbour's house price secrets on the net Finding out how much your friend, relation or neighbour paid for their new home used to be a tricky operation that relied upon being brash enough to ask them directly or charming the local estate agent into spilling the beans. Not any more.
The Age (AUS): Surprise jump in home prices Melbourne's median house price unexpectedly increased in the December quarter, rising 5.2 per cent to $382,500, according to the Real Estate Institute of Victoria.
This is Money | House prices | House prices bounce back House prices in the UK rose 0.4% in January, bouncing back from a 0.2% fall in December, according to Nationwide building society. But the annual rate of increase slipped from 12.7% to 12.6%.
Find a Property - Market Starts To Turn After six wary months in which buyers stayed away, confidence in the housing market is starting to pick up, says the Nationwide...
Guardian: Don't bet the house on a pensions boom Are Britons starting to move their money out of property and into pensions and savings? Britain's largest life assurer and pensions provider thinks so. On Tuesday, the owner of Norwich Union, Aviva, said the end of the housing boom had helped its life and pensions sales increase last year by 11% to £6.5bn, or £1.1bn on the APE measure. APE is used by insurers to shows the long-term value of new business.
Reuters.co.uk:Short-term mortgage arrears on the rise Short-term mortgage arrears saw their first significant rise in six years in the second half of 2004 as higher interest rates began to pinch homeowners, the Council of Mortgage Lenders says.
Reuters.co.uk: Bank of England unanimous on steady rates All nine members of the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee voted to keep interest rates unchanged at 4.75 percent earlier this month and the decision appears to have been fairly clear-cut.
This is Money | Mortgages & homes | Big rise in mortgage arrears The number of households with short-term mortgage arrears has risen materially for the first time in six years, new figures reveal today. The Council of Mortgage Lenders said that 3,070 properties were repossessed in the second half of 2004, equivalent to one in 3,500 mortgages, and it warned that there is now 'bound' to be a rise in longer term arrears and repossessions.
icNewcastle - Battle on the home front John Prescott was warned last night to keep his "sticky fingers" off the North-East's prime green belt land after he insisted he would press ahead with plans to build thousands of starter homes in the region.
This is London: C-charge in the suburbsThe congestion charge is set for a dramatic expansion throughout London. Webmaster comment: Will this have an effect on London house prices?
Reuters.co.uk: House price falls "likely" House prices are much more likely to fall somewhat in the coming months than rise significantly, Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee member Kate Barker has said.
Times Online - Why the credit bubble may yet burst
Have you ever wondered why banks suddenly dominate the corporate landscape? Five of Britain’s ten biggest companies are banks, compared with none 20 years ago.
Sky News : Affordable Housing Plans Unveiled Plans to build thousands of affordable new homes to help key workers and first time buyers gain a foot on the property ladder have been unveiled.
Ananova - Homeowners Face Tax Timebomb Six million homeowners face a tax timebomb unless the government changes its inheritance tax laws, it has been claimed.
housefund.co.uk - Latest News on the housing market First time buyers have less options as to where they'd like to live. The Halifax Annual First Time Buyers Survey has pinpointed the towns at opposite ends of the affordability scale.
Times Online - Newspaper Edition A MAJORITY of the Commons Treasury Select Committee is backing calls for an inquiry into negative-equity mortgages such as that announced by Bradford & Bingley this week
Times Online - Newspaper Edition FURNITURE prices have sprung up at their fastest pace for eight years, giving inflation an unexpected boost in December, figures showed yesterday.
This is Money: House prices fall again but rate is slowing House prices fell again last month, two influential surveys confirmed today, but there are signs that the rate of decline is slowing because a growing number of people think interest rates could fall again.
Sky News - Prices Continue Slide House prices fell by 0.1% this month - the third monthly fall in a row, according to figures from online property website rightmove.co.uk
Telegraph | Money | Landlords beware as banks relax lending rules: Banks are relaxing lending criteria on buy-to-let loans in a desperate bid to drum up mortgage business as the prospect of falling house prices scares potential investors away from the property market. These moves have reignited fears that many novice landlords could end up over-exposing themselves in the property market.
Telegraph | Money | Now it's a mis-spending spree: Consumer Groups and mortgage lenders are warning that much of the £1bn paid in compensation to homeowners who have been mis-sold endowment policies has been spent on holidays, new kitchens and other consumer purchases rather than on reducing mortgage debt
Scotsman.com Business - Personal Finance - If interest rates fall, don't just sit there - sort out your debts IN A week in which Gordon Brown, the Chancellor, has been in Africa championing the cause of reducing third-world debt, and the comedian Dawn French has been protesting at Westminster with a similar goal in mind, it might come as a surprise to consumers to learn that personal debt in the UK not only exceeds that of the entire African continent but that of South America as well.
FT.com - Nation split over house prices: House prices fell everywhere in Britain in the last three months of 2004, with the exception of three northern English regions, according to the country's largest mortgage lender.
The Daily Reckoning - It Certainly Feels Like 1929 Today, we see many parallels to the 1920s, except this time the stock bubble came first. We suspect that when history books are written about the first ten years of the millennium, it will be a (credit crunch-induced) real estate collapse that is most memorable, rather than the NASDAQ collapse of 2001. Perhaps 2005 will be the year that real estate takes everything down with it, similar to how 1929 saw stocks take everything down with them. The parallels are obvious. How many people do you know who are real estate agents, mortgage brokers, appraisers, builders, developers, etc? Can you recall the last time you were at a restaurant or cocktail party and the conversation didn't swing to real estate?
Economic Indicators - The Week Ahead The Wriglesworth Consultancy Rightmove House Price Index - indicator of residential property prices in England & Wales, showing a fall in asking prices for the 3rd consecutive month.
This is Money - London on bankruptcy red alert: LONDON is the debt hotspot of England, with the number of people going bankrupt in the capital soaring by more than 50% over the past year.
Telegraph - 'Individual bankruptcies rise by 27pc' Individual bankruptcies rose by 27pc to a total of 45,000 last year, accountants Grant Thornton said yesterday, adding that London and Northern Ireland are 'hot spots' where debts are at dangerous levels.
The Observer - Bank catches housing jitters: Bank of England policymakers are expected to leave interest rates at 4.75 per cent for the fifth successive month on Thursday as they watch the housing market downturn gather pace.
Times Business - Surprise rise in prices fails to lift housing gloom: THE downturn in the housing market is poised to worsen despite figures showing a surprise rise in house prices last month, Britain’s biggest lender said yesterday, The latest Halifax survey found that house prices rose by 1.1 per cent last month after two consecutive monthly declines, confounding City forecasts of another drop.
Guardian Unlimited - Saturday night's all right for vegging "Saturday night, I feel the air is getting hot - like you, baby," as pop philosopher Whigfield once remarked. But the air in the disco is decidedly cool these days as the vast majority eschew the traditional pleasure of donning their gladrags, going out on the tiles and tripping the light fantastic.
Telegraph | News | Have Tony and Cherie made a £3.6m property blunder? When Tony Blair and his wife Cherie bought a £3.6 million house last year they were hoping to secure their financial future and catch up what they had missed in their years away from the London property ladder.
Guardian : Fears of a hard landing It is a fair bet that - tsunamis apart - the thing most worrying people at the moment is what will happen to house prices in 2005.
The Guardian | Halifax cautious on property despite December rise After a series of indices showing falls in house prices and mortgage lending, and a selection of fairly bleak predictions for 2005, Halifax offered a little hope to homeowners worried about a tumbling property market.
Littlehampton Today: Local property prices plummet HOUSE prices in Littlehampton fell by almost four per cent last year, apparently signalling the end for the time being of the town's housing boom, writes Roger Green.
this is southwales: "Homebuyers are taking on lower mortgages and are stretching themselves less by making lower offers, a new report has revealed. Research shows that buyers know they have started the new year in a strong position which has also increased interest in the housing market."
NetHousePrices.com: Personal Statement from the Director When Nethouseprices launched the first (non-government) house price service for England and Wales, on 23 December 2004, I expected some interest but not nearly as much as we have had....
Reuters.co.uk: Mortgage equity withdrawal slips Mortgage equity withdrawal in the third quarter of last year slipped to its lowest in more than a year, the Bank of England says, further evidence that higher interest rates are taking effect.
Telegraph - A happy New Year? I don't think so It is that time of year again, the time for forecasters to throw caution to the winds. Every sane adult knows that the future is unknowable, so we soothsayers are bound to be wrong much of the time. It is a matter of doing our best - then doing it again. Here goes.
Bloomberg.com: Europe The U.K. economy, which has outpaced the euro region for 19 quarters, probably will grow at a slower pace this year as house prices decline and consumer spending eases, a survey of economists showed, raising the prospect of the first cuts in interest rates since July 2003.
FT.com - Falling house prices the biggest worry The hands-down winner wasrapid falls in house prices. Over three- quarters of the economists polled, ranging from academics to City analysts, mentioned a severe housing downturn as a serious risk.
