Daily Mail: Lib Dems plan top rate tax hike Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy today confirmed his party's plans to abolish council tax and introduce a new 50 per cent top rate of income tax for high-earners.
Reuters (US): Income Falls, Core Inflation Picks Up U.S. consumer spending was unchanged in January, a government report showed Monday, and a sharper-than-expected pickup in inflation sparked fears the Federal Reserve may raise interest rates faster than expected.
Sky News: Property Price Falls Slowing Down Prices on property sold via the internet are falling at their slowest rate since last August, according to online seller Hometrack.com.
ThisisLondon: New buyers back for houses New buyers are returning to the housing market confident that interest rates have peaked, according to a study published today. The number of buyers registered with property website Hometrack jumped 28.5% last month.
ShareCast: US week ahead: All eyes on jobs for rate clues With another busy week ahead, dealers will be looking hard for hints as to where inflation and interest rates are heading after last Friday’s GDP data showed strong growth during the fourth quarter.
Guardian: HSBC hits record profits HSBC today reported 2004 profits of $17.6bn (£9.1bn), a record for a UK bank, boosted by an increase in consumer borrowing and by its US acquisition.
Top News Article | Reuters.co.uk House prices have fallen for the eighth consecutive month in February, property research company Hometrack says, leaving the annual gain at just 0.3 percent, the lowest in the survey's 3-1/2-year history.
Sunday Herald: Buy-to-let - the end of the dream David Taylor couldn’t bear to hand over his hard-earned cash to a pension fund investment firm. The 40-year-old Glaswegian had built up a successful private detective agency and he wasn’t about to let a stranger take control of his life savings only to find out 25 years later that the money had barely grown, or worse still, had disappeared altogether.
The Independent: Call to cut stamp duty burden on first-timers Halifax, the UK's fifth largest bank, has written to MPs and members of the Scottish Parliament, warning that first-time buyers in 98 per cent of the UK's constituencies are now paying stamp duty, compared with just 13 per cent of constituencies a decade ago.
This is Money | Mortgages | Six-year low for mortgages: THE number of people taking mortgages to buy homes dropped to its lowest level for six years in January, giving a strong signal that the UK property boom is over.
Top News Article | Reuters.co.uk Prime Minister Tony Blair, preparing for an election expected in May, has said he will raise the hourly minimum wage by 20 pence, or 4.1 percent, from October.
Realty Times (US): My Rate Prediction It took me a few days to decide whether to write this column. I've been burned before and of course, no one can predict where interest rates are headed so I certainly won't do that. But it's possible, interest rates are getting poised to get real high, real fast.
Swiss Info: Home building reaches new high Business is booming in Switzerland’s property market. About 47,000 homes will be completed this year – more than at any time in the past ten years.
This is Money: Mortgage lending hits six-year low The number of people taking mortgages to buy homes dropped to its lowest level for six years in January, confirming that the property boom is well and truly over.
The Herald: Lomax strikes hawkish tone on rates Rachel Lomax, a deputy governor of the Bank of England, struck a hawkish tone on interest rates in Liverpool yesterday when she highlighted the need for the monetary policy committee to be "pre-emptive".
Telegraph : Minimum wage 'will increase to £5 plus' Tony Blair and Gordon Brown will announce today that the national minimum wage - introduced after Labour came to power in 1997 - will break the £5-an-hour mark later this year.
Mortgage Introducer: Fixed rates on the up Moneyfacts report a trend of increasing interest rates for fixed rate mortgages over the last two weeks supporting the thinking that the next movement in base rate will be upwards.
House prices on the rise again in most areas Property prices are rising again in most areas outside the South East, according to TEAM, the multi-listing network of independent estate agents.
Guardian:To the village of hate with an olive branch On Saturday a crowd gathered in the small Breton village of Bourbriac. Angry at the number of French houses being snapped up by the English, they burned estate agents' brochures and demanded 'Brits out'. So in the spirit of the entente cordiale, Stephen Moss set off on a one-man peace initiative
CNN Money: Mortgage applications fall Applications for U.S. home mortgages fell last week as a drop in home purchasing activity offset a marginal increase in refinancing, amid rising in interest rates, an industry group said Wednesday.
Telegraph | Property | Spot the difference: If there is going to be a property slump, one of the first places you might expect it to show is on the fringes of Docklands in London.
Guardian: Minutes show pressure building for rate rise The prospects of a rise in interest rates strengthened today as Bank of England minutes disclosed that a policy maker voted to raise borrowing costs earlier this month.
Times Online: Gently does it A snap of wintry economic conditions has reminded us that a rise in interest rates is not the certainty that some believe.
Telegraph: Bank shy over rate rise as inflation grows The Bank of England yesterday played down the chances of a rise in interest rates before the general election, even though its own forecasts show inflation is to rise much faster than expected.
Times Business: Wimpey drops part-exchange deals in cost-control drive George Wimpey one of the UK’s biggest housebuilders, said yesterday that it had axed part-exchange deals and other sweeteners designed to lure customers to buy its homes, after delivering yet another set of record full-year results.
This is Money: Housebuilders struggle to sell The desperation of housebuilders to shifts stock in a slow market has reached a new high, with some knocking 15% off the price of a property to secure a sale.
Latest Business News and Financial Information | Reuters.co.uk January's marginal increase in house prices, the first rise in eight months, could be a sign recent price corrections are at and end and that 2005 will see gentle gains, the National Association of Estate Agents says.
Western Daily Press: Is another property bubble on the horizon? To read the financial press at the weekend and yesterday, one would assume the housing market slowdown is already over. Already the media is reporting that house prices are rising aggressively, driven by the release of the latest Rightmove figures which show asking prices up 2.3 per cent in February.
Daily Mail: House asking prices 'not realistic' Asking prices rose sharply in the last four weeks, leading to claims that sellers and estate agents are not viewing the market realistically.
The Guardian | As demand falls, so will house prices What are we to make of the housing market at the moment? The news was negative all through the autumn - the number of buyers was falling, mortgage lending was collapsing and, as a result, prices were dropping. The great 2004 housing market fall appeared to be on us.
This is Money: House prices leap The property market showed strong signs of a new year recovery, according to a new study, with average asking prices leaping by £4,300 in a month.
Times Online - Newspaper Edition IS IT JUST ME .... or has the boom in house prices made us all a bit too greedy? If you bought a house for £150,000 ten years ago, it could now be worth more than £425,000 – an increase of 183%. It’s not a bad return, especially if you have been living in your investment. House-price inflation is now running at 13.7%, according to the Halifax index. Admittedly, it’s past a peak of 22% last July, but it’s still completely barmy.
Times Online - Newspaper Edition THE number of buy-to-let landlords unable to meet their mortgage payments jumped in the second half of 2004, according to new Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) figures.
Telegraph : The Bank is hedging its bets on rates Is the Bank of England trying to have its cake and eat it? You could be forgiven such ungracious thoughts after the publication of last week's Inflation Report, its quarterly tome on the state of the UK economy.
The Guardian: Cash surplus boost for Brown Gordon Brown was today on track to meet his borrowing forecasts as government coffers bulged with their biggest cash surplus in five years in January.
This is Bradford: Chips are down for quick house sales A Bradford company is set to revolutionise house-buying in the UK with a computerised system. Abode Conveyancing said the new system would speed up the sale of property and would be run in close conjunction with the Government's new home information packs.
Times Online: Local difficulty Today’s muted council tax forecasts demonstrate once and for all that local democracy in Britain is neither local nor democratic.
CNN.com: Bank hints at Australian rate rise The governor of Australia's central bank gave a strong hint Friday that the bank will soon raise interest rates for the first time since December 2003 even though the nation's housing boom has been largely subsiding.
The Guardian: Street wiseWant to know how much next door paid for their house? A new website that tells all is attracting 500,000 visitors a day. Leo Benedictus taps in his postcode and confronts the neighbours with the results ....... more good media coverage for nethouseprices.com
Aberdeen Independent: When will the bubble burst? If house prices crash, all agree, High Street spending plunges too. Economist Roger Bootle, predicting "The year the luck runs out", says the Bank of England will slash interest rates in the next year to keep the good times rolling.
In2perspective : Essential Summary - Feb 05 This week has seen the publication of two important house price surveys. One from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors the other from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister.
This is London: Interest rate rise on horizon The Bank of England today left the way open for a further interest rate rise, predicting that inflation will overshoot its 2% target in two years.
The Guardian: Bank hints at rates rise The Bank of England today hinted that its next move on interest rates will be up as it raised its inflation and growth forecasts.
Daily Mail: House price growth slows Further evidence of slowdown in the housing market emerged today as Government statistics revealed the price of the average home is irsing at rose at its slowest annual pace in 15 months.
Guardian: Buy-to-let loses its shine Enthusiasm for buy-to-let property investments showed signs of fading at the end of 2004, according to a report published today by the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML).
BBC NEWS | UK | First-time buyers may 'gazunder' A third of first-time home buyers may cut their offer at the last minute, forcing the seller to take less or find a new buyer, a survey has found.
IMPORTANT: We will be taking the Forum down at 08:15pm tonight. We are upgrading to the latest vision of the Invision Powerboard. You probably won't notice any difference but there are quite a few bug fixes in the latest release. We are confident that the forum will be back up and running again tonight but you never know with upgrades, so fingers crossed!!!
This is Kent: More bad news for first-timers First-time buyers in Sevenoaks look set to fall into a housing black hole amid news of council tax hikes and an affordable homes scheme that will pass the district by.
Times Online: Times MPC votes to keep rates on hold The Bank of England should keep interest rates on hold today but may have to raise them in the months ahead, according to The Times Monetary Policy Committee.
ThisisLondon: Interest rates 'to be kept on hold' The Bank of England's monetary policy committee kicks off its latest meeting today with interest rates having been held at 4.75% since August last year.
Reuters.co.uk: Manufacturing up in December Manufacturing output rose at its fastest pace in seven months in December and at twice the expected rate, suggesting that a fourth quarter economic rebound was even stronger than first reported.
ABC online (AUS): Interest rate rise likely The Reserve Bank has warned of a likely increase in interest rates to combat the growing threat of inflation. In its quarterly statement on monetary policy, the bank said inflation would be pushing its acceptable upper limits by next year. The warning came as the Treasurer, Peter Costello, signalled that sweeping industrial reforms would ease the pressure on interest rates.
ThisisLondon: Britain back in the mood for spending After several months in the doldrums, Britain's army of consumers is springing back to life as the impact of last year's interest rate rises starts to wane.
CNN Money (USA): Will housing prices pop? Is the real estate market a dangerously overvalued bubble that needs to pop sooner than later, or is the market for homes strong enough that prices can and will keep rising?
January car sales down - 4Car News from Channel 4 New car sales in the UK fell by 8.2 percent last month, though 181,474 new cars hit the road nonetheless. This is not so much down to everyone feeling skint after Christmas - most of these cars will have been ordered long beforehand - as representative of general downwards trends after record sales in 2003.
The Guardian: Hot spots lighten house price gloom Average house prices in six London boroughs have fallen by more than £30,000 in the space of a few months, according to government figures published today.
Times Business: Property prices slide 2.7% Hosue prices across England and Wales fell 2.7 per cent in the final quarter of last year, according to official figures today that give the first formal confirmation of the property downturn.
Times Property: Who will come down hardest? House prices fell in January for the seventh month in a row, according to Hometrack, which gathers information from estate agents. Everybody now agrees that the boom is truly over. But who will bear the brunt of the property downturn?
Telegraph | Property | Why won't it sell? A Grade II-listed, half-timbered Tudor home, with its six bedrooms, kitchen garden and acre of paddock, would normally send most would-be buyers into a drooling frenzy. So, says Sarah Lonsdale, one question...
Credit Action: Debt statistics update Britain's personal debt is increasing by £1 million every four minutes.....By December 2004, nearly 54,000 people had fallen between three and six months behind with their mortgage repayments, an increase of nearly 10 per cent from the start of the year when rates were still below four per cent
Times Online - Newspaper Edition: House prices fell in January for the seventh month in a row, according to Hometrack, which gathers information from estate agents. Everybody now agrees that the boom is truly over. But who will bear the brunt of the property downturn?
The Independent: Bricks and mortar stuck in bygone age The worldwide web has worked its way into many areas of our lives, from booking holidays, to buying cinema tickets, to carrying out research, to seeking a weather forecast.
This is London: Bankruptcies leap by a third Britain's mounting consumer debt problem was highlighted today with record numbers of individual insolvencies unveiled. More than 13,000 people declared themselves insolvent during the final quarter of 2004, an increase of 34.6% on the same period last year.
This is Money | News | Deutsche Bank axes 1,000 London jobs More than 1,000 jobs are to be slashed in the London offices of Deutsche Bank, it was revealed today as the German bank said it would cut 6,400 jobs worldwide, or around 10% of its total workforce.
This is Money | Buy to let | Fresh blood in buy-to-let Lenders are attempting to stimulate the buy-to-let market by launching products that allow customers to borrow a higher percentage of property value than ever before.
Find a Property - Crash Unlikely, Says Treasury UK house prices are unlikely to fall through the floor, according to the Treasury, despite predictions from some economists of a crash to come...
The latest house price news - Wanadoo Money New research shows that the recent property slowdown may have come to an end. House prices rose by 0.8% in January, according to the latest figures from the Halifax bank. This is the second successive monthly climb in prices, following a 1.4% increase in December.
ThisisLondon: Gillette deal highlights UK job losses Procter & Gamble's £31bn overnight bid for Gillette has sparked fears of hefty job losses in the company's UK workforce. It has also highlighted the extent of manufacturing sector job losses over the past six months.
icWales - Housebuilding growthslows to 19-month low Growth in housebuilding slowed to its lowest rate for 19 months in January as higher interest rates took their toll on the industry, a survey showed yesterday.
Telegraph: Playing the property market Twelve years ago Ibosa Oshodin was a railway bookings clerk. Then, with a £2,000 deposit, he bought his first house. Now he owns more than 100. He tells Cheryl Markosky when to buy – and sell.....should provoke some lively discussion on the forum...Webmaster!
Argus Leader - Business Federal Reserve policy-makers are likely to keep bumping up short-term interest rates this year, a defense against an inflation flare-up now that the economic expansion is on firm footing.
Guardian: Rise in mortgages is a false dawn, say experts A recovery in the housing market remains months away, despite the first increase in the number of new mortgage approvals for seven months, City economists said last night.
Telegraph | Money | Carpetright blames sales crash on housing market Carpetright, the world's largest carpet retailer, has blamed the slowing housing market for a collapse in sales in January. Same-store sales fell by 7.5pc with Darren Shapland, finance director, saying: "We expected to be down in January but were disappointed by how much. We had thought 3-4pc."
Alexa: User Reviews for housepricecrash.co.uk This page is looking very empty. Let's get it looking better with some user reviews from you guys. Who will go down in history for writing the first review?
icNewcastle - Don't be negative about equity Internet property website housepricecrash.co.uk also foresees a slump of 30pc in the next three years, as does investment bank Durlacher.
In2perspective : Monthly Newsletter - January '05 Edition The New Year has arrived and we have all begun to get used to writing 2005 instead of 2004. We thought we would start the year by sharing our thoughts on the prospects for the property market, looking briefly at the predictions various commentators have made.
