The real worth of official housing market statistics has received another knock with the revelation that Bank of England researchers are relying on Google for their data. The government already spends taxpayers’ money on producing rival housing statistics from the Land Registry and Communities and Local Government Department.

Property owners can check if they live in a repossession hotspot with a new map compiled by homeless charity Shelter. Researchers plotted repossession data from county courts against council areas to come up with the towns and cities where house and flat owners are most at risk of losing their homes. Around 45,000 homeowners are […]

The Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors believes more should follow Broadland Housing’s lead and look to the EU for funds through the European Regional Development Fund. The Norwich-based association has won funding of over £500,000 to improve 11 houses in the area into eco-homes using the latest environment-geared housing advances.

New figures have revealed that almost half of Britain’s homes do not have adequate basic insulation and as a result, are wasting at least £100 in energy bills every year. Adequately insulated lofts and cavity walls help to cut down energy leakage and therefore energy bills.  However, the latest lagging statistics show that only 57% […]

Buy to let lending is likely to increase by billions over the next three years as smaller, independent lenders come to the market, claims specialist lender Precise Mortgages. The firm’s managing director Alan Cleary gives some interesting insights into buy to let borrowing for landlords in an interview with a trade magazine.

Discussions to change tenant deposit protection rules for landlords are going on behind closed doors, according to information leaked by the Residential Landlords Association. After a succession of court rulings rubbishing current tenant deposit rules, the government wants to tighten up the law.

High housing costs are hitting ‘Generation Rent’ hard, leaving them struggling to make ends meet. When utility bills, council tax and insurance are taken into account, individuals renting in London are left with as little as 25 per cent of their net income after housing costs. With little spare cash available, this generation is exposed […]

The first few from a series of eco-friendly homes have been unveiled in Kettering after being commissioned by LHA-ASRA. The eight homes are the first of 18 being built on unused allotment land provided by the Kettering Borough Council to be completed. The two and three bedroom houses meet Level Five of the Government’s Code […]

A property developer has been sentenced to 18 months in prison after failing to declare £143,000 he removed from his estate. Giles Nicholas Gilbey had received the money from his share of the sale of his family home. He could not satisfactorily show where the money had gone, despite knowing it should have gone to […]

According to new data from the Council of Mortgage Lenders, gross mortgage lending totalled an estimated £11.3 billion in May, which represented a 12% increase from the £10.1 billion lent in April, and was 1% higher than in May 2010. Gross mortgage lending includes lending for both house purchase and remortgage.

The Council of Mortgage Lenders is not commenting on news that a major battle over regulating buy to let mortgages with European policymakers is lost. Reports suggest lobbying by the CML and Association of Mortgage Intermediaries (AMI) has failed and a new European Directive on Credit Agreements Relating to Residential Property will include buy to […]

Rents are raging out of control in some areas of the country as tenants desperate for a home gazump their rivals and offer higher rents than landlords are seeking. But buy to let seems a game of two halves – with some regions away from prosperous London seeing rents fall.

Independent commercial finance and bridging specialist Crystal Mortgages has launched a new range of buy to let products for landlords. The portfolio of loans offers a number of purchase, capital-raising and remortgage products with loan-to-values of up to 75% of the property price. Interest rates starts at Bank of England base rate (0.5%) plus 1.99%.

A proposal urging MPs to vote for tighter regulation of private landlords is likely to be booted out of Parliament due to lack of time. The private member’s bill, promoted by the Labour MP for Sedgefield Phillip Wilson won 10 minutes of time, but is unlikely to win any further support.

New technology should be taking the property market forward but agents aren’t embracing it, an Imfuna Let survey has found. Imfuna Let, the new digital inventory system, found that while 90 of the hundred letting agents surveyed thought technology improves their service to clients, only 33% had smartphones that would allow them to work on […]

Landlords are blamed for the noise and bad behaviour of partygoers who let out city centre flats near nightspots for wild parties. Property owners are allegedly pocketing up to £1,200 a night from cramming stag and hen parties in to family flats.

A £50million mortgage fraud said to be ‘off the scale in terms of the sentencing guidelines for fraud cases’ by a judge has resulted in a combined 20 years in prison for a property investor and a chartered surveyor. Saghir Ahmed Afzal and Ian McGarry were charged in 2009 along with six others and plead […]

The mortgage business is flatlining as buyers, sellers and lenders wait for the property market to jump start. The latest property market statistics show fewer buyers are in the market and this is affecting sales and mortgage advances.

Many landlords are handing unnecessary cash over to the tax man because they do not know what expenses they can claim for running their property businesses. Even a new study by landlord mortgage specialist Paragon Mortgages does not cover all the costs that a buy to let investor can claim.

As MPs debated the Welfare Reform Bill at report stage on Monday, 13 June, a survey by the National Landlords Association (NLA) had already revealed that more than half of private residential landlords are planning to reduce the number of properties they let to tenants on housing benefits. Around 450,000 homes are let to tenants […]

Many landlords surveyed by Paragon could save money on tax, they’ve found not all were as efficient as they could be. Of those questioned, less than half are claiming their advertising (45%), transport costs to visit your property (49%) and on any energy efficiency improvements (41%) as tax allowances.