Londoners pay a massive premium to live near a train station. But there are many external factors which can add thousands to the value of a property. When we consider which property to buy, there are all sorts of factors about the property itself which influence how much we are willing to pay for it.
New rules from the FSA will make it harder for all of us to get our hands on a mortgage – do they go too far? Fresh from being granted a reprieve by the Coalition Government – the Tories had wanted to completely do away with the FSA – the UK’s financial regulator is starting to flex its muscles over the mortgage market.
Mortgages are hugely expensive at the best of times. So, the last thing you need is to be stung with unforeseen costs. But the trouble is, some lenders are pretty wily when it comes to slapping bills on unsuspecting borrowers.
House prices remain wildly over-priced: 29% against the long-term relationship with rents, some 50% against the long-term average against wages. They will fall, but probably not this year. Why? Because the drastic anti-recession measures still have plenty of gas in the tank.
According to recent research from Abbey (ABBY), the number of homeowners renting out a spare room has soared by 152% in the past 12 months – from 388,000 to 981,000 – in a bid to stave off the recession. This means that 3% of all homeowners in the UK now have at least one lodger.
A new website called iSold.com has been launched offering people the chance to sell their home for just £999. The iSold.com site is being run by Britain’s largest independent estate agent, Spicerhaart, in association with supermarket giant Tesco. It aims to offer a “halfway house” between a traditional high street estate agent and an online service.
If you are one of the millions of UK mortgage borrowers who have been parked on your lender’s standard variable rate (SVR) waiting for the right moment to switch – now is that moment.
It’s two and a half years since the credit crunch broke, yet only recently has there been whisperings of mortgage lenders beginning to relax criteria. This has mainly revolved around edging down certain loan-to-value thresholds – in other words, giving those with smaller deposits access to the best deals.
Large lenders have opposed plans by the financial regulator to scrap so-called “liar loans” for homebuyers, warning the watchdog a blanket ban would hurt the self-employed and prompt a rise in false paperwork. The Financial Services Authority (FSA) had said in October it planned to force mortgage lenders to check the income of all borrowers, effectively banning self-certified mortgages.
Interest rates are predicted to start rising next month and rates on fixed-rate mortgage deals are tumbling as lenders embark on a new price war. Now could be the best time in history to get a fixed rate mortgage!