UK Budget 2011 To Help First Time Buyers

George Osborne today announced a £250m package to help 10,000 first-time buyers get onto the property ladder in the Budget today.

The Firstbuy Direct scheme will help buyers struggling to get a deposit together, the opportunity to take up a five-year interest-free loan of up to 80% of the deposit, reported this morning suggested.

The scheme is set to fill the gap left by the withdrawal of the Labour government’s Homebuy Direct Scheme, which ended last autumn.

2011 Budget: Key Points

* Fuel duty … Continue Reading…

Home values hit 8 month low, according to Zoopla.co.uk

There are always many different opinions on house prices and to some degree you have to take it with a pinch of salt, but I thought this seemed like a reasonably accurate picture of average home values over the past few years.

“Our latest property data shows that property values have fallen every month since last July.

However, whilst it has been a challenging period for the property market over the past few months, the recent dip in prices … Continue Reading…

10 Ways to Sell Your Home

1. Prepare your budget and visualise your next home

Before you put your home up for sale you need to try and form a realistic idea of your requirements, you will need to have an image of where and what kind of home you want to move to. Get a feel for the house prices in your area and the area you would like to move into, with any house sale, once you have a realistic … Continue Reading…

Should We Take House Price Data With A Pinch Of Salt?

Every month we are bombarded with statistics and data about house prices.

One month they are up 0.3%, the next they are down 0.9% and so on.

Is this data accurate?

The answer is, No!

First of all much of the data is based on sales put together by Estate Agents some months before. By the time a sale has completed and registered it can be four or five months after the price was originally agreed.

Furthermore two of the biggest mortgage lenders in the … Continue Reading…

What Does £7.5m Buy You?

Robbie Williams’ Wiltshire mansion, that’s what!

Take that star Robbie Williams’ ”exceptional country house” is still on the market after almost a year with a price tag of £7.5m. The stunning property is “situated to the edge of the charming hamlet of Compton Bassett. The village lies between Calne and Marlborough, in rolling Wiltshire countryside.”

Property features include:

7 bedrooms
Indoor pool/leisure complex
Tennis Court
Paddocks
Hangar
Two staff flats and a detached cottage
Formal gardens and approximately 71 acres

Here are more details of Robbie Williams house in Compton … Continue Reading…

Mortgage Market Still Tough

There were 45,723 house purchase loans approved in January, the Bank of England has reported.  Although an increase on December’s 42,7190, it was lower than the monthly average of 46,686 for the previous six-month period, leaving mortgage specialists frustrated and unimpressed.

Brian Murphy, head of lending at independent broker Mortgage Advice Bureau, said the slight rise was always likely after a subdued housing market in December.
  He added: “Unfortunately, many people want to remortgage but can’t because they have insufficient equity … Continue Reading…