London has been pushed from the top of the world’s most expensive city list, by Monaco, where prime property is sold for £47,000 per square metre – up 2.1 per cent from 2008. London, which saw one of the biggest falls in value of any part of the world, down 17 per cent, is in
Communities and Local Government has found just one of the 12 shortlisted eco-town sites is ‘generally suitable’ for the programme. The remaining sites are locations which might be possible ’subject to meeting specific planning and design objectives’, while the bid for a site at Weston Otmoor was described as only suitable with ’substantial and exceptional
A report by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) has found that housing for first time buyers is at its least affordable than any time since 1990. A couple in the bottom quarter of earnings (£26,667) would need to save up the equivalent of 96 per cent of their annual salary to pay for
The pre-budget report and comprehensive spending review were announced yesterday to mixed results. Welcomed by the mortgage industry was the proposal to help lenders provide more long-term fixed rate mortgages. Currently about half of all homeowners are on some form of fixed rate mortgage deal but usually only in two- to three-year deals, as opposed
Gordon Brown promised action last night after credit card companies rejected calls to reduce interest rates, some as high as 69 per cent, after last week’s shock cut in the Bank of England’s base rate. In a clear signal that the prime minister is determined to make credit cards his next battleground , he used
Half of all councils across England have axed jobs in the past few months, and seven in 10 expect further redundancies because of the recession. A survey by the Local Government Association found that councils in the south of England were most likely to have to cut back on jobs as authorities were having to
Mortgage rejections have increased fourfold in the past two years, with almost one in ten applications being rejected. Moneysupermaket.com has found that 9 per cent of mortgage applications, which would previously have been ‘accepted without a hitch’, are being turned down for the ‘most minor of misdemeanours’.
The government is in talks with property developers about the introduction of a local authority backed bond scheme aimed to finance stalled regeneration projects. Under the proposals a bond would be underwritten by the government and sold to investors. The borrowed money would be used to pay for basic infrastructure on mothballed sites which will
The Council of Mortgage Lenders has produced a new consumer factsheet to help borrowers avoid saddling themselves with unmanageable debts when taking out a sub-prime mortgage. The move follows yesterday’s announcement that the Financial Services Authority has started enforcement action against five sub-prime mortgage firms. The government is set to announce a housing consultation green
First-time buyers have been given a glimmer of hope as a couple of lenders introduced deals that will need only a 10 per cent deposit. Britannia Building Society, which is soon to merge with the Co-operative Bank, launched its product last week. The interest rate of 5.09 per cent is fixed for two years once