Property

House prices versus earnings

March 15, 2012
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Like an Empty Nester cocooned in equity in a four-bed detached house overlooking the Green Belt who frets about what his daughter will do to afford a £200,000 bedsit in Brixton, I’ve got a split mind when it comes to UK residential property. UK houses still feel expensive, not least by the traditional measure of [...]

28 comments

Historical UK house prices

January 5, 2012
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A good way to get depressed is to never buy your own home and then to take a peek at a graph of house price appreciation. Let’s see what we could have won!

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Are UK house prices too high?

December 22, 2011
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Are UK house prices going to stay elevated compared to their old incomes or rent measures, and why does it matter?

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Reasons to rent a house instead of buying

March 31, 2011
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The decision to rent or buy a house is rarely clear cut – it usually comes down to emotions. So here are some facts to chew on.

30 comments

FirstBuy scheme to offer cheap mortgage money to first-time buyers

March 23, 2011
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The new FirstBuy scheme will help first-time buyers get on the housing market, by giving them access to a new £250 million fund.

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Reasons to buy a house instead of renting

February 10, 2011
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In this guest post, Tejvan Pettinger of The Mortgage Blog explains why he thinks buying usually beats renting a home.

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House price predictions 2011

January 13, 2011
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The house price predictions for 2011 are mainly for modest 1-2% falls, although a couple of bears expect double digit declines. Nobody expects prices to rocket.

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Buying a property overseas: Is it worth it?

October 20, 2010
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In this guest post, Rick Todd of Expat Investing considers whether buying a property overseas is a good decision, or just a complication on the otherwise blue horizons.

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What can a first-time buyer in the South East buy for less than £250,000?

April 1, 2010
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Stamp duty for first-time buyers was scrapped in the budget, provided they contain themselves to spending less than £250,000. Easy, unless you live near London.

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New stamp duty bands for UK houses

March 24, 2010
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First time buyers will pay no stamp duty on houses up to £250,000, but spending £1 million costs more

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Buffett: Why the property bubble bursting was a good thing

February 28, 2010
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Funny how one of the world’s richest men understands how young first-time buyers have been impoverished by crazily high house prices.

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Playing chicken with house prices

February 15, 2010
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A frozen chicken would cost £47 if the cost had risen like house prices have since 1971. Does it matter?

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UK house price predictions 2010

January 19, 2010
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All the major UK house price predictions for 2010 in one spot. This way, they can all be wrong in the same boat!

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House buyers could be paying off their mortgage in retirement

January 15, 2010
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You can’t live in an equity portfolio, however much it helps you sleep at night. Should I follow the rich kids into property?

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Five reasons to buy commercial property

June 24, 2009
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Price declines have been extreme, and in the medium-term the investment case for commercial property still stands.

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Commercial property: I’m buying

June 16, 2009
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I think the time has come to buy commercial property. And almost nobody agrees with me.

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Commercial property is an attractive asset to own

June 12, 2009
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Property has bond-like qualities, in that it represents a solid asset that produces an income via rents.

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Young? Can’t afford a house? You’re getting shafted by the government

December 10, 2008

(Image by: magnus) What has the UK government got against young people? Why is it obsessed with pulling up the drawbridge to anyone who’d like to buy a home but who can’t afford (or won’t pay) credit bubble prices? I will declare my interest: I rent, having decided several years ago that housing was too [...]

7 comments

Sell-to-rent gamblers return to property market

February 22, 2008

While many people have made a fortune out of property in the UK over the past few years, some have lost a packet – even as prices continued to rise. These are the so-called ‘Sell-to-Rent’ brigade, who attempt to time the peaks and troughs of the house price cycle by selling their home at the [...]

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How Andy Warhol’s loft living sowed the seeds of risky BTL investment

September 26, 2007

THE SCENE: A beautiful couple – they might be models fresh from a home shopping catalogue photoshoot – relax in their sixth-floor two-bedroom, two-bathroom, new build apartment. He is in the kitchen area, mixing up mojitos on the island unit. She is on the balcony, gazing across the city landscape (an out-of-focus backdrop of railway [...]

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Warning: buying a flat in West London will cost you thousands a year more than renting

September 9, 2007

A friend (let’s call him Peter, which is nicer than his real name) has bagged a pay rise from the BBC. Well done Peter. (Incidentally, Peter’s job is to shepherd the flocks of so-called ‘runners’ you find clogging up TV and film sets. If you’re ever at such a media palaver, you can easily spot [...]

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Should you buy or rent your home?

September 3, 2007

“A bank is a place where they lend you an umbrella in fair weather and ask for it back when it begins to rain.” Robert Frost Whether to buy your own home or not is a tricky question for anyone wanting financial freedom. Now that might seem to some a mad statement; in most English [...]

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Low rental yields suggest house prices will fall

September 2, 2007

Buying a house in Britain today costs a lot more than renting it. Fair enough, you might think: Home owners have seen prices triple in the past decade, so it’s understandable that it should cost more to buy your suburban castle and so potentially profit than to merely rent it. But wait a minute: If [...]

2 comments