Deadline closes in on stamp duty holiday
With the stamp duty holiday set to end on 31st March 2021, buyers should get a move on if they want to take advantage of stamp duty savings of up to £15,000. In normal market conditions most sales agreed before the new year will complete by 31st March. Only 54% of sales agreed in January […]
How energy efficient are rented homes?
The government has proposed to increase the minimum energy efficient standards for the private rented sector to EPC Band C by 2030. Consultation is underway and finishes at the end of the year. Around 5 million households across England and Wales live in the private rented sector. Dataloft estimates that less than half (45%) of […]
The recovery of mortgage approvals
Mortgage approvals in August saw a 29% annual increase. The lockdown backlog is clearing and increased buyer demand, generated by the stamp duty holiday and lifestyle changes, has boosted figures. 190,902 mortgages have been approved in the last 3 months, -4% below the same time last year. The number of approvals for remortgages saw an […]
Migration season for students
During university, 29% of students live in the private rental sector and following graduation, 47% plan to live in the private rental sector. With nearly 1.9 million students attending university full time in the UK, a potential 551,000 students will move into a private rental home in the next few weeks. Nearly 647,000 full time […]
Challenges of a first-time buyer
While attention is focused on equity-rich buyers making lifestyle changes, it’s easy to overlook the first-time buyer for whom buying has become a little more tricky – and avocado on toast is not to blame. First-time buyer property prices have risen from £142,473 in 2010 to £241,025 today. Despite this, the average age of a […]
Recovery continues for sales
The housing market recovery continues. 70,710 transactions completed in July, 14.5% up on June. Numbers are still down on last year but the surge in new ‘sales agreed’ will boost completions over the next few months. 8,930 more sales completed in July than in June. Although transactions are increasing, they remain below the yearly average, […]
House prices hotting up
The weather isn’t the only thing to be hotting up. House price indices report annual growth across the board. Nationwide July House Price Index reports a 1.5% annual increase in house prices and a monthly increase of 1.7% Halifax July House Price Index reports a 3.8% annual increase and a monthly increase of 1.6%. Rightmove […]
Stamp duty holiday deadline
With just over 35 weeks of the stamp duty holiday left, and with the average property taking 18 weeks to sell, vendors have 17 weeks to list their properties if they want to make the most of the stamp duty holiday. According to The Advisory, the average time to sell a property, from first day […]
How green are our homes?
Climate change was high up the agenda before Covid-19 – most forecasters predicted climate change as the big theme for the property market in 2020. Last week the Chancellor put it back on the agenda. Energy efficiency of houses in England has improved over the last decade. The announcement of the Green Home Grant will […]
How far do tenants move?
Dataloft Rental Market Analytics allows us to understand the movement of tenants. Pre-pandemic a quarter of tenants moved less than 1 mile and 5% moved from overseas, will the patterns change? In the UK 25% of tenants move less than 1 mile, the North East has the highest proportion of local tenants, 32%. In the […]