House prices reach record high of £245k in October 2020 says ONS

House prices increased 8.6% in the year to February, marking the highest annual rate of growth since 2014, the ONS said.

Hinckley & Rugby Building Society launched a two-year discount variable mortgage at 0.99 per cent, while a raft of state-backed 95 per cent mortgages have gone live.

The scheme, called ‘Helping Hand,’ will be launched on 26 April. Borrowers will need a deposit of at least 10 per cent, the minimum Nationwide requires across all its products.

Some borrowers took mortgage holidays as a ‘nice to have’ – but now they face extra questions and increased scrutiny from lenders when applying for a new loan.

The UK’s largest equity release broker, Age Partnership, has pledged to look at all existing equity release loans to see whether borrowers can be switched to a better deal.

First-time buyers and home movers will be able to get Government-backed mortgages with deposits of just 5 per cent with five major banks and building societies from today.

The average asking price of homes up for sale across Britain jumped over 2 per cent in a month, with buyers flocking to snap up properties with outdoor space and work from home options.

Almost a third of buyers are paying over the asking price for their properties, as the current demand to move has resulted in competitive bidding wars. But how do you win one? We asked the experts.

Hinckley & Rugby Building Society will launch a new mortgage with an interest rate of 0.99% next week – but the criteria look set to be fairly strict and it’s not a fix.

House prices in Wales and the North West have led Britain’s pandemic property boom as homebuyers shunned cities in favour of more space.

The greatest excess of demand over supply in Newquay for a decade means almost two thirds of properties on estate agents’ books have sales agreed, property website Rightmove said.

House price growth in northern cities and towns is continuing to outpace southern locations including London, according to the latest Land Registry data.

More mortgage prisoners have told of the financial and personal hardships they have suffered, in a bid to drum up support for a potentially life-changing new law currently going through Parliament.

A south-facing garden has long been a selling point for estate agents – and the pandemic has made them even more desirable. But how much does having one really add to the value of your home?

On a net basis, the nation’s private property wealth reached the equivalent to £189,549 for the average UK property owner, the Equity Release Council said.

Half of property professionals reported an increase rather than a decrease in agreed sales during March, as the market responded positively to the extension of the stamp duty holiday.

A desire for better homes and the stamp duty holiday has sparked a buying frenzy – yet first-time buyers and those with small deposits have been frozen out by tight lending criteria and soaring prices.

A significant number of homeowners could be overpaying for home insurance because they have bought a policy from their mortgage provider instead of shopping around.

Against most sensible measures, house prices in the UK are too expensive, but there’s a theory that says they could keep going up from here before they crash.

Landlords could get better mortgage deals if their properties are energy efficient, as lenders launch new green products to the market – but do they offer enough of a financial incentive?

Those living in energy inefficient homes could soon find it harder to get a mortgage, after a Government report said it could start rating lenders on the energy efficiency of their portfolios

Property price growth slowed slightly in the last month amid a ‘softening’ of demand ahead of the original end of the stamp duty holiday.

Prime postcodes in cities such as Winchester, Oxford and Bath have seen house prices rise this year – but the lure of the countryside is still strong according to Savills.

A quarter of a million ‘mortgage prisoners’ have faced years of financial struggles after their banks went under in the 2008 crash. We spoke to three of them about how a new law change would help.

Currently, 43% of homeowners are worried about making their monthly mortgage payments. We explain what to do if your income drops, and how to remortgage with defaults on your record.

We just received the homebuyer report on our new period home, which raised concerns about an old loft conversion and extension. How can we ensure it’s safe and what survey do we need?

A total of 87,700 mortgages for new house purchases were approved in February, compared to an average of 63,500 over the past 10 years.

App-based provider Moneybox has paid out £94.5m in bonuses to first-time buyers in 2020-21 and those hoping to get onto the ladder, like 24-year-old Katie Mcleod, from Swindon.

Home sales hit their highest daily level in a decade this week as the housing market boom continued apace – while visits to the Rightmove website smashed the all-time record twice over

How to take the temperature of your local property market, the best Isa investments of all time, green investing and whether cutting electric car grants was wise.

The busiest property markets of 2020 have been revealed, with small towns taking the top spots as buyers rushed out of cities.

One in five properties listed on Rightmove are now chain-free, as movers sell up and rent to help them win bidding wars when it comes to finding their new home.

John Lewis stores in Aberdeen, Peterborough, Sheffield and York will stay shut, as will four ‘At Home’ shops in Ashford, Basingstoke, Chester and Tunbridge Wells.

The extension of the stamp duty holiday has added further fuel to the fire of the property market, but while some areas are blowing hot others are cold.

Mortgage borrowers hit hardest by the pandemic may find themselves paying out thousands more each year, because they believe the financial fallout has affected their ability to remortgage.

House prices dropped for the first time in six months in January, according to official figures – but they could be set to increase again due to the stamp duty holiday extension and the easing of lockdown.

Housing transactions jumped a quarter in February in what has been described as a show of ‘remarkable resilience’ in the market.

Property prices in England are now seven times the local salary on average, as house price inflation appears to be outgrowing wages. New analysis also shows a ‘gender gap’ in the affordability of homes.

Buyer demand was up 24% in the week that followed the Budget on 3 March, according to property portal Zoopla.

From sports betting to streaming subscriptions, we asked mortgage experts about spending habits that could raise mortgage lenders’ eyebrows – and how much of a risk they pose.

We may have seen the price of the average home go up by around £15,000 last year in the UK – but this paled in comparison to other countries which saw astronomical rises of up to 30%.

Yorkshire Building Society has become the first lender to bring mortgages with 5% deposits back to the market, potentially heralding a price war that could benefit first-time buyers.

Britons are being urged to secure their homes against a potential surge of burglaries anticipated for when lockdown ends. We asked experts for tips on how to protect your home.

The average asking price for a home in the UK increased in the first two weeks of March, as the number of people enquiring about available properties broke the all-time record.

Would you fix your mortgage until it ends or would you rather take the gamble that paying less now won’t be offset by higher rates in the future?

As the easing of lockdown apparoaches, Britain’s mortgage borrowers will re-emerge from their homes with differing circumstances.

Demand for city centre living is on the rise again – and with rents having fallen in many areas during the pandemic, there may be cheap deals to be had for renters who get ahead of the game.

More than half of self-employed people said they felt penalised when applying for a home loan, while 96% said they had to provide more paperwork, a new survey shows.

Bread and butter savings rates have fallen by seven tenths, but many mortgage borrowers have barely benefited since the Bank of England cut its base rate to an all-time low last year.

Metro Bank has launched a new range of mortgages for borrowers with ‘adverse’ credit history who may struggle to get a home loan elsewhere – making it the only high street lender to offer this.

If you’re struggling to work at your kitchen table – and you have the luxury of a garden – it could be time to invest in a ‘shoffice’. Here’s everything you need to know about building a garden workspace.

A shortfall in the number of homes coming up for sale remains a major stumbling block for the housing market, economists at the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors have warned.

A mortgage being touted as the UK’s ‘longest-ever’ fixed rate home loan will be launched next week. Habito One will allow home buyers to stay on the same rate for up to 40 years.

House prices could see five-figure increases this year, as forecasts are revised upwards thanks to the stamp duty holiday extension and vaccine roll-out success.

All landlords need to have had electrical safety inspections carried out on their properties by 1 April this year, or risk being fined up to £30,000.

Home movers have seen four million possessions lost, damaged or stolen during transit over the past 12 months, costing them £700 on average. Here’s how to make sure your stuff stays safe.

The holiday will save thousands more buyers up to £15,000 in costs. First-time buyer Jessica Sena (pictured) saved £5,000. She exchanged contracts just hours after Rishi Sunak’s announcement.

Most Britons don’t know the size of their home in square feet, according to a new survey. But given that buyers now prize space above all else, has this become vital information?

Home buyers welcomed the stamp duty holiday extension in this week’s Budget – but over-stretched solicitors say many will still miss the new deadline and some are turning clients away.

House prices in the UK edged downwards in February, but are predicted to hit record highs again after the stamp duty holiday was extended by Chancellor Rishi Sunak in this week’s Budget.

Since the start of 2018, there has been over 70,000 reported cases of such thefts, equating to about 64 a day, Churchill Home Insurance said in new findings.

The rumoured scheme will be welcomed by young home buyers, who have seen the availability of 5% deposit mortgages plummet since the start of the pandemic – how will it work?

Rishi Sunak announced a plan to help home buyers get mortgages with deposits of just five per cent in today’s Budget. But which lenders will offer them and how soon can people apply?

After the stamp duty holiday was extended, our calculator hows how much tax you would pay to move home before the new 30 June 2021 deadline.

One is a £77.5million eight-bedroom luxury mansion in one of London’s most exclusive postcodes. The other is a modest family home in County Durham on the market for £150,000.

A third of UK home renovators plan to fund their project with a remortgage, according to a new survey. But how do you go about getting equity out of your home? We explain how it works.

This couple shared their home with three lodgers to help pay the mortgage. But now they want to sell, they could be landed with a capital gains tax bill. We asked three tax experts to explain the rules

The last thing you want is to discover your beautiful new home is concealing nightmares behind every nook and cranny. But what type of survey should you choose? We explain the difference between them.

Within London, the notoriously expensive borough of Kensington and Chelsea is the least affordable place in the capital to live, when taking into account factors like house prices and wages.

Some 22 per cent of home buyers blame bad credit for having their property purchase thwarted. Experian’s John Webb and the Mortgage Advice Bureau’s Brian Murphy explain how to fix it

Around 750,000 buyers in England are set to benefit from the stamp duty holiday since it was launched last year, saving them but costing the Treasury nearly £5billion, according to the findings.

We had been working on the basis that there was no way we would benefit from the stamp duty holiday, but I have now read that it could be extended for three months.

Property transactions in the UK took a tumble in January for the first time in nine months according to HMRC data, in the latest sign the pandemic-fuelled market boom is coming to an end.

Young renters have been hit financially by the pandemic. With hefty deposits often a barrier to moving, companies are now offering to secure their tenancies for them – in exchange for a fee.

The number of cohabiting couples submitting joint mortgage applications rose by 60 per cent in 2020. We explain what you need to ask each other before taking the plunge

Interest-only mortgages have become something of a taboo ever since the 2008 crash. But could they be a short-term fix for homeowners hit financially by Covid, or is taking one out too much of a risk?

Britons are at risk of paying over the odds on their house purchases, with 30 per cent of homeowners failing to negotiate on their current property. We explain how to do it successfully

Lenders have launched 117 new 10% deposit mortgages since the beginning of the year – but first-time buyers still have far fewer options than they did pre-pandemic.

House prices rose 8.5% to a record high of £252,000, aided by lockdown buyers looking for bigger homes and the stamp duty holiday launched in July, the ONS revealed.

Almost two-thirds of buyers nationwide, representing sales worth £1.5bn, are in a chain where someone is dependent on completion before the deadline of March 31.

Extending the stamp duty holiday by six weeks – a move chancellor Rishi Sunak is said to be considering – would save home buyers in England a further £1bn, according to new predictions.

Housebound UK homeowners are on a quest to perfect their homes, as Britons spent hundreds more on renovations in 2020.

Covid has put paid to traditional auctions – so for the last year, budding buyers have been going online in search of a property bargain instead.

Around 750,000 people are set to benefit from the Government’s stamp duty holiday – saving nearly £5bn in tax. Property portal Zoopla said this would have been a record taking for the Treasury.

According to Rightmove’s latest figures, average asking prices swelled by £1,522, or 0.5 per cent, to £318,580 in the past month.

Being accepted for a mortgage is a common worry among home buyers – but even some of the UK’s wealthiest people have been turned down by their bank, it has emerged.

Despite remaining open throughout the latest lockdown, the property market has started off 2021 on a ‘weaker footing’, with sales, listings and interest from prospective buyers dwindling.

Those who have a gripe with their new-build home will soon have a new way to raise a complaint, after a new independent body launched to champion buyers’ interests.

The proportion of first-time buyers spending more than £1million on their homes has doubled in the past year, as two per cent spent seven figures to get on the property ladder.

Getting on the property ladder is an aspiration shared by millions of people across the UK, but prices increased 6.4 per cent in the last year according to Nationwide.

Property listings on the online portals often carry the bullet point, ‘potential to extend subject to planning permission (STPP)’. And estate agents love to talk about ‘potential’.

A total of 306,198 property transactions fell through last year, representing a 12.26 per cent rise from 2019. We asked the experts what to do if your deal is in danger of being derailed.

With thousands of homes at your fingertips, searching on Rightmove of Zoopla can feel like looking for a needle in a haystack. We reveal little-known tech tricks to help you beat the competition.

The mini-boom that arrived after the property freeze at the start of lockdown led house prices to climb 6 per cent last year, according to the Halifax index.

MPs have argued for the extension of the stamp duty holiday, to allow people who are already in the process of buying a home to benefit from tax savings of up to £15,000.

Mortgage approvals for house purchases hit their highest level since the financial crisis last year, as the stamp duty holiday and socialising restrictions kept buyers engaged with their search for a new home.

Bailey is very much ‘new wave’ Conservative. Born in Ladbroke Grove, West London, to British Jamaican parents, he and his brother were brought up by their mother Carmen in a council house.

The average property is taking nearly a month longer to sell once under offer, due to a bottleneck that has developed since the property market shutdown in March and April.

Britain’s most commonly asked mortgage questions have been revealed following analysis by Comparethemarket.com. We went to three mortgage experts to find the answers.

With the stamp duty holiday set to end on 31 March, some home buyers are pushing to complete purchases in order to save up to £15,000 in tax. We asked three property experts for their tips.

The average price for a UK home rose 4.3 per cent to £223,700 in the year to December, the highest since April 2017, according to property portal Zoopla.

The difference in interest rates between two and five-year fixed mortgages – also known as the ‘rate gap’ – is the smallest it has been since 2013 at just 0.27% according to new figures.

Research by online broker Habito found that 27% of people were on a standard variable rate – lenders’ ‘default’ rate which buyers drop on to when the initial term of their mortgage deal ends.

The lockdown property market mini-boom that sent house prices climbing spelt bad news for first-time buyers last year, but things are potentially improving.

This is Money takes a look at what being a property guardian involves, how much you could potentially save and how the pandemic has affected the industry.

Metro Bank, Nationwide and Barclays have all dropped the interest rates on their 10 per cent deposit mortgages, which are popular with first-time buyers – but rates are still higher than pre-pandemic

Perenna, which is hoping to launch this summer, says it will allow borrowers to fix the rate of interest on their mortgage for up to 30 years – meaning that they would not need to constantly remortgage.

First-time buyers in Vaduz, Bern and Copenhagen can save up for a house the fastest, according to a new report – while those hoping to get on the ladder elsewhere could have to wait a whopping 25 years.

Bath in Somerset, Tenby in Pembrokeshire, Bradford on Avon in Wiltshire, Ilfracombe in Devon and Canterbury in Kent made up the top five of the most sought-after locations.

On a provisional seasonally adjusted basis, there were 129,400 residential sales completed in December, which is 13 per cent more than in November 2020, HMRC said today.

Thousands of borrowers have struggled to pay the mortgage in the virus crisis – with close two million taking a break from repayments. Last year 2,900 properties were repossessed by lenders.

The average cost of a home increased by 7.6 per cent over the period, up from a 5.9 per cent rise in the year to October, fresh figures from the ONS has revealed today.

A survey of homeowners aged 55 and over, by retirement home builder Audley Group, found 34 per cent want to move to a better area and 29 per cent want to be closer to family and friends.

The stamp duty holiday’s days are numbered. Rishi Sunak is said to have ruled out an extension to the tax break that ignited the housing market in the pandemic and saved buyers more than £3bn.

Nationwide found that London first-time buyers will save for an average of 16 years, but in Scotland and the North East it is less than six – and more have been taking help from family and friends.

The Government must debate whether the tax break, which can save buyers up to £15,000, will be extended to the end of September after a petition gained more than 100,000 signatures.

Average asking prices started to drop in the past month and there are now well over 600,000 homes caught up in a completion log-jam ahead of the stamp duty holiday ending on 31 March.

Santander has excluded self-employed home buyers from its lower-deposit mortgage deals, meaning that new borrowers will now need a deposit of at least 40%.

The return of low-deposit mortgages means it is once again possible to get on the ladder – but there is a chance mortgage rates and house prices may fall in 2021. Should first-time buyers move now or wait?

Last month, property prices, sales and buyer demand all increased, but at a slower pace than seen in previous months, the Rics said in its latest closely-watched survey.

Nathan Prescott from Manchester found out his building would not qualify for support for the replacement of its dangerous cladding because vital repairs had already begun.

We moved home last summer into a house that needs totally refurbishing and extending. Can we still do this in the new lockdown, as architects and builders would need to visit our home?

Property experts are pushing for a ‘fairer’ phasing out of the end of March deadline, rather than a brutal cut-off date. Those who are already in the middle of a purchase would still benefit.

HSBC says it will resume offering 90% loan-to-value products from next week, following competitors such as Halifax and NatWest. It has not revealed what the rates will be.

TSB finds that the average homeowner could save an average of £2,000 per year by switching their deal – but that the majority of people are not considering remortgaging.

The UK’s second-largest building society is reinstating 90% loan-to-value mortgages, frequently used by first-time buyers, after pulling its previous products due to Covid.

There are increasing calls for the tax break to be extended – both to allow for delays in the system caused by lockdown, and to galvanise the property market if the restrictions prove to be a dampener

Plenty of people will be looking to take advantage of the house price boom and sell up this year. From gorgeous gardens to video viewings, here’s how to get ahead of the competition.

The fees vary a bit, can we negotiate on them and what is the best way to do this? Is there a way to incentivise the agent to get us the best price?

Aspiring homeowners with low deposits had a torrid year in 2020 with deals vanishing and rates rising, but there are signs for optimism in 2021.

The average London leaver paid £372,860 for their new home according to Hamptons International, and popular locations included Sevenoaks in Kent and Spelthorne in Surrey.

Predictions about what the pandemic would do to property values were time and again proved wrong. The final property price indexes show a substantial increase across 2020 as a whole.

Rightmove had its busiest ever Boxing Day for visits, which jumped 54 per cent compared to 2019 – while Zoopla saw traffic on its website soar to 70.5 per cent more than pre-Christmas levels

The news is potentially most welcome for would-be house sellers living in parts of London as well as Yorkshire, the West Midlands and northern Scotland – the areas with the biggest increases.

The bank has sold a third of its mortgages as it eyes a move into personal loans and credit card lending.

Out of 1,000 people who were currently in the process of buying a home, 31% said they would not continue if they had not completed by 31 March.

The number of UK workers looking for furlough-friendly mortgages skyrocketed during November following the extension of the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme last month.

While the property market surge continues, it stands in contrast to the floundering wider economy.

The relaunched 10% deposit mortgages are based on two and five-year fixed rates, and will also be available to people who are moving house

Banks are imposing stricter checks on anyone who works for themselves due to fears their finances could take a hit due to the pandemic. But brokers say viable borrowers are being frozen out of deals.

Building society chiefs have asked Government to extend the stamp duty holiday for those who accept a mortgage offer by 31 March by an extra three months.

The monthly draw, which relaunched in May, sees home loans up to the value of £300,000 paid off by one of Britain’s largest lenders.

We are pretty sure that Japanese knotweed has encroached from our neighbour’s land. We know this can be a problem, but we can’t afford not to sell. Do we need to tell the estate agent or lawyers?

Average asking prices rose by 6.6 per cent in the year to December to £319,945, although they declined slightly over the past month, Rightmove said.

The stamp duty holiday has been a handy lesson in how inflation works, but has it been a total failure? A better move would be a cut that lasts.

Aspiring homeowners hoping to buy their first property with a 10 per cent deposit face limited choice and higher costs than they did a year ago.

Average property prices continued to rise ‘sharply’ in most parts of the country last month, but buyer demand is showing some signs of losing steam as the year draws to a close.

The Allcrofts asked to extend their mortgage holiday in summer, but did not realise that Nationwide had set it up as two separate stints.

Its latest monthly house price index – which is based on mortgage approvals rather than actual sales prices – shows the price of an average UK home jumped 1.2 per cent in November to £253,243.

The average two-year fix increased by 0.14 per cent this month to 2.38 per cent- while the equivalent five-year fixed rate increased by 0.13 per cent, according to finance experts Moneyfacts.