The Market
Mortgage approvals recover to 2016 levels
Mortgage approvals for house purchase rose to 70,900, the highest since February 2016, according to official data from the Bank of England.
Questions asked over developer’s payments to former Homes England chief
Malaysian developer EcoWorld reportedly paid Sir Edward Lister £480k when he was in charge of the government's 'housing accelerator'
Radical stamp duty reform would pay for itself, says think tank
The Centre for Policy Studies reiterates the case for a wholesale rethink of stamp duty ahead of next month's Budget;
‘The London market is bouncing like a spring lamb, but keep your feet on the ground and don’t always follow the herd’
Reassured by safety in numbers, househunters have flocked back to the market at the same time, writes buying agent Guy Meacock - but they now face a very different landscape...
Housing demand jumps by more than a quarter
Estate agents report 29% more prospective buyers per branch compared to last year - but no corresponding rise in supply.
Ranked: Britain’s housebuilding hotspots
£57bn-worth of new homes have hit the market in the UK in the last year, according to some sums by Stone Real Estate, with Greater Manchester emerging as the "most lucrative" area for housebuilders...
How many deals are sealed after a single viewing?
Over 15% of one major agency's sales last year took place after the buyer had seen the property just once...
House prices in all English cities have now returned to 2007 peak levels
Average property prices across UK cities have increased by 3.9% in the last year, says Zoopla, but the portal "does not expect a material acceleration in the rate of growth in the foreseeable future.
Regional asking prices per square metre, compared
The average per square metre asking price in Central London's W postcode is £9,000 more than the average in Sunderland's SR postcode.
‘Developers will struggle to break ground on new sites’: Woes continue in PCL’s new-build sector
New-build transaction slump should serve as a cautionary tale against any further tax tinkering, warns LCP
Supply & demand move further out of kilter as vendors hold back
Demand may be surging, but new property listings have fallen by 21% year-on-year says Knight Frank, while January's UK transaction tally was 4% lower than in 2019...
Mandatory New Homes Ombudsman to police ‘rogue’ developers
All housebuilders will need to sign-up to Robert Jenrick's New Homes Ombudsman scheme.