News Archive - Oct 2007 - Buildstore

The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (Rics) has said that while house prices will not see significant gains in 2008, they are also unlikely to...

Research from mform.co.uk has found that as many as 33,000 first-time buyers have taken out mortgages with a loan-to-value of at least 100 per cent ov...

House prices rose by 1.1 per cent in October but the underlying strength of the market remains weaker than it was this time last year, according to th...

The Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) has warned that new recommendations from the National Housing and Planning Advice Unit (NHPAU) could put ...

The slowdown in the housing market that is now materialising should not put off prospective buyers because they ought to view a home simply as a place...

Property advisory firm Assetz has said that predictions that house price growth in 2008 will amount to just one per cent are inaccurate given the ex...

The British construction industry is suffering from a severe shortage of new workers, the Union of Construction, Allied Trades and Technicians (UCAT...

Two new studies have presented contrasting pictures of the housing market in October, with one suggesting that prices rose by 1.2 per cent over the mo...

A new study from Savills has revealed that the average price of a prime country home in Scotland rose by 19 per cent in the 12 months to September, th...

Rural land prices in Scotland are rising at a rapid rate, new figures from Savills show , having increased by over 30 per cent in the last year alo...

The Federation of Master Builders (FMB) has suggested that while current homeowners aiming to do their bit to help the environment frequently look to ...

The reduction in the number of mortgages available to borrowers will not have a detrimental effect on the housing sector, the Council of Mortgage Le...

The government should aim to increase its new homes target by at least 270,000 if it truly wants to resolve affordability problems across the UK, the ...

Gross mortgage lending in September amounted to £18.5 billion, the British Bankers'' Association (BBA) has said, a sign that the housing market...

The average price of a new home has fallen for the third month in a row, SmartNewHomes.com has revealed, but a range of developer offers could now att...

The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has announced that it will shortly contact over 1,000 new-build homeowners as part of an investigation into how the p...

Homeowners should be aware of being caught out by fixed-rate mortgage products that run out on a set date instead of offering a standard two-year de...

Significant numbers of Britons are severely underestimating or overestimating the effect that interest rate rises are having on their finances, accord...

One of the nine members of the Bank of England''s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), the group that sets interest rates each month, has said that she do...

House prices in Brighton have risen by some 16 per cent over the past 12 months as more Londoners leave the capital in favour of nearby areas, Hampton...

New Home information pack (Hip) regulations due to come into force on January 1st could have a detrimental effect on the speed with with transactions ...

The Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) has joined up with Citizens Advice and Shelter to call for the regulation of sale-and-leaseback schemes so tha...

Many mortgage lenders are seeing their most attractive packages sell out within days due to a desire among homeowners to remortgage to the best deal...

The British Bankers'' Association (BBA) has moved to diffuse some of the speculation surround UK banks'' lending policies by saying that standards wit...

The Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) contained within Home information packs (Hips) are not yet putting buyers off from a purchase, irrespective...

The UK housing market will experience a slowdown in prices that will result in almost non-existent growth in 2008, but a serious fall is unlikely, acc...

The Conservative Party is to conduct a review of the property -buying process with the aid of Location, Location, Location presenter Kirstie Allsopp,...

Homeowners looking to satiate their renovation desires by converting their garages into habitable areas should consider the overall impact on the va...

Domestic Energy Assessors [DEAs] feel "let down" by the parliamentary under secretary of state for housing and planning''s pronouncement tha...

English Partnerships and the Academy for Sustainable Communities (ASC) have announced the launch of the first ever review of the skills needed to re-u...

House price growth in Scotland has outpaced that seen in the UK as a whole as the average price catches up with the UK average in some areas, Bank of ...

Signs that the UK housing market is slowing down amid continued uncertainty have been reinforced by the latest survey from the National Association of...

Almost two thirds of Britons believe that the housing market will continue to rise in value despite the recent cooling of the market, new research has...

Almost one in five households in the UK has struggled to find a skilled tradesperson to do a job in their property over the past two years, new rese...

Listed buildings are still attractive purchases in spite of the bulk of regulations associated with such properties, one industry organisation has s...

Financial website Moneyfacts has said that the number of mortgages available on the UK market has fallen sharply over the past three months. The tota...

Microgeneration technologies are the only realistic way that Britons are going to be able to move away from grid-based gas, electricity and heating sy...

As many as one million Britons have paid their mortgage or rent bills on credit cards in order to avoid serious financial difficulty, according to n...

A government minister has said that the only reason that Home information packs (Hips) have not yet been rolled out is because of the current "vo...

The chances of interest rates falling for the first time in more than three years have received a boost with the news that consumer price inflation (C...

The government''s failure to counter the Conservative Party''s announcement that it would raise the stamp duty threshold were it in power has been lab...

The Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) has said that the government should simplify its approach to helping Britons get onto the property ladder. ...

Despite predictions of a home renovation industry slowdown, Travis Perkins, the building supplier and home improvement retailer, has announced an i...

Property auctions provide a great opportunity to market speculators looking to renovate properties in order to make a profit, it has been claimed. ...

Average property prices in the UK increased by 2.7 per cent last month, it has been revealed. A survey by property website Rightmove found the p...

Over a thousand new homes are built in back gardens in London every year due to a loophole in planning regulations, it has been suggested. The Green ...

Predictions of a sustained fall in house prices are way off the mark, it has been claimed. While recently released figures from the Royal Institution...

Homeowners who follow the advice of Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) with regards to energy efficient adjustments for their properties will not ...

Britons attempting to emulate home improvement television programmes have caused £350 million worth of damage to their homes, according to a new ...

A combination of fears over interest rate levels followed by uncertainty regarding lenders'' own pricing conditions have resulted in the percentage of...

One in three Britons have made home improvements not in an effort to boost the price of their home but rather for purely cosmetic reasons, it has been...

Tightening lending policies could mean that many borrowers could suffer in the coming months as fixed-rate deals end and more attractive deals become ...

House price growth in September was negative for the second consecutive month, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (Rics) has reported. Acco...

The government has announced that it is to reduce VAT on the renovation of buildings, a move that has been welcomed by the Royal Institution of Char...

The significant house prices rises seen in the UK property market over the past 15 years have led some Britons to assume that they can rely on equit...

The board of a governmental advisory body is to meet today to discuss land supply issues that will involve "a mature examination of green belt ...

The government has yet to define what it means by ''zero carbon'' and must do so before targets can be met, the Green Alliance has claimed. The organ...

The generation of energy by local communities and businesses should play a key role in helping to ensure that more homes are energy efficient, it has ...

Shared ownership schemes are helping plug the gap left by the lack of affordable housing, but a true solution to first-time buyer problems would be to...

Residents in the south-west of England living in the Exmoor National Park area face paying at least seven times their income if they want to purchase ...

The UK Green Building Council has said that building eco-friendly developments on a wider scale will ultimately prove more beneficial to the environme...

The UK Green Building Council has said that there will be relatively few zero-carbon homes made available prior to 2016, despite the fact that the in...

Britons buying expensive properties have largely found themselves insulated from recent turmoil in the credit markets, it has been advised. Independe...

Struggling first-time buyers should opt for repayment mortgages rather than interest-only products when considering high loan-to-value deals in order ...

Britons believe that the government is at fault over the lack of available housing that has fuelled price rises over the past decade despite councils ...

Councils around the UK are searching for brownfield sites to use as locations for the government''s proposed eco-town scheme, it has been revealed. C...

More consumers are opting to take out variable-rate mortgage deals due to a belief that interest rates have now peaked, Spicerhaart Financial Servic...

The average home in London now costs five times the average income of a first time buyer, according to a new Hometrack report. A quarter of all young...

The government has announced that it is to increase the number of homes planned for Yorkshire and Humber in an effort to meet housing targets, boostin...

The number of 100 per cent mortgages available directly from UK lenders has risen by 70 per cent over the last six months, mform.co.uk has advised. T...

Halifax has said that house prices fell by 0.6 per cent in September, with the annual rate of inflation down from 11.4 per cent in August to 10.7 per ...

In what was a widely-anticipated decision, the Bank of England has held interest rates at 5.75 per cent for October, with calls for a pre-2008 cut now...

Consumer confidence bounced back in September as Britons became more positive about their financial status, Nationwide has revealed. While the lender...

Changing mortgages is one of best ways to save money, Moneywise has suggested, adding that remortgaging is often a lot simpler than people expect. Th...

Information and advice contained within Home information packs (Hips) is likely to encourage Britons to make energy-efficient alterations to their pro...

A couple who invested in a self-build home three years ago have made a £565,000 profit on their property , it has been revealed. Aaron and Raph...

Housing minister Yvette Cooper has made further calls for co-operation from councils when it comes to boosting housing development following the pub...

Nine in ten Britons now believe that house prices are a real social as well as financial problem – and furthermore they think the situation is on...

Renovating or refitting a kitchen or bathroom is one of the best ways of adding value to a home, the Federation of Master Builders (FMB) has said. Th...

The number of mortgages approved for house purchase in August fell by 11,000 year-on-year in a sign that higher interest rates are now having an effec...

Revenue from stamp duty levied on residential properties rose by 40 per cent over the course of 2006/07, Halifax has revealed. The lender''s study fo...

First-time buyers are being forced to live further away from their ideal destinations because of the price of properties in and around city centres, A...

The rural property market remain strong thanks to a continued shortage of supply, John Clegg has said. The chartered surveyors and chartered forest...

The collective household wealth held in the UK has more than doubled over the past decade, new research from Halifax Financial Services shows, fuelled...