House Price Spy Blog

Government body The National Housing and Planning Advice Unit (NHPAU) are claiming that the UK is a 20 years away from a housing shortage which will result in home costing 10 times yearly salary!! The current value is 7 times yearly salary.

There are 168,000 houses being built in the UK, however if this is not raised to over 200,000 the housing market will become increasingly hard for buyers.

If there was a housing shortage this would hit first time buyers more acutely, lack of buying power and borrowing potential will price many first time buyers out of the property ladder. House prices have doubled in the last 10 years and this rate of increase is twice the rate of salary increase.

The predicted housing shortage mirrors the lack of affordable housing available when city councils decided to move large numbers out of town during the 1960s, hopefully there will be a more permanant and better thought out solution than giant tower blocks left to decay.

Read more At the National Housing and Planning Advice Unit (NHPAU) site

A few brief details on Inheritance Tax or IHT, such as who has to pay for it? Whats it for? and how much will I have to pay? etc…

Inheritance Tax is a tax payable on a persons death based on the value of their estate and certain significant gifts made during their lifetime. Inheritance Tax must be paid within 6 months of death and interest will be due on this amount.

Inheritance Tax has a threshold amount of £300,000, below this amount you will avoid paying anything.

What is covered by Inheritance Tax ? All your worldly goods such as property, vehicles, household contents, bonds, shares, bank accounts. You deduct any provable dues such as funeral expenses, bills, charity donations etc. Assets-Deductions-Exempt items-Threshold(£300,000)=Inheritance Tax Consideration.

Inheritance Tax is charged at 40%.

Read more about Inheritance Tax at the official HMRC site

As a follow up to my previous blog about rising utility bills I thought I would add in a little bit about utility price comparision companies who promise lower utility bills. While everyone is probably aware of these companies I thought I would say a few words.

These companies all promise to lower your bills, but is it worth it to change your utility supplier? The answer to this question depends on who your supplier is and your total energy consumption, if you are with one of the less competitive utility providers then its worth a change, however if you dont use a significant amount of energy then there will be little difference either way. You will be asked these questions and these companies will calculate the best options and let you choose.

Lower utility bills could also be as much about how you use energy and your home as much as your supplier; energy conservation measures like modern appliances (opposed to older less efficient models), insulation and double glazing all make a significant difference. Have a look at the The Energy Saving Trust official site

Here are a few pointers to save more cash:

1. All utility comparision sites are free for customers to use

2. All utility comparision sites are regulated by the energy watchdog Energywatch’s Confidence Code

3. All utility comparision sites are independent of a specific provider ensuring impartiality. While each site is impartial they do receive a small commission from providers when a customer changes to that provider

4. Consider combining gas and electric providers to reduce bills

5 You have a cooling down period to change your mind after confirming the change (see small print for details)

6. Consider changing your bill period or method of payment to reduce overall payments

7. When prices are similar use quality of service and safety features to find the best choice

Competition between utility providers gives lower utility bills for everyone, but most people dont have the time to switch. However, the way I look at it you wouldn’t leave your savings in a low rate bank account so why pay more that you have to for your bills? Millions of pounds are saved every year by customers switching their gas and electric to a better value provider, an average of over £100 per household. These companies do all the hard work for you and you dont even need to fill in any forms so what do you have to lose!

To see our utility price comparisons section Visit House Price Spy

The Bank of England has just announced that it will leave interest rates unchanged at 5.5%.

Rates were expected to climb this month so, many mortgage holders will be slightly relieved.

Interest rates unchanged for another month…I dont think anyone will be complaining.

The next date for Interest Rate change will be the 5th July 2007. Last month saw an increase of 0.25% to the present 5.5%

This months Interest rates unchanged announcement follows an inflation rate of 2.8% with a target of 2%.

If you want tmore detail or want to get this info straight from the horses mouth Visit The Bank of England site for details of trends and explantions of increases and policy.

Hopefully everyone that uses the site has got used to the House Price Spy Preferences section which allows members to control the way the site works and make your use of the site easier and quicker. For those who still have yet to use this little piece of genius login and click on ‘Preferences’ on the top blue bar.

House Price Spy Preferences lets you manage what newsletters and alerts you get and their frequency.

House Price Spy Preferences update you personal details, these allow us to give users more suitable geographic and general information.

House Price Spy Preferences allows you to update your email address.

House Price Spy Preferences also allows you to customise the site depending on what information you want and dont want.

If you are in any doubt about what you can and cant do in the Preferences section have a quick look it was designed to be straightforward. We will add more stuff to the site periodically to improve the functionality of House Price Spy.

I know most of people know what Stamp Duty is, however there may be a few first time buyers who could use a refresher course.

Stamp duty is actually a self-assessed transfer tax based on property or land sales in the UK. Every property sale in the UK will need to be assesed and if required pay a percentage of the sale price of the property. Who gets my money? Inland Revenue. Gordon Brown raised the lower bracket from £60,000 to £120,000 to assist first time buyers in 2005. Previously the Chancellor had been criticized for letting house prices soar without raising the lower bracket thereby filling the governments coffers…

What will I pay: Property sale value £125,000, You pay 0% of the property value

Property sale value from £125,000 to £250,000, You pay 1% of the property value

Property sale value from £250,000 to £500,000, You pay 3% of the property value

Property sale value from £500,000, You pay 4% of the property value

Read more about Stamp Duty at the official gov site at HM Revenue

This blog will have a few more little bits about changes in the law and property stuff in general. I hope Stamp Duty is a little clearer now…

All this talk of global warming is hard to take considering the unusally tepid weather we are experiencing. With utilty bills set to rise on most suppliers (and the others will follow after a token amount of time) there is talk again of a utility bill crisis. Is this a result of utility providers trying to save the planet by raising prices to encourage us to economise or just a slightly cynical excuse to cash in our fears?

I don’t believe for a minute that raising prices particularly forces the majority to economise (raising tax on tobacco and alcohol has not let to reduced cancer or cirrhosis), it seems to me that in the same way as increased duty on petrol has priced out the least well off while lining pockets of huge companies-without addressing the real problem of Where does the energy come from?!!

The utility bill crisis will not be resolved by putting up a few windfarms (which are one of the least efficient forms of power-if the wind is too low the turbines dont turn and if the wind is too high they dont work either!) or solar (a pipe dream scheme straight out of HG Wells) and hydro-electric (due to the prohibitve costs of setting it up). All these schemes would end up costing the public MORE and then utility companies would say thet they are doing it for our own good.

Finally, I saw a story on the TV some council somewhere were advertising one their buildings to sell and left lights on inside like Blackpool Illuminations to allow it to be seen by potential purchasers. What kind of message does this send out!! Do as I say not as I do! Utilty bill crisis indeed.

Click here to Compare Energy Prices

I recently bought a property after short search, hurray!! I was even lucky enough to get few grand of the asking price if I moved the move-in date forward a couple of months and I was also lucky to sell almost instantly..so far so good. But was then frustrated by the delay in moving in due to delays with lawyers and land registry searches and so on. I find it very frustrating that you still need to wait for a couple of months for your lawyers to deal with the land registry searching the title deeds and passing paper back and forward.

Does this always need to be the case when buying a property? and if so why, all the land registry need to do is check their files and confirm you own the property so why 2 months? Could there be an express service where you could pay £200 and half this time? It seems ridiculous when buying a property for both parties to agree on everything and be keen to move in asap and still have to wait on the land registry for 2 to 4 months…

If you can organise a mortgage and insurance in a couple of days why does it take forever for the land registry to check a file and confirm who owns a house?

I suppose that many people have wondered this over the years when buying a property

If anyone has any comments please let me know why this takes so long….