House Price Spy Blog

This is the best time of year to do DIY and major surgery on your home, whether you plan to sell in the near future or not. Always popular are extensions, but there are a few things you should bear in mind first.

Any work should be made in either the same style as your home or a complimentary style. Try walking around your neighbourhood seeing other properties and what types of extensions work with what types of property. Victorian styles may not suit certain types of modern extensions so beware prior to starting.

If you are going to need planning permision then make sure you get this sorted by a qualified legal professional. You dont want to get to the situation where you need to change or scrap what you have done further down the line.

Consider loft extensions, kitchen extensions and any other extensions that may add to the value of the property.

The data on House Price Spy ranges from Jan 2000 to May 2007 for Scotland and April 2000 to May 2007 for England and Wales. Before these dates there was no central property data system available in the UK.

The data was last updated on 26/7/2007

This data is updated each month from the Land Registry, ROS and the Royal Mail.

Northern Ireland does not have a similar system.

No other site has a more complete or accurate list of property sales in the UK.

Users of these data sources are licenced and regulated strictly and occasional corrections may even be made.

With all the stories that have been around last week regarding the lack of affordable housing It raises the question that with flooding also in the news this week, can we keep building in ‘flood plains’?

To keep abreast of the increasing need for afordable new build housing it is claimed that we will need 140,000 new houses per year whereas only a few hundreds ar enow being bult across the country.

What is the permanant solution to this problem?

After having a look at what Gordon Brown said since my last blog I dont think he has said much wheih was unexpected and will not really changed the way we tackle a possible housing shortage in the UK. A summary of Gordons housing policy is as follows:

Assistance to community housing (mainly in the North of England and the Midlands)

Home Information Packs - See Clarkes earlier blog…

Tax breaks for ‘Carbon Neutral’ homes

Priority purchase scheme for first time buyers and key workers.

This is all well and good but apart from the last point there are more ways they could have tackled this problem. This crisis is due to the total number of properties on the market compared with the rising population not how green the properties are and if they are in an established community or not. New build houses often have to create their own communities from scratch.

Tonys initial warcry was ‘Education, Education, Education’ and Gordos appears to be ‘Location, Location, Location’.

So Gordon Browns’ in and Tonys out. But what will that mean to the UK property market?

Gordon Brown will today announce his policies and tactics for the next year including tackling the rising price of UK housing (with respect to earnings). Under the final years of Tony Blairs leadership ‘house price inflation’ rose steadily raising fears that the gap between those who can afford to step onto the property ladder and those stuck needing a foot up had risen too much, with Tony Blair not wanting to upset the apple cart by too many changes at the 11th hour. We have now seen that they are considering increasing the amount of new housing built in the UK and raising interest rates (Via the Bank Of England) to combat inflation, with some ‘first time buyer’ tax breaks expected. Previous protection to certain peices of Greenbelt land may be lifted allowing housing development.

More will be anounced today with PM Gordon Brown announcing his targets and plans for 2007 onwards.

The Bank Of England has anounced a fifth increase in the mortgage rate yesterday.

This will result in mortgage payers paying around £15 more for a £100,00 mortgage.

This is the fifth increase in the mortgage rate in the space of a year. This was announced yesterday by the Governor of the Bank Of England who sets the rate rather than Gordon Brown…or his successor Alistair Darling.

The mortgage rate was raised by 0.25% to 5.75% in an attempt to halt rising inflation.

The fifth increase in the mortgage rate could result in hardship for some borrowers who have seen utility prices, general shopping prices and tax raised in recent months.