House Price Spy Blog

The BBC - Property has released sales figures for property in the UK have been released (up to mid November). Property figures for 2007 are as follows:

The fastest rising areas are Northern Ireland, East Anglia and the South West of England.

The average price for a property in the UK is just over £230,000.

There have been over 300,000 property sales.

Properties have gone up by 9% in the last year.

Properties have gone up by 6.5% in the last quarter.

The cheapest places to buy are still Scotland and the North West Of England, with an average of under £141,000 per sale.

The winter slowdown in property sales will of course cause a drop in property prices over the festive months to come as usual.

When buying a property you will need to remember to include certain Important fees when calculating how much money you have to play with:

Important fees that you will have to pay when buying are as follows:

Stamp duty - 1% to 4% of value of property

Estate agent’s fee - 1% to 4% of value of property

Land registry - around £200

Local Authority search - around £100

Lenders fees -Arrangement fees, lender fees and legal fees.

Surveyor’s fees - Depending on the value of the property.

Conveyancer’s fees - A few hundred pounds

It is Important fees are included when you think of your outlay in buying a property. other considerations include removals charges, storage, DIY, setting up a phone line and TV aerial.

To use the familiar brand of House price Spy there will be several new websites from House Price Spy in the months to come! Using the quality functionality and know-how we have used to produce the main site housepricespy.com we will be extending our range of services into finance and insurance.

We dont want to give too much away at the present time but the next few months should see us add new websites from House Price Spy to our stable of quality sites. House Price Spy has great links to all sorts of financial/DIY/insurance/broadband sites so expect us to find great deals for our users and make owning property just that little bit easier!

More to come on new websites from House Price Spy when we have more details!

With all the doom and gloom about property prices Buy To Let properties are still looking to be a great option in the long run. With rising population and no increase in suitable housing the gap between the first rung of the housing ladder and renting is sure to be exploited by landlords who can use static house prices to charge more for their accomodation.

Many lenders will be more happy to give Buy To Let mortgages as they have been proven to be less risky than first time buyers or certain other mortgages, thus giving landlords an extra advantage.

This confidence has to be checked by the reality that a property price collapse is never to be ruled out such as the 1980s situation where 80% of income was spend on over-mortgaging property and resulting in negative equity and panic especially with multiple property owners.

Now that the Iron chancellor is the Iron PM it could be a good time to consider Buy To Let. The best advice is always to buy where it is easy to sell even if you pay a premium on location, this always gives you an option to cut your loses.

The total debt including mortgages has risen by 10% in the last year to £1.55Trillion.

The average borrow is over £8,500

The amount of that which is related to credit cards has risen 5% in the last year.

The continued rise in house prices has been blamed for these figures, The Bank Of England has taken measures to curb property inflation and there are signs this month that prices (or at least increases) have dropped with average prices dropping in Edinburgh and a slower rise in London.

Figures produced by Credit Action a registered charity.

According to the National Housing Federation (NHF) UK house prices are set to increase by 40% over the next 5 years to an average of around £300,000. They also confirmed that the average home is 11 times annual earnings of the average person.

The most interesting part of the report stated that house prices have risen by over 150% while average earnings have risen by only 35% which leaves many with a huge leap to get on the property ladder.

This will make depressing reading for many on the lower end of the earning spectrum and will need to be addressed by Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling in years to come. Affordable housing was one of the main pledges of Gordon Brown’s leadership.

Offset mortgages are gaining in popularity, but what are they? Who are they perfect for and What do they do?

Offset mortgages were first introduced in the 90s from Australia and allowed borrowers to use any money they had in current accounts to reduce their total payment. Any money you have in your current or savings account can be offset against your borrowings reducing your payments and allowing you an extra degree of flexibility in making larger or smaller payments depending on your circumstances.

They are not however perfect for everyone as they may have higher rates and rely on you having money in your current account.

Offset mortgages have become really competitive with the rise in borrowing rates and are now offered by most mortgage lenders. There has been a 49% increase in these types of mortgage in the last year according to lenders.

House Price Spy is one year old!!! It seems like only yesterday that our team had the idea of giving FREE property sale details with stats and information to everyone without restrictions on number of searches.

The House Price Spy team has certainly learned a lot since the site went live about property, property finance and moving/selling and buying. Having just moved home myself all this came in really useful and the House Price Spy system worked a treat. Its hard to imagine entering the property market without knowing the final sale price of each property!!

We intend to completely overhaul the way the site looks and add in more functions for members without interrupting or altering the quality of the service we provide!!! Just a general make over and add in a few cool search facilities and tools to make House Price Spy even better!!

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.