House Price Spy Blog

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!!

The mortgage interest rate is due for review on the 6th of September 2007 but what will the Bank Of England do?

The Bank Of England have shown that they are taking a pragmatic stance to reduce inflation and curb borrowing under these circumstances and more increases in the base rate are expected next month. Only time will tell, but this could be depressing news for homeowners especially first time buyers.

Get the details hot off the press from the Bank Of England.

Only time will tell, House Price Spy will keep you fully updated on any changes!

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.

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