Uk
Improved rail links to London boost prime property prices in commuter towns
Prime property prices in key UK locations where train services make them commuter zones for London have seen prices rise in the second quarter of 2016, according to the latest index data. In Bristol, where commuters are within reach of London’s Paddington station, prime property prices have increased by 7.4% in the year to June 2016 with the second quarter of the year seeing a 17% rise in new buyer registration and a 19% rise in viewings. In nearby Cheltenham prime property prices increased by 8.6% year on year and 2% quarter on quarter, according to the index data from real estate firm Knight Frank, and this compared with annual growth of 1.3% in the UK wide prime property market. But in Oxford, another popular commuter city, prime prices increases by just 0.3% between April and June, taking annual price growth to 0.7% but the data report says that demand remains strong. In Oxford the slow down in price growth is attributed to uncertainty in the run up to June’s historic referendum and the decision to leave the European Union. ‘After several years of strong price increases, during which the city has comfortably outperformed the wider UK, the latest figures suggest that price growth at the top end of the market in Oxford has started to ease,’ said Oliver Knight, research associate at Knight Frank. ‘While the fundamentals underpinning the market remain unchanged, the reasons for the easing are twofold. Firstly, there was a softening in demand for prime property in the immediate run up to the EU referendum, with potential purchasers adopting a wait and see approach,’ he explained. ‘Secondly, and arguably more importantly, recent changes to stamp duty levied on the purchase price of the most valuable properties has made buyers increasingly price sensitive,’ he added. He pointed out that prime homes in Oxford worth more than £2 million rose in value by just 0.1% in the year to June as buyers and vendors factored higher purchase costs into pricing and offers. In comparison, properties worth up to £750,000, where the stamp duty burden is lower, rose by 1.7%. According to William Kirkland, Knight Frank Partner in the firm’s Oxford City Department, demand remains consistent and new high speed rail link at Oxford Parkway, which opened in October 2015, has helped stimulate demand in property markets to the north of the city as commuters using the line can now be in London Marylebone in under an hour. ‘As a result, there has been an increase in the number of Londoners looking to buy property in Oxford so far this year. Some 25% of all prospective buyers registering with Knight Frank's Oxford office in 2016 were based in the capital, up from 19% in 2015,’ he added. A growing imbalance between supply and demand continues to drive strong price growth in the prime Cheltenham market. There were 19% fewer prime properties available for sale across Cheltenham at the end of June year on year… Continue reading
UK first time buyers deposit saving scheme criticised
Concerns have been raised about the UK’s Help to Buy Isa which is aimed at first time buyers saving towards a deposit for their first home. When the scheme was announced last year by then Chancellor George Osborne it was assumed that young people would receive the extra money put in by the Government towards the purchase of a home as part of their deposit. With the average deposit on a first home around £15,000 the Chancellor announced that if first time buyers saved £12,000 they would get the next £3,000 paid for them. But now it has emerged that the scheme will no pay out before a home is actually purchased, leaving first time buyers needing to save the whole £15,000 before they can actually complete a home purchase. The small print of the Government's flagship Isa states that the bonus will not be paid out until the sale is complete and a spokesman suggested that it was never designed as a deposit saving scheme but to be put towards the cost of a home overall. It is thought around 500,000 would be home owners have already taken out Help to Buy Isas and they now need to discuss with their banks what will happen when they are ready to receive the promised bonus from the government. Mark Hayward, managing director of the National Association of Estate Agents, said that it has changed the goal posts for first time buyers who have saved in a Help to Buy Isa. ‘Consumers have been putting money aside on the basis that they believed it would be applied to their deposit on a new home,’ he pointed out. ‘To now clarify that it is not actually available until completion is the perfect example of a painful lack of transparency and frankly nothing short of deception. First time buyers are already struggling with getting on to the housing ladder and this much hyped initiative was welcomed at the time as a way of helping them, but in fact could have ended up costing buyers if they have gone ahead with a purchase believing that the bonus counted towards the deposit,’ he added. Continue reading
Negative equity rates down in the US but still affecting one in 10 owners
Negative equity is still affecting more than one in 10 home owners in the United States five years after the nation’s housing market recovery began, new research shows. Home owners who owe more than their homes are worth are nearly equally dispersed among urban and suburban communities in most metros across the country, says the latest report from real estate firm Zillow. But the numbers are falling. Nationally, some 12.1% of mortgaged home owners were underwater in the second quarter of 2016, down from 12.7% in the first three months of the year and below the 14.4% recorded a year ago. A breakdown of the figures show that 13.7% of owners in urban regions are underwater and 11.2% of those in suburban regions while Cleveland and Detroit have the greatest difference between urban and suburban negative equity rates. After the housing bubble burst, nearly a third of home owners in the United States were underwater on their mortgages. As the market recovered, many home owners have gained back the lost value on their homes, freeing them to sell or refinance. In most areas of the country, negative equity is nearly equally spread across urban and suburban areas. In 13 of the nation's largest metros, the share of urban and suburban homeowners who are underwater is within two percentage points. But some metros are seeing notable gaps in the share of underwater homeowners between urban and suburban areas. Cleveland and Detroit have the biggest difference between negative equity rates in urban and suburban neighbourhoods at 13.6% and 10.8% respectively. In these metros, home values in the main urban centres are trailing behind the overall region's recovery, and are still well off from their peak levels. By contrast, negative equity is equally common among urban and suburban areas in the Seattle area, where a more balanced recovery and strong economic growth have led to home values near or exceeding their bubble peak levels in urban and suburban areas alike. ‘At its worst, negative equity touched all kinds of home owners in all kinds of markets. The type of community a given home was in, urban or suburban, mattered little. Fast forward a few years, and the relative vibrancy of a given community and how it has performed over the past few years, and not necessarily its location in the city or suburbs, matters a great deal,’ said Zillow chief economist Svenja Gudell. For the first time, all of the largest markets in the country now have negative equity rates below 20% and the data shows that Western metros with strong job and housing markets have the lowest rates of negative equity. Less than 5% of mortgaged home owners in San Jose, San Francisco, Portland, Denver, and Dallas are underwater. Continue reading
