Higher Energy Efficiency Has Only ‘Modest’ Influence On House Prices

The house price premium for a property with a higher energy rating – A or B – is just 1.7% compared to a D-rated home, new research from Nationwide shows. At the other end of the scale, houses rated F or G run with a 3.5% discount over a D-rated property, the lender’s report adds. These values are likely to change over time, however, especially if the government takes measures to incentivise greater energy efficiency in future to help ensure the UK meets its climate change obligations.  Regulation means that socially rented houses have the highest energy efficiency ratings, followed by privately rented stock. Read more on the Mortgage Strategy website.

https://www.mortgagestrategy.co.uk/news/higher-energy-efficiency-has-only-modest-influence-on-house-prices/ 

‘Use Empty Homes To Tackle Homelessness Crisis’, Say Brits

Seven out of 10 Brits believe that empty properties should be used to tackle the homelessness crisis, according to research by GoodMove. There are 288,539 empty houses in Britain, 75% of which are in England, 16% of which are in Scotland and 9% of which are in Wales. Shelter estimates that one in every 200 people in the UK are homeless, and there are around 95,000 households in temporary accommodation. Read more on the Mortgage Strategy website.

https://www.mortgagestrategy.co.uk/news/use-empty-homes-to-tackle-homelessness-crisis-say-brits/ 

Homebuyers Set To Save £300m From Stamp Duty Taper

Homebuyers in England and Wales are set to save £300m before the stamp duty taper runs out in September, with those in the South East gaining the most, according to data from Muve. The conveyancer says buyers can still save as much as £2,500 for those who complete purchases over the next two months. The firm bases its estimates on historical data from the Land Registry and its own research on first-time buyers to gauge the future value of stamp duty savings between July and September. Read more on the Mortgage Strategy website.

https://www.mortgagestrategy.co.uk/news/homebuyers-set-to-save-300m-from-stamp-duty-taper-muve/ 

First-Time Buyer’s Plans Postponed By Pandemic

More than four out of ten aspiring first-time buyers delayed their plans to get onto the property ladder in 2020, research by Santander suggests. The lender found that 44% of first-time buyers put off their purchase during the pandemic. However, 63% of would-be buyers say that home ownership is even more important to them now than it was before Covid. The proportion of first-time buyers who say raising a deposit is the biggest barrier has risen from 30% in 2019 to 52% in 2021. Read more on the Mortgage Strategy website.

First-time buyer's plans postponed by pandemic | Mortgage Strategy 

Deposit Returns As Biggest Worry For Homebuyers

Raising a deposit is seen as the biggest obstacle in buying a property for the first time in nine months, the Building Societies Association’s latest survey shows. Its quarterly property tracker describes 59% of the over 2,000 UK adults asked citing this as the main barrier, up from 54% in December 2020 and 40% in the preceding June. Previously, job insecurity was seen as preventing property purchases – in December, 65% of respondents gave this reply versus 45% in June – a figure the BSA says is nevertheless important to not downplay. Read more on the Mortgage Strategy website.

Deposit returns as biggest worry for homebuyers: BSA | Mortgage Strategy

House Sales Up 10% As Buyers Rush To Beat Stamp Duty Deadline

 Momentum in the housing market shows no sign of slowing with housing sales 10 per cent higher than this time last year, according to the property website Zoopla. Its latest figures show the annual rate of growth in property prices reaching 4.3 per cent, the highest level seen since April 2017. The market is being driven by buyer demand, as people look to take advantage of the temporary stamp duty holiday. Zoopla says with demand continuing to outstrip supply, house prices rose by 0.3 per cent in January, with the average property now costing £226,000 according to its house price index. Read more on the Mortgage Strategy website.

https://www.mortgagestrategy.co.uk/news/house-sales-up-10pc-as-buyers-rush-to-beat-stamp-duty-deadline/

Cost Of Moving To Three-Bedroom Property Rockets

The amount needed to move from a two-bedroom flat to a three-bedroom house – the ‘trade up gap’ has widened considerably in the past year, shows data from Rightmove. The average cost of making such a move in Great Britain is now £67,761 outside of London, with the average two-bedroom flat costing £171,751 and the average three-bedroom home £239,512. This trade up gap has widened by £4,000 since this time last year, Rightmove says. Read more on the Mortgage Strategy website.

https://www.mortgagestrategy.co.uk/news/cost-of-moving-to-three-bedroom-property-rockets-rightmove/ 

CEBR Forecasts 14% House Price Drop In 2021

The current resurgence in the housing market is likely to be short-lived according to the Centre for Economics and Business Research, which is forecasting a 14 per cent drop in house prices in 2021.The think tank says the housing market “defied gravity” in August, with indices like Halifax putting prices at record highs. It says these trends are “at odds with the wider economic turmoil”. The CEBR says that the stamp duty cut is one factor driving this apparent contradiction and it expects that the measure will result in a 1.2 per cent increase in prices and a 6 per cent rise in transactions. Read more on the Mortgage Strategy website.

https://www.mortgagestrategy.co.uk/news/cebr-forecasts-14-house-price-drop-in-2021/

Housing Transactions Enjoy July Bounce

Residential housing transactions rose significantly in July, shows new HMRC data.It counts 70,710 transactions made in July on a seasonally adjusted basis. This is a 14.5 per cent rise on June and 27.4 per cent down on July 2019’s number. Non-residential transactions came in at 8,380, a 27.6 per cent improvement on June but 18.3 per cent lower than seen in July 2019. HMRC puts this rise down to pent-up demand, saying that the residential Stamp Duty holiday will likely not show up in transactional data “until late August or early September.” Read more on the Mortgage Strategy website.

https://www.mortgagestrategy.co.uk/news/housing-transactions-enjoy-june-bounce-hmrc/

First-Time Buyers Opting For Longer Mortgages

Nearly half of first-time buyers – 45 per cent – picked a mortgage product of 30 years or over in 2018 to 2019, shows the latest English housing survey. Published by the MHCLG, the survey shows that in 2008 to 2009, the proportion of FTBs who opted for a mortgage of this length stood at 33 per cent. Overall, in 2018 to 2019, 19 per cent of mortgages were 30 years or longer in length and in 2008 to 2009, 7 per cent were. MHCLG says that this could be indicative of mortgagors adjusting their monthly costs over time – something renters do not have the luxury of doing. Read more on the Mortgage Strategy website.

https://www.mortgagestrategy.co.uk/news/first-time-buyers-opting-for-longer-mortgages/

ONS Sheds Light On Housing Market Slowdown

The Office for National Statistics has collated several different housing indicators to reveal the scale of the pandemic’s impact on the property market. Data show that the number of residential property sales fell by more than 60 per cent across all English regions between January and March, but the ONS says that the time lag in the reporting of transactions means the figures for recent months are likely to be revised upwards. Other data sets pointed to April as the month in which the housing market saw the greatest impact from lockdown. Read more on the Mortgage Strategy website.

https://www.mortgagestrategy.co.uk/news/ons-sheds-light-on-housing-market-slowdown/

Property Firms Seek Flexibility In Furlough Scheme

The Home Buying and Selling Group has written an open letter to the chancellor calling for greater flexibility to move staff into and out of the furlough scheme in order to manage peaks and troughs in market activity. The group, made up of estate agents, conveyancers, valuers, surveyors, energy assessors, search companies and removers, says there are likely to be spikes in activity as the pent-up demand from those who have put off completing on sales and moving home work through the system. Read more on the Mortgage Strategy website.

https://www.mortgagestrategy.co.uk/news/property-firms-seek-flexibility-in-furlough-scheme/

Construction Figures “Disappointing”

New figures from the Office for National Statistics show that construction output dropped by 1.7 per cent in February this year, the largest fall in monthly growth since October 2019. The ONS says that this may be because of the weather in February, which was the wettest seen since records began in 1862. Poor figures were seen in private housing new work, too, which fell 7.7 per cent on January’s figures, which is the second-largest fall in monthly growth in a decade – with only January 2018 being worse, at 8 per cent. Read more on the Mortgage Strategy website.

https://www.mortgagestrategy.co.uk/news/pre-coronavirus-construction-figures-disappointing/

Hike Second Homes Tax And Build On Green Belt, Says MP

The government should allow affordable homes to be built on “scrappy” land that has been “wrongly designated” as green belt and hike the stamp duty surcharge on people buying additional homes, one Labour MP has claimed. Labour MP for Mitcham and Morden Siobhain McDonagh railed against ministers for failing to tackle the housing crisis and dubbed their record on creating social homes “diabolical”, before setting out her own radical plan of action. She said: “First, it is time to burst the myth that the green belt is green and start using the non-green sites for homes. There are garage sites, waste plants and deserted scrublands all posing as green-belt land.” Read more on the Mortgage Strategy website.

https://www.mortgagestrategy.co.uk/hike-second-homes-tax-and-build-on-green-belt-says-mp/

Over 200,000 Borrowers Aided By HTB So Far

Since the launch of Help to Buy in December 2015, 218,371 property completions have been supported by the scheme, according to data collected by HMRC. The data also shows that 286,604 bonuses have been paid through the HTB since its start to December 2018, equating to £258m. The average value of a property purchased through the scheme is £173,627, while the average first-time buyer property is £194,237, and the national average house price is £230,776, according to HMRC. Furthermore, on average the age of an FTB in the HTB scheme is 27, compared to the average age of an FTB which is 30. Read more on the Mortgage Strategy website.

https://www.mortgagestrategy.co.uk/over-200000-borrowers-aided-by-htb-so-far-hmrc/

Nationwide Calls For Extension Of Help To Buy Isa

Nationwide has called for the government to extend access to the Help To Buy Isa. There is now a year to go until the deadline for applying for a Help to Buy Isa. The accounts have been available since December 2015 and were designed to help first-time buyers save for a house deposit. The scheme closes to new applications on 30 November 2019. Each saver in the scheme can benefit from a government bonus of between £400 and £3,000. A saver would need to save a total of £12,000 to get the maximum bonus. Read more on the Mortgage Strategy website.

https://www.mortgagestrategy.co.uk/nationwide-calls-for-extension-of-help-to-buy-isa/

Planning Permissions Stay High

There were 355,000 planning permissions granted in the year to June 2018, but the government’s 300,000 target for the housing supply remains a way off, according to an industry report. The Home Builders Federation and construction data provider Glenigan’s latest joint Housing Pipeline report shows the number of permissions for the last year is hovering around 2016/17’s record levels. It states the number of permissions is a good indicator of future housing supply however, housing supply for 2016/17 was 217,000, 72 per cent of the government’s target of 300,000. Read more on the Mortgage Strategy website.

https://www.mortgagestrategy.co.uk/planning-permissions-stay-high-but-supply-still-far-off-300k-target/

BTL Market Will Stabilise By 2021

A report by Shawbrook Bank and the Centre for Economics and Business Research predicts that activity in the BTL market will continue to fall until 2021, at which point the market will stabilise. The report uses a scenario analysis approach to chart the effect on the market of various government interventions over the years, such as changes to mortgage interest tax relief and the stamp duty surcharge, and projects this to 2023. It compares this with as picture of how the market would likely look if these had not occurred. Read more on the Mortgage Strategy website.

https://www.mortgagestrategy.co.uk/btl-market-to-be-stable-by-2021-shawbook/

Government Urged To Cut Stamp Duty For Downsizers

The Treasury is being urged to extend its stamp duty cuts to those downsizing, in a bid to boost supply in the housing market. This call comes as the latest housing index shows demand from buyers has risen significantly over the past 12 months.  Haart’s housing market monitor found that the number of buyers registering with estate agents in May had risen by 44.3 per cent over the past year – and was at its highest level for two years. Over the past month the number of new buyers had risen by 3.1 per cent. Read more on the Mortgage Strategy website.

https://www.mortgagestrategy.co.uk/government-urged-to-cut-stamp-duty-for-downsizers-to-boost-housing-supply/

Tax Changes To Render Many Landlords Unviable

Recent tax changes could tip many profitable buy-to-lets into loss-making businesses, according to a new report by Standard & Poor’s. The report says those who have invested since 2014 will be hardest hit, with six out of 10 of these landlords potentially looking at unviable businesses by 2021 – when these tax changes are fully implemented. This compares to just 4 per cent of the 160,000 buy-to-let loans it analysed, the vast majority of which were taken out between 2002 and 2016. These changes will cut profits by around a fifth by 2021, with the biggest impact expected to hit BTL investors in the South East and London. Read more on the Mortgage Strategy website.

https://www.mortgagestrategy.co.uk/tax-changes-threaten-profitability-six-10-recent-landlords-sp/