Weekly Property Newsletter May 16

New asking prices for first-time buyers shoot up over 6% in the last month

May 16, 2016

Rightmove has claimed that first time buyers have to deal with the aftermath of the Stamp Duty deadline, suffering with fewer properties entering the market especially in the lower end sector.

Typical first-time buyer homes, properties of two-bedrooms or fewer, have surged 6.2% in the past four weeks to £194,224, the highest monthly rise recorded for the investor/first-time buyer sector since February 2012.

The average asking price overall has gone up 0.4% since April and 7.8% year-on-year to £308,151.

Miles Shipside, Rightmove director and housing market analyst, said: ““Buy-to-let investors have had a bricks and mortar feast between the Chancellor’s announcement in November and the tax deadline at the end of March, and the result is a famine of suitable property and higher prices. First-time buyers are still eager to secure some of the very limited suitable supply in many parts of the country.

“Estate agents have perhaps been focused on getting investor sales through to completion before the tax hike, and some may have been surprised by the continuing momentum and scarcity of stock to meet ongoing demand.

“The net effect is eye-watering increases in asking prices in some towns, and is further stretching first-time buyers’ affordability even though they are competing against fewer buy-to-let investors in the market.”

We want to make landlords ‘squeal’, says Treasury minister

May 16, 2016

Landlords should be made to “squeal” under the new tax clampdowns on buy-to-let, a Treasury minister has said.

The minister made the remark in a private meeting with the Residential Landlords Association, which said it was shocked by it.

Alan Ward, chairman of the RLA, said: “We went to raise landlord’s concerns with specific reference to . . . the Government’s taxation policies towards private landlords.

“We wanted to make the case that we have a history of a significant contribution to housing and that this crackdown is unfair and prejudiced.

“The minister’s comment was that if landlords are squealing, then the Government will take the view that the medicine is working.

“The minister made the point that the Government is determined to increase the number of home owners, and then reiterated the issue about first-time buyers.

“We were all a bit taken aback by the comment. We could hardly believe our ears.”

Ward declined to name the minister concerned.

Half the number of landlord buyers now than a year ago

May 16, 2016

Ripples from the Stamp Duty surcharge are still evident as April also saw fewer landlords purchasing homes after the Stamp Duty stampede of the first quarter of this year.

Countrywide said this morning that the average price paid by an investor last month was £178,000 and that at the same time, the number of sales to first-time buyers rose by 19%.

Silent spring – mortgages for house approval shrunk almost 20% in April

May 13, 2016

The housing market hit a lull in April with house purchase mortgage approvals down 19.4% since March, but small deposit borrowers are experiencing a boom.

Based on its own data, e.surv is predicting there were 57,512 approvals in April, down 14% year-on-year.

However, buyers getting on the property ladder with a small deposit, 15% or less, benefited from an increase in approvals, accounting for 19.1% in April to 10,985 loans, up from 17.1% in March.

The forecast comes ahead of official Bank of England figures.

According to e.surv, the south-east was the only region to see the proportion of small deposit loans stall, staying at 14% between March and April, while Northern Ireland had the biggest increase from 22% to 30%.

Richard Sexton, director of e.surv chartered surveyors, said the mortgage market is entering a more turbulent phase due to the looming EU referendum, the hangover from the buy-to-let Stamp Duty rush, and uncertainty about the UK economy.