Mortgage and property news as it happens

  Property News from Times Online

Thatchers left to clutch at straws after traditional wheat crops fail
A disastrous harvest of long-stemmed wheat straw for thatching has forced English Heritage to relax its guidelines on the use of traditional materials.

Through the keyhole of Sir David Frost's Victorian pile in Chelsea
Let’s begin as they would on Through the Keyhole. Here is an ordinary room, a study, in a central London penthouse. What clues can we gather about the owner?

Time and Place: Kate Mosse on growing up in West Sussex
In 1963, when I was 15 months old, my father, a solicitor, was offered a job with a firm of lawyers in Chichester, West Sussex. We moved from Cheam, on the outskirts of London, to a house in Fishbourne, a small village west of Chichester, famous for its Roman palace. In those days, it had a post office, three pubs, a shop and a church. Divided by the main road, it was not a Miss Marple English village with dusty, sleepy lanes and rattling carts. Our quiet, pretty cul-de-sac was one of several developments that had sprung up in the 1950s to provide family houses and bungalows for retired teachers and nurses, solicitors and employees of the bigger firms in neighbouring Hampshire. There were plots of different sizes and shapes, and no front fences. It was peaceful, modest and suburban. No fuss.

Rum hangs out the welcome banner
A feeling of deep loneliness engulfs you when you step off the ferry onto Rum's rocky shore. This is a wilderness, an island in the Inner Hebrides that became defined by its sense of mystery. It is a place where the environment has been left to spread unbound, where the wind carries the rustle of leaves and bird cries, and voices are lost whispers. A sense of barren seclusion seeps from the soil.

Estate agents become scapegoats for the property market slowdown
Rip-off thieves. Parasites on a gravy train. Worms. Leeches. Con artists. Two-faced crooks. . . all descriptions of the humble estate agent offered last week in the public domain. Such venom — and all this at a time when we should really be feeling sorry for them.

Time and Place: Blythe Duff
My very first flat was, basically, a room and kitchen, in the Cessnock district of Glasgow. It was in a tenement and if you were to look at the building from above it would be a bit like the Flatiron building in New York, in that it was triangular, one side being on Paisley Road West.

The secret agent: estate agency training courses
With a heavy heart, I pull into the car park of another bland hotel just off a motorway junction. As I hobble into the spartan reception area, back aching from the drive, I’m greeted by a Polish accent from behind the desk.

Country life: how to blend in with the locals
In the days known as “yore” it was very simple. If you wanted a posh-ish house in the country — what used to be called a gentleman’s residence — nothing less than a graciously proportioned Georgian pile would do.

Gulf magnates look to develop Dubai-on-Thames
Gulf magnates who have worked on the artificial “palm” islands of Dubai have turned their attention to the greyer waters of the Thames estuary with a proposal to reclaim two three-mile stretches of land between Kent and Essex and turn them into resorts.

The English village fights back
We are almost tragic. The vast majority of the English, nearly 80 per cent, live in the cities and towns, while a similar number of us say we would like to live in the countryside. We have a notion of the English village as an idyll of order and tranquility while making the places so expensive that they drive out the lifeblood of their own youth.

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Status anxiety hits homeowners
Two in three Brits in their 30s and 40s are now suffering from status anxiety about their homes, according to research from Standard Life Bank.   Living in a house that looks good and is located in the best area a

Commons vote fails to shake HIPs
MPs have voted down a move by the Conservatives to derail the introduction of home information packs (HIPs) in advance of the 1 June go-live date.   HIPs, which are expected to cost the vendor of each home for sale upward

Don't panic, says broker
Recent figures from The Halifax confirming that average house prices in every town in the UK now top £100,000 are no reason to panic, states mortgage expert Andrew Frankish, managing director of Mortgage Talk, the UK's leading independent mortg

Market levelling off, says NAEA
There has been a levelling of activity in the residential housing market, according to the March housing market survey by the National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA).   The market was seasonal in March, with buyers,

Rental market rising
London's rental market is starting to keep pace with sales, as demand for property in the capital continues to soar, according to key indicators published by agents Foxtons.
Since January, Foxtons has had 20 per cent more applicants for rented

Brits' language improving
Brits are making more of an effort to communicate with the locals when buying overseas, according to a survey by holidaylettings.co.uk.   Although the results won’t get rid of our reputation for ignorance of foreign

Minister addresses HIPs conference
With ‘H-Day’ fast approaching, over 300 agents and other industry professionals attended a HIPs Are Happening conference in London recently. They were able to put their questions directly to the Housing Minister at the event.

Concerns over inheritance tax continue
Gordon Brown’s plans to increase the nil rate threshold on inheritance tax by a minimal amount has raised concerns. In the latest budget, the Chancellor set out his proposals to keep the tax in place until at least 2011 and concerns that

House of Lords signals HIPs 'concern'
The latest report of session by the House of Lords Merits of Statutory Instruments Committee on home information packs (HIPs) has called into question ‘whether the HIP Regulations will effectively achieve their policy objective’.

Moving stress costs economy
Recent research has found that over 40 per cent of us feel we are less productive at work when going through the process of purchasing a home. Your Move asked a cross section of purchasers who had just completed the home buying process about their ex