Buying Property

Study suggests it could pay to own your home

Buying beats renting by almost £200,000 over lifetime

Owning your home instead of renting accommodation could save you as much as £194,000 over a 50 year period, a new study suggests.

Experts are unclear on the future of house prices in the UK

What will happen to house prices for the rest of 2011?

Confused about the state of the property market? Well, it seems that even the experts are. Reports last week suggested house prices were falling but some experts disagree. Kate Saines investigates.

Leeds Building Society launch new fixed-rate bonds

Rics: House prices set to fall

Property prices are likely to fall over the coming months, a forecast by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (Rics) has suggested.

New mortgage lending fell during January.

End of stamp duty holiday 'hits home loans'

The end of the stamp duty exemption for properties valued at between £125,000 and £175,000 saw lending for house purchase fall sharply in January, particularly among prospective first-time buyers, according to a new report.

Estate agents should not face any additional government regulation, the OFT has said.

OFT rules out new regulations for estate agents

Existing legislation covering estate agents is "comprehensive and wide ranging" and the industry requires no additional regulation, a study by the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has concluded.

Buying a repossessed property

The property may have hit bottom at the start of the year, but there are still bargains about to be found.

Property help with Sarah Beeny – Live web TV show

The property market seems to be starting to step back up, so is it time to get back on board.

Nottingham Building Society: "Win-win" property deal

Nottingham Building Society is offering a discount on their house selling-fees to customers whose homes it fails to sell within three months.

The housing market is beginning to recover according to official surveys

'Green shoots' for beleaguered housing market

Government figures from the department for Communities and Local Government (CLG) found house prices were beginning to steady out.

Asking prices for May rose according to Rightmove

Property asking prices rise

Property asking prices rose 2.4 per cent in the last month.

NAEA figures show an increase in homes sold in April

Estate agents sell most homes for 18 months

More homes were sold by estate agents in April than in any other month for the last year and a half.

A house in the country is the dream for many

Brits dream of country home

The dream home for Brits is in the countryside, according to a survey, yet just four per cent of rural dwellers believe they live in their dream property.

Estate agent complaints hold up despite crash in sales

Ombudsman 'surprised' by estate agent complaint levels

Complaints about estate agents are not falling, despite fewer homes being sold.

OFT to investigate estate agents

The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) is set to investigate UK estate agents and new ways of buying and selling homes.

Sold signs only appearing when prices slashed

Estate agents demand stamp duty suspension as prices drop

Estate agents are calling on the government for further action to inject some life into the housing market.

Offering home as lottery prize faces legal danger

Sellers warned to beware of giving home up as a prize

This week saw a property developer offer an £8.2 million block of flats in London up as a prize in a draw, but sellers are being warned about the legal dangers of such a practice.

£8.5m block of flats in prize draw

A property developer is putting up £8.5 million worth of property up for grabs in a prize draw.

Will interest rate cut lead to mortgage revival and more sold signs?

Will the interest rate cut resurrect the housing market?

The Bank of England yesterday cut interest rates by 1.5 per cent to three per cent – but will this be enough to boost the housing market?

TV show seeks seaside house hunters

UKTV Style producers are looking for house-hunters to appear in a new series of Fantasy Homes by the Sea.

Cut the tax on renovating an empty home, Halifax urges

Quarter of a million homes empty

Despite a decline over the last four years, more than a quarter of a million private homes remain empty in England, according to research.

Going once: Buying a property at auction

Property auctions: Buying under the hammer

Property auctions were once the realm of bargain properties for buy-to-let investors, but the credit crunch and financial crisis have seen investors step away from the markets while buyers looking for a deal have been coming forward.

Asking prices hit new low

The housing market will never be the same again as asking prices fall to new low, Rightmove has said.

Location pays off

It really is location, location, location when it comes to buying a dream home – with many prepared to pay a premium of £20,000 to secure the perfect spot.