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House Buying Guide |
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Welcome to House Buying Guide - your guide to buying the perfect house for you. Here you will find all the information you need to make the process of buying a house as easy and stress free as possible. Use our site as your quick and easy resource place, so you can concentrate on finding your perfect house.
Unless you are a first-time buyer, there is a good chance you will be selling a house at the same time as buying a new house, so we have included a sellers guide also. There also some helpful tips on the process of actually moving house.
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Property News |
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The Bank of England has just announced that the base rate will stay at its historic low of 0.5% this month.
Whilst this is generally good for people on variable rates, new fixed rates deals are still hovering above 4% even with hefty deposits. Since the base rate can only really go up from here, and is likely to before long, it is unlikely that fixed rates will get any lower.
Latest figures from the HMRC show that 60,000 homes (worth over £40,000) were sold in March, compared with 43,000 in February. Whilst sales in March would normally be expected to be higher than February, the increase is still a sizeable amount on seasonally adjusted figures, i.e. 54,000 in Feb to 61,000 in March or 13%.
This might come as good news for those looking to move in the near future, but obtaining a mortgage is still much tougher than it was just a few months ago. The Council of Mortgage Lenders reports that in February, first time buyers had to put down an average deposit of 25%. With the average first time buyer loan being £95,000, that means an average deposit of just under £32,000 – a significant amount for all but the most affluent buyers. The CML also reports that 2 million households would be unable to move now due to negative equity or inability to raise a deposit on a new property.
Figures from the Bank of England show that mortgage approvals saw a surprise increase in February, rising to almost 38,000, from less than 32,000 in January. The increase is a positive move back towards a more active property market. However, it is still well down on what would be considered normal levels of activity. Normal levels would be around 70,000 mortgage approvals per month.
Find all the information you need to make buying a new house as pleasurable and stress free as possible. We will
Getting the best price possible for your current house, will give you more options when buying a new house. Check
When it comes to the day of the move, you need to make sure you have as much preparation as possible. To make sure
Use the powerful property search engine of our sister site House-Shop. Search for properties on sale with all the major estate agents. |
If you are thinking about buying a house and developing it, find out about planning permission here. Use our quick and easy mortgage repayment caculator to find out how much your monthly repayments would be with a certain borrowed amount. Find out what gazumping actually is, and ways of avoiding it. Gazumping can be costly and frustrating, but the chances of it When buying a house you will need have the conveyancing carried out for the property. A solicitor normally does this, or you can do it yourself.
For more sites with a property theme, check out our resources section. |