Legal News

The usually upbeat London housing market has at last come to a grinding halt taking the overall UK house prices down.
The housing values in the capital had seen a stagnant period in August first time in this year when the housing prices failed to grow according to housing analysts Hometrack.
Due to the bridging gap between sellers and the potential buyers the overall prices across the country fell to 0.1 percent while the number seeking a move has risen 10 percent this year, properties for sale rose to 19 percent, almost double.
The wealthy overseas clients from countries like Greece, Italy and Spain saw to it that the high end homes in London resisted the slump. These people were hoping to shield their assets from the Eurozone crisis.
Despite the slowdown, London flats and houses still only take an average of 5.4 weeks to sell, compared with nine and a half weeks on the market elsewhere in the UK.

The number of sales agreed across England and Wales showed a 6.5 per cent increase, but Hometrack dismissed this as a malfunction caused due to a slack period during Olympics and the following wet weather which had seen a bunching of sales.

The North is the most sluggish for sales but even in the South sellers were settling for a lower percentage of their asking price the report said, achieving just 93 per cent.

The market remained in a fragile state, said director of research Richard Donnell. He said they were expecting to see slow downward pressures over the remainder of 2012.

The housing market survey asks 1,500 estate agents and surveyors across England and Wales about achievable selling prices.

A separate report by the Halifax found mortgage payments for new borrowers were at their lowest as a proportion of disposable income for 15 years due to low interest rates and static or falling house prices across the UK, with payments falling by half in Wales, Yorkshire and Scotland and by two-thirds in Northern Ireland.

London and the South East were the least affordable areas with typical mortgage payments in up-market Kensington and Chelsea standing at more than three-quarters of disposable income.

Despite the improved affordability of a home-loan, new mortgage approvals slumped to a 15 year low in June according to the latest figures from the British Bankers’ Association, as many would-be first time buyers struggle to raise a large deposit unless they have access to their parent’s funds.