The Times has an interesting piece today about how a complicated European financial directive may affect first-time buyers in the UK.
“The “Basel II” (pronounced “barl”), an international finance directive introduced in January last year, is the main reason that buyers with small deposits are being turned down for home loans.”
The Basel II rule basically [...]

Land Registry data has shown that house prices rose by 1.7% during July, apparently the biggest increase in 5 years. This slightly bizarre data point has actually slowed the ‘rate of fall’ of house prices, which are still over 11% lower than they were last year. The rise is being put down to the shortage [...]

We subscribe to the Telegraph’s property news feed – a selection of articles from the last few days include:

Time for the River Cottage lifestyle
Building an eco house
Property in France: Provencal farmhouse for sale, antiques included
Shop Mary Portas at John Lewis
Homes with fishing rights

….ahem.
A lone article however lacked bourgeoisie tendencies and contained instead an interesting point. [...]

Building society Nationwide have reported that house prices rose by 1.6% during August – that’s four whole months in a row that prices have gone up. The Guardian’s description of this rise as a ‘leap’ may be overstating things a little, but it is interesting that we’re seeing this continued upturn in the market.
We’re [...]