UK and Overseas Property Investment News and Analysis from Jet-to-Let Magazine
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View Article  Property Investors Unfazed By the Credit Crunch & Still Buying Property Abroad

Experienced investors aren’t fazed by the credit crunch and still intend to buy property, especially in foreign markets, the Jet-to-Let Magazine Annual Conference survey has revealed. 

The Jet-to-Let Magazine 2008 Annual Conference recently took place at The Hilton Metropole in London. The conference was attended by a wide range ...   more »

View Article  Banks are only as safe as houses

As mortgage lenders struggle to shore up their balance sheets, a new crisis may be on the way from the buy-to-let market

House prices are already falling by more than 25 per cent a year. That is the figure the experts at M&G have come up with by extrapolating the ...   more »

View Article  Abbey increases mortgage rates and Egg quits mortgage business

Abbey, Britain’s third-largest lender, increased its mortgage rates last night as Citigroup, the world’s biggest bank, stopped offering home loans to British borrowers.

With the credit crunch continuing to bring misery to homeowners across the country, Citigroup announced that Egg, its internet bank, had halted mortgage business.

The ...   more »

View Article  Bank of England unlikely to cut interest rate, despite pleas

Homeowners face further worry today as the Bank of England is set to resist calls for a cut in interest rates, despite a fall in house prices and mounting evidence of a sharp slowdown in the economy.

The Bank is expected to decide that rising inflation means that it must ...   more »

View Article  Mortgages: Nationwide raises rates

Nationwide building society announced today it was increasing the cost of its fixed-rate mortgages by up to 0.3%.

The changes, which come into force tomorrow, wipe out some of the rate reductions made by the lender last month.

The group is increasing the rate of its best two-year fixed-rate mortgage ...   more »

View Article  Negative equity hits 250,000 - and there is worse to come

After months of gloomy forecasts, analysts have finally confirmed the news that homeowners had been dreading for months: that large numbers of British householders have slipped into negative equity.

According to the investment bank Citigroup, a quarter of a million of them now owe more than their properties are worth ...   more »

View Article  Credit crunch sees global property prices tumbling

From Dublin to Tokyo, house prices have slumped in the past year as the credit crunch has restricted lending and stunted growth in the biggest economies, new figures have shown.

The world's three biggest financial powerhouses, the US, Japan and Germany, have all experienced negative or zero growth in ...   more »

View Article  Negative equity fears soar after record slump in house prices

Thousands of homeowners were plunged into negative equity this month as house prices slumped by £5,000.

The cost of an average home fell by 2.5 per cent during May, the biggest monthly decline since records began in 1991, figures from the Nationwide Building Society show. House prices have fallen by ...   more »

View Article  America's house prices are falling even faster than during the Great Depression

AS HOUSE prices in America continue their rapid descent, market-watchers are having to cast back ever further for gloomy comparisons. The latest S&P/Case-Shiller national house-price index, published this week, showed a slump of 14.1% in the year to the first quarter, the worst since the index began 20 years ago. ...   more »

View Article  House prices suffer record annual fall

The gloom enveloping the US housing market intensified yesterday as home prices dropped at the fastest annual rate since records began 20 years ago.

The S&P/Case Shiller national house price index fell 14.1 per cent in the first quarter of this year, compared with the same period a year earlier, ...   more »

View Article  US house prices in sharpest fall for 20 years

American house prices are collapsing almost five times as quickly as during the last US recession in 1991, with losses expected to double before any recovery begins, new data showed today.

Residential property values fell 14.4 per cent over the first quarter of 2008 compared with the same three months ...   more »

View Article  Number of homes on market surges but buyers stay away

Pressure on house prices in England and Wales intensified this month as a "buyers' strike" took a firmer grip and the volume of houses for sale continued to rise, a market survey shows.

Prices fell for the eighth month in a row, falling 0.5 per cent during the month after ...   more »

View Article  House prices fall as buyers 'go on strike'

House prices falls are accelerating as home buyers "go on strike", according to the latest analysis of the housing market.

The average house is now worth 1.9 per cent less than a year ago, a report from Hometrack will say today.

This is the largest fall recorded so far by ...   more »

View Article  Why first-time buyers should head overseas

Trying to get on the property ladder? It pays to look abroad

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Having a property abroad strikes many of us as a great lifestyle opportunity, but a growing number of UK first-time buyers looking overseas are more interested in sidestepping Britain's challenging property market than the ...   more »

View Article  House prices to fall 7% in '08, warns CML

UK house prices are expected to fall around 7% this year and property transactions in England and Wales by some 35%, according to the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML).

It reckons just 770,000 property deals will go through in 2008, having predicted a 14% drop from 1.18m to 1.01m last ...   more »

View Article  UK buy-to-let market shut to 'short-term' players

Specialist mortgage lender Paragon has indicated that the era of making a quick kill on the buy-to-let market is over, as the credit crunch makes the market tougher for speculative landlords.

Chief executive Nigel Terrington said: "Short-term players - the type that buy off-plan in city centres - they are ...   more »

View Article  Top 10 Property Investment Countries for 2008 Revealed in Jet-to-Let Survey

The top 10 countries of most interest to foreign property investors in 2008 have been revealed in a survey conducted by property investment magazine, Jet-to-Let.

In order to provide an up-to-date snapshot of investor intentions in 2008, Jet-to-Let magazine surveyed 1000 new readers who recently subscribed to their free quarterly ...   more »

View Article  Bank of England dashes hopes of interest rate cuts amid inflation threat

Hopes of early relief for homeowners in the form of lower interest rates were dashed by the Bank of England today as it forecast inflation could reach 4pc in the months to come.

Governor Mervyn King effectively signalled an extended period of stagflation, as the high interest rates needed to ...   more »

View Article  Surveyors' mood is gloomiest in nearly 30 years as slump deepens

House prices are set to fall by at least 5% to 10% in real terms this year, housing minister Caroline Flint was briefed to tell the cabinet today, but she also admitted she did not know if the fall could end up being far worse.

In a government beset by ...   more »

View Article  NI homeowners facing repossession

The number of Northern Ireland homeowners facing repossession orders after failing to keep up with mortgage payments is up by more than 30%.

The number of writs issued is at its highest level for five years.

More than 750 writs have been issued in the first quarter of this year, ...   more »

View Article  Buy-to-let: professional investors cash in on the credit crunch

The amateur buy-to-let investor has had his day. Deterred by falling property prices and hampered by a lack of mortgage credit as banks tighten their lending criteria, small players who want to buy one or two homes to supplement their income or bolster their pension are fast disappearing.

At the ...   more »

View Article  Cash injection has not cut cost of borrowing

The Bank of England's £50 billion cash injection into the mortgage market has so far not made any difference to the cost of borrowing, the head of the UK's biggest building society said yesterday.

Graham Beale, chief executive of Nationwide, told The Times that a response to the facility "has ...   more »

View Article  Odds of further rate cuts increase after Fed's latest moves

The odds of further interest rate cuts increased after the Federal Reserve's latest moves, and after policy setter said financial market stress, tight credit and housing weakness was likely to continue over the next few quarters.

July fed funds futures rose 0.05 points to 98.04, which implies a 16% chance ...   more »

View Article  Washington must do more to help housing market
The government must actively intervene in the domestic housing market to fix the subprime mortgage problems that interest rate cuts and tax rebates alone cannot, a Federal Housing Finance Board official said on Sunday.

Allan Mendelowitz, a member of the Board of Directors of the FHFB -- a regulatory agency ...   more »

View Article  House prices fall as bank predicts credit crunch will hit UK hardest

House prices have recorded the first annual decline since 1996 as a leading investment bank gave warning that the economy would be the worst hit by the global credit crisis.

The value of an average home fell by 1.8 per cent in April, the sixth successive monthly fall, figures from ...   more »

View Article  Abbey trims some mortgage rates
Abbey, owned by Spain's Santander is trimming some fixed and flexible mortgage rates as it tries to lure new customers in the face of a credit crisis and deteriorating outlook that have seen rivals retreat.

Abbey said on Thursday it would cut its two-year fixed-rate mortgage deals by 0.11 percentage ...   more »

View Article  Fed cuts key rate to 2% but urges caution over inflation

The US central bank cut interest rates last night for the seventh time since last summer as it sought to combat the impact of a collapsing housing market and the credit crunch on the world's biggest economy.

The Federal Reserve's open market committee voted unanimously for a quarter-point cut in ...   more »

View Article  US economy 'just keeps its head above water'

The US economy grew 0.6% in the first three months of the year as an increase in inventories compensated for weaker consumer spending and a deteriorating housing market.

Despite beating analysts expectations, the Commerce Department's report shows a widespread weakening that many analysts fear will lead to a recession. However, ...   more »

View Article  'No sign of a bottom' in US property prices

More worries over the credit crunch arrived today as 17 out of 20 US cities reported record annual declines in house prices, a survey release today showed.

Standard & Poor's/Case Shiller Index, which tracks 20 of the largest housing markets, said prices fell 2.6% to 175.94 in February from January, ...   more »

View Article  Rugby players feeling the crunch as property investments tumble

Rugby players are the most robust of sportsmen, well able to withstand a battering on the field that would shatter the body and spirit of lesser mortals. But some of the game’s finest players have taken a hit in the property market hard enough to make even the stoutest second-row ...   more »

View Article  LSH full steam ahead on London Overground property portfolio

LSH will provide portfolio management across the entire London Overground network, which has been set up following the acquisition of the former Silverlink Metro service, for the duration of the two-year contract.

The network, which includes 50 stations, is set for over £1.4bn of investment in the next few years. ...   more »

View Article  New US home sales hit 17-year low

New home sales plunged to a 17-year low in March as tighter credit conditions and weakening consumer confidence kept prospective buyers on the sidelines in spite of sharp price declines.

Single-family home sales slumped 8.5 per cent in March to a 526,000 annual rate, the lowest since October 1991, 36.6 ...   more »

View Article  Abbey raises rates after Bank's £50bn bail-out

Alistair Darling's hopes of reinvigorating the mortgage market were dealt a blow last night when one of the country's biggest lenders raised its rates despite a multibillion-pound Bank of England bail-out of the home loan sector.

Abbey, the third largest lender, warned that it was raising the rates on some ...   more »