From The Telegraph: New 95pc mortgages for first-time buyers – here’s how it would work State-backed loans for would-be homeowners to be unveiled in the Budget next week Plans to turn “Generation Rent into Generation Buy” that could help two million people get on the property ladder are to be unveiled as early as next week in the Chancellor’s Budget. The Prime Minister confirmed...

Well that’s not free, then is it? by Mark Wadsworth

House prices are spiralling upwards in what the Daily Telegraph describes as a “virtuous circle”. What a strange turn of phrase, because spirals are usually vicious. Nobody in their right mind would welcome spiralling food prices or spiralling petrol prices, so why is this good news? Read more in this Daily Telegraph article.

Margaret Thatcher will be best remembered for having said that “There’s no such thing as society”. This was taken out of context. Her exact words, I am told were “There’s no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people and people must look after themselves first. It’s...

They own land, give them money.

Budget boosts house builders’ share prices.

The front page of the Daily Express on earlier this week carried the headline: HOUSE PRICES ON RISE AT LAST Joy for homeowners New joy for homeowners as market defies gloom So a rise of £1,250 a month in the price of a house is good news for anybody wanting to buy, is it?

The Irish government has scrapped plans to pass a law that would have enabled commercial tenants to remove upward-only rent review clauses from their leases. Ireland’s minister for finance said in his 2012 budget speech that it was not possible to develop a scheme to tackle the issue that would not be vulnerable to legal challenge or compensation claims from landlords. In the boom years of...

We do not particularly approve of the Council Tax but it at least has the merits of being a property tax. A cut in this tax has the immediate effect of pushing up rents and preventing the fall of house prices to realistic levels. So in announcing a Council Tax freeze “to help pensioners and the low paid”, the Chancellor is running true to Tory instincts in protecting property values...