First time buyers driving hard bargains
First time buyers are driving an increasingly hard bargain with sellers, according to new figures from an independent finance site. In a poll conducted by Moneyextra.com, the average price which first time buyers are now prepared to pay for their first home stands at £170,559. This represents a dramatic decline from December last year, when the sum they would be prepared to pay was 10.25 per cent higher at £190,040. Robin Amlot, senior editor of Moneyextra.com, said that the figures are indicative of the way that first time buyers increasing reluctance to overpay for property is driving down prices. He commented: "While it may be getting tougher to get a mortgage now, it would appear that those first time buyers who are in a position to buy are driving much harder bargains with sellers."Housing is very definitely a buyers' market now rather than the sellers' market that existing homeowners had become used to."
Share this..
Related stories
Another day another final salary pension scheme closes
It has been revealed that Whitbread is the latest UK company to close its final salary pension scheme to existing members. The move, which has been under consideration for over four months, will affect around 3% of Whitbread's workforce and see their pension fund assets transferred to "defined benefit schemes". In effect this will take away the guarantee of a fixed pension upon retirement and leav...
Read MoreWill new mortgage rules ruin the party?
None other than the head of the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) in the UK has been in the press this morning attacking plans by the Bank of England and regulators to introduce restrictive guidelines for future mortgage arrangements. These tough guidelines are in effect new instructions from the regulator to the mortgage industry and will mean that more and more people will be unlikely to gain an...
Read MoreHow long before the government disinvests bank share stakes?
Even though the UK government is looking to dispose of a number of share stakes in the likes of Lloyds bank, Royal Bank of Scotland, Northern Rock and Bradford & Bingley prior to the next general election, there are creeping suspicions that this may not be possible. The very fact that the potential sale of substantial share stakes has already leaked into the marketplace has in many ways put a cap...
Read MoreConsumer confidence improved in August
The GfK/NOP consumer confidence barometer showed an improvement to -18 in August from -22 in July. This is a slight improvement on analyst's expectations of a -24 reading for the very useful and often very volatile barometer of consumer confidence. So where does this leave the UK economy in the short to medium term? A number of analysts believe that the slight improvement in August is nothing b...
Read MorePottermania costs parents pounds
Parents of fans of Harry Potter could be spending up to £1,425 on keeping up with their child's obsession, according to research by LV=.Buying the books and seeing the films themselves are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to calculating the cost of what LV= called ''Pottermania''.All seven novels together would cost £174, while a Harry Potter costume would set parents back £113, along...
Read More