House prices picking up – but beware the north-south divide
As the property market picks up it emphasises the north south divide. You can still buy a house for less than £50K in North Derbyshire. I went to St Albans to watch the open air Shakespeare on Sunday and a glance in a few estate agent windows suggested an average price of over £400K for a semi! Still far too few homes in rural areas north or south and as suggested below some negative unintended consequences from the help to buy scheme.
This article tells us:
Britain’s housing market is coming back to life, after being almost halted by the banking crisis – but its revival is widening the north-south divide and stoking fears of the economy overheating.
London’s house prices are rising at an 8.1 per cent annual rate, according to the latest figures, but in Scotland prices are falling by 0.9 per cent, and in Northern Ireland by 0.4 per cent.
The figures from the Office for National Statistics, covering the year to June, were hailed by the Government as evidence of an economic revival. Ministers were also buoyed by the public interest shown in George Osborne’s Help to Buy scheme, introduced in April, under which buyers of newly built homes with values up to £600,000 are eligible for a government loan worth a quarter of the price, on which they pay no interest for five years.
The scheme has attracted 10,000 applicants in four months. But it has been criticised on the grounds that it has increased the sums that potential buyers can borrow, which could contribute to another house price bubble.