Here’s an interesting graph from Nationwide’s latest house price index (June) showing the decline in the amount of property currently on the market.
It’s using data from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and it doesn’t need a huge amount of explanation: basically, since the credit crunch, stock levels in the sales market have plummeted.
In RICS’ [...]

When I heard that Bournemouth Council was launching a retro-styled ‘beach pod’ development in Boscombe (designed by Wayne Hemingway) I had my doubts.
The beach pods are basically beach huts in Overstrand, a restored 1950s building – and who, in this market (who in their right mind!), would  fork out £65-90,000 for a place with a [...]

We’ve just launched a rather cool new feature on FindaProperty.com.
On every ‘property details’ page we have a slideshow of the properties most viewed in the last seven days by visitors who have looked at the property you are on.
Click this screen print of a property ad and scroll to the bottom of the page for [...]

Ok, this isn’t the funniest thing I’ve ever seen, but it did raise a smile.
And all credit to the Energy Savings Trust for trying to get beyond eco-worthiness by using comedian Marcus Brigstocke to talk about the eco-renovations he’s made to his London home.

Here’s a little something that’s bound to upset the folks over at housepricecrash.co.uk.
It’s from the last Land Registry report (actual sold property prices for March) and it may well be a very early sign that the housing market has hit the bottom and is starting to turn upwards.
Although house prices in England and Wales have [...]

Here at Winging It we like to know what’s going on in the housing market, so our feathery ears pricked up (no idea if this is ornithologically accurate…) when we heard of an interesting new trend: the rise of the ’secret seller’.
Stacks Property Search tell us that a lot of estate agents are being approached [...]

Browsing through property listings a few weeks ago I came across a picture of a house with a herd (if that’s the correct collective noun) of alpacas in the garden.
Apparently it’s quite the thing for the country set to have a few of these woolly blighters wandering round the paddock.
But the wheels of fashion – [...]

Today’s report from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors shows a rise in buyer enquiries, a rise in sales agreed, more optimism among surveyors about house prices, and a fall in stock levels.
I had a chat with our statisticians this morning, and our own numbers echo this:
•    In April, enquiries to estate agents were up [...]

Interesting interview with Robin Bew of the Economist Intelligence Unit on cantosTV.
Bew sees some signs of improvement and reckons we may be close to the bottom, a sentiment that echoes a lot of the recent commentary on the housing market.
Oh, but hang on (cough) - I’m feeling a little feverish. Could that be swine flu? [...]

Here’s a handy visual representation of figures recently published by Moneyextra.com about mortgage availability.
It shows that in the first quarter of 2009 people with a 25 per cent deposit had access to the largest number of mortgage products: 797.

In Q1 2008 there were still plenty of deals at 90 per cent LTV (401) but this [...]