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This month sees the launch of Property Place, the world’s first ever property app on Facebook. Previously in beta, the full version of Property Place officially launches today, complete with over 400,000 properties.

Take a look at Facebooks Property Place and let us know whether you would use this service to Sell or Let your home.

Trace and Access – Covers the cost of tracing water or oil leaks within the home, including damage caused while finding the leak, up to £5,000. Includes the replacement or repair of any walls, floors, or ceilings (including fixtures and fittings attached to them).

Other important factors to consider when choosing your home insurance should include;

Home Emergency – Home Emergency provides cover if you or a member of you family have a home emergency. A qualified person will come to your home to carry out any necessary emergency repairs. Home emergencies are events which need action to make your home safe and secure, avoid damage to your home, make your home fit to live in and to restore essential services if they fail.

Student Belongings – Contents temporarily removed from the home whilst attending full time education are covered up to £5,000 in total (£1,000 for a single article, pair or set). Provided it is your intention to return the items to your home, then the insurance covers the loss or damage to contents in any building in the UK where you are living whilst attending full time education.

Theft of Oil – Our buildings cover, covers your home and it’s permanent fixtures and fittings including permanently connected service tanks and central heating oil tanks.

Landlords – Rent Guarantee – Cover is provided for unpaid rent in excess of one month up to 12 months or until vacant possession is gained, whichever happens first. Once vacant possession is obtained and the property is in a suitable condition to be re-let, benefit will continue to be paid at a rate of 50% of the monthly rent for a further three months or until such a time as the property is re-let, whichever happens first. Qualifying conditions apply.

Direct Mortgage Centre are well placed to research the market for you and ensure that you get a policy which will meet your requirements.  Give us a call on 0800 566 8540

House prices increased by 0.1% in September. Price of a typical home in September is 0.3% lower than one year ago, reveals the latest Nationwide House Price Index.

Robert Gardner, Nationwide’s Chief Economist, said:

“UK house prices continued to tread water in September, with prices rising by 0.1% during the month. Prices were also essentially flat over the year, just 0.3% lower than September 2010. The three-month on three-month measure of house prices was unchanged in September.

“Sluggish demand for homes on the back of weak labour market conditions, combined with only a gradual rise in the supply of available properties, has helped to keep property prices fairly stable since the summer of 2010.

“We expect this trend to be maintained over the remainder of 2011, although downside risks have increased as UK and global growth prospects have weakened.

The potential impact of recent financial market turbulence

“The outlook for the global economy has darkened in recent months, with official and private sector forecasters paring back their expectations for growth for the next few years – including for the UK.

“This, together with mounting concerns about the Eurozone debt crisis, has generated significant volatility in financial markets in recent weeks.

“Equity markets across the developed world have recorded double digit declines. The FTSE100 index fell by almost 20% between early July and mid-September, while many European markets fared even worse.

“For example, the main stock market Index in Germany declined by almost a third over the same period. Against this backdrop, investors have become increasingly risk averse, preferring safer assets like UK, US and German government bonds.

“This helped push long-term interest rates in the UK, US and Germany back towards all time lows.

“In the near-term, the main channel through which these market gyrations are likely to impact the housing market is by further denting sentiment – especially for buyers. Consumer confidence as tracked by Nationwide is already close to all time lows.

“Sentiment towards major purchases is depressed, as a result of weak labour market conditions and ongoing pressure on household budgets from above-target inflation.

“There is also a risk that, if the Eurozone situation continues to deteriorate, it could affect the cost and availability of credit (as the UK financial system has close links to the European banking system).

“The three month Libor rate, which tracks the interest rate at which banks will lend to each other for three months, has been creeping up in recent months.

“However, this key borrowing rate remains well below the levels seen during the financial crisis and recent measures by the Bank of England and other central banks around the world which made additional funding available to banks, should limit the risks to credit supply.

Not all bad news

“Not all recent financial market movements are bad news for households. The decline in commodity prices for example, if maintained, should ease the squeeze on household budgets – oil prices are currently 30% below their May peak.

“Similarly, the decline in long-term interest rates should continue to provide support for housing demand, providing the strains in the banking system do not intensify. Indeed, mortgage interest rates have continued to decline in recent months, including for borrowers with smaller deposits

Looking ahead

“Providing the UK recovery gradually gathers momentum in the months ahead, we continue to expect house prices to move sideways or to drift modestly lower over the remainder of 2011 and into 2012.

“Nevertheless, with demand and supply in the housing market finely balanced, recent financial market gyrations and the more challenging global economic backdrop have increased the downside risks in the period ahead.”

Source: Myintroducer.com

The Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee today voted to maintain the official Bank Rate paid on commercial bank reserves at the record low of 0.5%.

The base rate is expected to remain at the historic level of 0.5% until at least next year, by most analysts’ estimations even though until recently, May was tipped as the month where savers would at last get some respite with a rise expected.

Scott Corfe, economist at the Centre for Economics and Business Research, says:

“Economic frailty combined with the temporary nat – ure of the current bout of inflation provides little rationale for raising rates.

“Unless economic prospects in the UK show a sharp improvement over the coming months – which we think is very unlikely – do not expect a rate rise until next year.”

The Committee also voted to maintain the stock of asset purchases financed by the issuance of central bank reserves at £200 billion.

The Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee today voted to maintain the bank rate at its record low of 0.5% for the 27th consecutive month.

One of the major factors of this decision is the recent data calling the UK’s economic recovery into question.

Howard Archer, IHS Global Insight

“The Bank of England’s decision to keep interest rates down at 0.50 percent despite well above-target and rising inflation undoubtedly reflects major concerns within the MPC over both the current softness of the economy and the outlook, particularly given that fiscal tightening increasingly kicked in from April.

“The MPC obviously also has serious concerns about current elevated and rising consumer price inflation; but for now at least most committee members are prepared to hold fire on interest rates to give the economy more of a chance to develop forward momentum.

“We expect the Bank of England to hold fire on interest rates until at least November, and we believe that there is now a very real and increasing likelihood that the MPC will not act until 2012.”

This will bring no comfort to 33% of home buyers who are being referred to as “mortgage prisoners” because of the new stricter lending criteria and falling house prices.

Melanie Bien, a director of mortgage broker Private Finance, said:

“There is a growing number of mortgage prisoners, who no longer meet their lender’s original or current criteria.

“It is terribly unfair that existing customers are being penalised. The biggest problems for those porting are reductions in maximum loan-to-values, tightened affordability criteria or reduced income multiples, and changes to the lender’s treatment of bonuses.

“Another issue for those porting is changes to interest-only criteria with most lenders reducing maximum LTVs on interest-only to no more than 75pc.”

For example, Halifax used to lend up to 85% on an interest-only basis but have reduced this down to 75% LTV from April 6, 2011, to bring it into line with the rest of the Lloyds Banking Group.

The Committee has also voted to maintain the stock of asset purchases financed by the issuance of central bank reserves at £200 billion.

Nationwide have reported that prices of a typical house are 1.2% lower in may than one year ago. On the three month on three month measure, prices rose by 0.6%

Robert Gardner, Nationwide’s Chief Economist, said:

“House prices increased by 0.3% in May, only just offsetting the 0.2% fall recorded the previous month, and leaving prices 1.2% below the level prevailing in May 2010.

“At 0.6%, the three month on three month measure of house prices was little changed from the 0.7% pace of increase recorded in April. Overall, the modest pace of house price growth in May suggests that the property market is continuing to mirror the lacklustre trends evident in the wider economy.

Economic outlook still cloudy, but starting to brighten

“The UK economy returned to growth in the first three months of 2011, albeit at a modest pace, with business surveys suggesting that growth has been maintained in Q2. Employment has also edged up in recent months, and housing affordability, as measured by the house price to earnings ratio, is not as stretched as it was in the run up to the financial crisis.

“Nevertheless, the modest improvement in economic conditions has so far been insufficient to pull the housing market out of its torpor, as the headwinds facing households remain strong.

“Despite recent increases in employment, household budgets remain under pressure, with debt levels still high and inflation rising almost twice as fast as wages. Although the house price to earnings ratio is well below the peak levels seen in 2007, it is still above its long-term average.

Where next?

“While the outlook remains uncertain, sideways still appears the most likely trajectory for house prices over the remainder of the year. Economic conditions are expected to continue to improve as the year progresses, but the recovery is likely to remain weak compared with previous upturns.

“The pattern of the recovery also argues against a strong bounce in property prices. Business investment and net trade are expected to drive the economy in the quarters ahead, rather than consumer spending.

“This will eventually feed through to boost households and support the housing market by generating more rapid employment gains and stronger income growth, but it will take time for the feel-good factor to emerge and for households to bolster their finances.”

Simon Rubinsohn, RICS Chief Economist, said:

“The Nationwide data on house prices released this morning provides further evidence of a largely stagnant residential market. This follows on from numbers on the level of transactions published earlier in the week by the HMRC and the BBA, both of which showed a broadly flat trend in sales.

“Meanwhile the forward looking indicators from the last RICS Housing Market Survey suggest that there is little reason to expect an improvement in turnover in the near term.

“A combination of factors including uncertainty over the outlook for the economy and an ongoing reluctance from the banks to make finance more readily is continuing to cast a pall over the sales market.

“This would matter less if the availability of rental property, whether privately let or social, was increasing. The upward pressure on rents is a clear indication that this is not the case. Indeed, reforms to financing arrangements for social housing raises significant doubts as to whether new provision can keep pace with need.

“Although the mood music in government does seem to have shifted more in favour of development in recent months, it is absolutely critical that the rhetoric feeds through into actions. Failure to act is likely to result in the cost of all tenures of housing continuing to rise.”

Nick Hopkinson, Director of property company, PPR Estates, said:

“House prices are still falling in real terms by at least 5% this year so far when you factor in inflation.  I fear that real house prices will continue falling while the austerity cuts and household incomes continue to come under pressure till at least 2012.

“Any growth this month in the pricing data from Nationwide is simply correcting falls last month at best and are therefore no real comfort to potential sellers.

“The monthly lending statistics from one lender are currently based on such a small number of transactions as to not be reliable in terms of extrapolating any meaningful trend insights.

“It’s also quite possible that any recent growth in lending by Nationwide is more a reflection of tighter credit criteria being applied and therefore loans being made to more affluent clients buying bigger properties rather than any overall increase in house prices.

“Most buyers are still struggling to get realistic finance and the necessary deposits are still unobtainable for many.

“The impact of the Credit Crunch and austerity Britain has many more months and possibly years to run before we will see any sustained house price recovery, when you look behind the advertising headline statistics on house prices of the major lenders.”