Lunchtime news Tuesday 26 February 2024

Britain’s largest housebuilder, Persimmon, announced record profits for 2007, but says that it is cautious about prospects for the housing market this year. The average selling price for a property rose 1 per cent last year, but the number of sales fell 4.8 per cent.

Mortgage lending in January continued to be subdued according to figures by the British Banker’s Association (BBA). Its members approved 44,000 new mortgages for house purchases in January, which is up slightly from December, but 31 per cent lower than a year ago. However, remortgaging amounted to 49 per cent of all new lending by the banks last month, and competition for mortgage business remained strong.

Sales in the US homes fell by less than expected in January, suggesting the two-year housing market slump may be coming to an end. Home sales were down just 0.4 per cent last month, less than the 1.8 per cent decline predicted, and less than the 2.2 per cent fall in December. However resales have hit their lowest point since records began in 1999, and it was the sixth month in a row that sales fell.

The Home Builders Federation has come out strongly against government plans to introduce ’lifetime homes’ standards for all new homes by 2013, cautioning that a ‘one-size fits all’ solution to meeting the needs of older people would not work. The increased costs of implementing the standard would increase the costs to housebuilders, and would affect affordability for all, but especially first-time buyers.

And finally, former minister, David Blunkett, is hosting a new reality television programme that locks up juvenile delinquents. Ten ‘tearaways’ will be jailed for two weeks in a former prison and lectured by former criminals on the need to go straight, before going before the ‘parole board’, of which Mr Blunkett will be head, to show their rehabilitation. Mr Blunkett said that forewarning young people of what prison is like and encouraging them to take an alternative path in life ‘has to make sense’.