A rush to beat the end of the stamp-duty concession saw a big rise in loans made to house buyers in December, says the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML).

There were 62,800 such loans, up by 23% from November and 90% higher than in December 2008.

The number of loans made to first-time buyers also jumped in December, by 26% from November, to 24,900, which was the largest number since November 2007.

The stamp duty threshold dropped back to £125,000 on 1 January.

Activity in the UK housing market was frozen by the snowy weather in January, although prices continued to rise, according to surveyors.

Buying and selling activity fell during the month owing to the extreme weather conditions, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (Rics) said.

However the group expects a "Spring bounce" in the coming months.

Surveys have suggested that the housing market has begun to recover from a sharp slump over the last six months.

Source: BBC News

The rate of house price increases could soon rise above 10% a year, the Nationwide building society has said.

Its latest survey shows that the average UK house price rose by 1.2% in January, pushing the annual rate up to 8.6%.

It means the average UK home now costs £163,481.

Separately, the Land Registry survey revealed that the annual change in property prices showed a rise for the first time since May 2008.

It said that the year-on-year increase was 2.5% in December, following an eighth consecutive monthly rise.

Source: BBC News

Mortgage approvals 'on the rise'
The number of mortgages approved for house purchases rose at the end of last year, according to figures from the major UK banks.

But overall, mortgage approvals in 2009 were 27% lower than the previous year and the lowest since British Bankers' Association records started in 1997.

Some 45,897 home loans were approved for house purchases last month.

This showed the extent of the recent recovery in the mortgage market as it was double that of December 2008.

Further evidence of the recovery in the UK housing market has come from figures showing completed residential property sales hit a two-year high in December.
Provisional figures from HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) show 104,000 deals involving properties priced above £40,000 were completed in December.
It was the first time since December 2007 that the number has risen above the 100,000 level.
Transaction levels had hit their lowest point during the slump in January 2009.

Variable rate mortgages are continuing to prove popular as some of the UK's biggest lenders cut the cost of deals.

Mortgage broker John Charcol said that 81% of the home loans it arranged in December were variable rate deals.

Meanwhile, the Woolwich and the Halifax have reduced the cost of some of their tracker deals in recent days.

The Bank rate has remained at a record low of 0.5% since March 2009 and economists do not expect the central bank to raise rates in the near term.

The number of mortgage products available has increased for the third month in a row but still remains over 90 per cent lower than at the peak of the market in August 2007, new figures have revealed.

Last week, there were 2,516 mortgage products on offer in the market, passing the 2,500 mark for the first time since May last year, according to moneysupermarket.com.

Source: FT.com

Mortgage payments have fallen to their second lowest level on record, according to new figures.

Borrowers who bought a new home in November spent an average of less than 11 per cent of their income on paying the interest element of their mortgage, according to the Council of Mortgage Lenders.

The figure was the lowest level for 13 years and the second lowest since records began in 1974.

It is the latest sign of financial pressures easing on home owners across Britain despite the worse recession since the Second World War.

The pace of house price increases slowed at the end of 2009, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (Rics) has said.

Its survey for December found that 30% more surveyors saw prices rise than fall during that month.

However, the positive balance was lower than in either October or November.

The government's own housing survey has found that UK property prices rose by 1.7% in November, leaving them 0.6% higher than in November 2008.

UK house prices were 1.1% higher in December than a year earlier - the first annual rise since March 2008, according to the Halifax.

Prices rose by 1% in December compared with the previous month, marking the sixth consecutive monthly rise.

The Halifax, now part of Lloyds Banking Group, said the average home was now worth £169,042.

The figures show that prices have picked up steadily in recent months, having risen by 9.4% - or £14,552 - from the trough of April 2009. This followed a decline of 23% between August 2007 and April 2009

Source: BBC News