News - Archive for March 2010

In the past 18 months or so, most of the developed world has seen a huge cut back in mortgage lending to the consumer and interbank lending in general. As rumours of the recovery continue to smolder in the corner, with no real leap of confidence in any direction just yet, we see that the British Government has announced it’s intentions to promote 90% LTV (Loan to value) mortgages with an injection of £180m into the Post Office.

For those of you who were not glued to your media channel of choice yesterday as UK Chancellor Alistair Darling announced his last pre-election budget, we have trawled through the numerous reports and ask “What has he ever done for us?” in a bid to find out how, who and if anyone stands to make any significant gains or losses in the world of property investment.

After much hype and anticipation, we bring you the relevant snippets regarding property investment from todays UK budget announcement.

It is often said that the rich will always get richer. Given that a large part of most High Net Worth individuals’ wealth is usually made up of property in some form or another, we thought we would take a look at the latest Wealth Report from Knight Frank for 2010 and see what the super rich were up to this year, and how they envisage property as investment for the year ahead.

With housing prices all over the place, we take a look at ways to invest in property, without even stepping through the door.

With Forbes having released its Worlds Billionaires List, we thought we would take a peek and see who, if anyone, had made it into the top 50 using property investment as their main source of wealth, given the global downturn in the property markets.

With the rising concerns over the likelihood of a UK hung parliament after the upcoming general election, we thought we’d take a look at the effects this could have on property investment, both at home and abroad.

We have all seen or been offered various investment opportunities over the years, most are still available, some disappear only to be re-invented in a new guise, and of course there are those that are labeled as investments by over enthusiastic snake-oil salesmen.

Apparently investment guru George Soros has been on a spending spree recently expanding his positions in various gold investments including mining companies and gold shares. Announcing his opinion at the World Economic Forum in Davos that gold has become the “ultimate bubble” however, what this is supposed to mean to the average man on the street is really open to interpretation.

Many people have bought property abroad over the past few years, and despite the current general lack of cash, people still are. What most overlook though is the impact that differing currencies can have on the said purchase or investment, as well as how to actually take advantage of the strength or weakness of a currency.

As the UK financial markets, regulators and institutions have taken a fair old beating of late, the main topic floating to the top at the moment has been mortgage regulation.