Nuisance neighbours, landlords selling up, and flooding risks: Property news

A rundown of the latest property statistics

Hop House is a four bedroom home in Holcombe, near Bath. Features include stone walls and reception rooms with vast windows. This former brewery was owned by the parents of explorer Robert Scott. On for £895,000 with Fine & Country.

Half of people who have a "nuisance neighbour" feel stressed or depressed as a result, according to a poll by Ocean Finance, which shows a quarter want to move to a new area, and one in five no longer feel safe in their home.

House price predictions

More people believe that average house prices will be higher rather than lower in 12 months' time, with 13 per cent believing it will be at least 10 per cent higher. The Halifax survey underlined that raising a deposit is still felt to be the biggest barrier to buying a home, followed by concerns about job security.

Half-a-million zone

Across England and Wales there are a total of 157 postcode districts with average property values above £500,000, of which 142 are within Greater London (which has 279 postcodes). The figures from Stirling Ackroyd show new postcode districts in London's half a million zone include Mile End, Peckham and Streatham.

Buying by numbers

Analysis by eMoov of average house prices near Tube stations shows that the cheapest stop in Zone 1 is Aldgate East (average house price £535,920), in Zone 2 it is West Ham (£313, 054), and in Zone 3 it is East Ham (£274,206). Barking is the cheapest overall at £237,337 in Zone 4. It also shows that Zone 2 is 37 per cent cheaper than Zone 1.

Landlords are selling up

A survey of landlords by the National Landlords Association indicates that the proportion of landlords looking to sell in the next 12 months has more than doubled since July 2015 (up from seven per cent to 19 per cent). Over the next few years, nearly a third of landlords do not plan to buy any more properties, 10 per cent plan to reduce their portfolio and five per cent plan to sell up entirely.

Rental demand

Demand for rented homes will increase by more than a million households over the next five years despite government measures, according to Savills.

Flooding risk

One in three UK homeowners are unsure if their home is on a flood plain, while one in five told researchers from AppliancesDirect.co.uk that they would have no idea how to tackle a flood. Around 14 per cent admit they would not know which emergency service to contact should it happen.

First-time figures

The number of first-time buyers fell by 1,300 between November and December, according to figures from Your Move and Reeds Rains, down from the previous month's 27,900. The average value of a first-time-buyer property in London was £343,686. The South-east was the second-most expensive at £211,807. In the North East the figure was £108,419 while the lowest was Northern Ireland at £92,665.

Why remortgage?

Around 11 per cent of borrowers who remortgaged in December did so to pay off other debts accumulated in the run-up to Christmas, says LMS, up from nine per cent for the same month in 2014. Around one in five people who remortgaged their properties in December did so to fund home improvements.