Mortgages

More than nine-in-ten, or 92% of the UK's main postal towns are now out of reach of the average first time buyer of residential property, according to figures published by Halifax.

The Survey of Mortgage Lenders (SML) says mortgage sales are now falling as gross mortgage lending for December dropped 13% from the £24.6bn recorded a year earlier.

The Financial Services Authority says it has been vindicated in its actions against Legal & General over mortgage endowment mis-selling because the firm was found to have mis-sold policies.

Poor handling of endowment mis-selling complaints by financial services firms will increase the number of such cases passing through the Financial Ombudsman Service to around 70,000 cases a year until 2007, alleges the service.

Data from members of the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) suggests residential house prices fell more slowly in December than in the previous three months.

Age Concern has launched a lifetime mortgage product designed to meet the needs of a wide range of older people.

UK residential property values will continue to rise a fraction while the commercial market adding up to 10% in 2005, an international property consultant has predicted.

Buying a house in Britain cost less in November 2004 than in October, according to the latest statistics from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, as the average property value fell to 180,226 in November.

Confidence in the UK housing market levelled off at its lowest point since Woolwich started keeping monthly records in 1998, although the fall seems to have stabilised.

Talk of a slowdown in the property market has been temporarily silenced after Halifax reported a 1.1% increase in house prices for December.