A thoroughly British Blog.

Net lending by UK building societies dropped 90% in May. In May 2007, British building societies furnished borrowers with £1.26 billion pounds, lending by building societies this May was just £125 million. Read more at The Times. How renters now have the upper-hand. A must-read for any tenant or...

The right artwork can bring any room to life and sticking up a couple of new pictures certainly beats redecorating in the hassle stakes. It’s not always a good idea to be hanging pictures in a rented place (I’ll never forget the evil landlord who took £150 out of my security deposit for having na...

Last week, Savills reported a decline in prime central London property values of 5.5% over the second quarter of 2008 (read the full story here). Today, Knight Frank have published their results which are similar, but not quite as stark. According to Knight Frank figures, the monthly fall in prop...

House prices fell 0.9% in June. That’s according to the latest stats from Nationwide. It’s not as bad as the record 2.5% fall seen in May, but it’s not really a barrel of laughs either. Read the full story at the BBC. Estate agency jobs under threat. Almost three quarters of commercial property ...

We often hear that XYZ is the ‘latest victim of the falling housing market’, but this US story is truly tragic. Yesterday morning, 73 year old Robert Arnold Johnson fatally shot 34 year old Troy Vanderstelt during a meeting at the victim’s office in Michigan. The agent had sold Johnson a property...

Last week, I wrote a post about a man in Australia who was putting his whole 'life' for sale on eBay. Well, now the auction has closed, I thought I'd write an update :-) In case you're not familiar with the story, Ian Usher (who was actually from the UK) was selling his Australian house, everythi...

Real estate agents are the most sleep deprived workers. According to a new survey, the average British estate agent doesn’t even get six hours of shut-eye each night, even lorry drivers and taxi drivers do better than that. Read more at theRatandMouse. And clink virtual coffee cups with stressed...

Are people selling themselves on eBay quite a lot these days? Check. Is the housing market in a bit of a pickle? Check. Are agents turning to incentives to sell houses? Check. Then why not sell yourself and your house as a lovely package? It’s one step up from Ian Usher, who is just selling his h...

According to a new survey, over 40% of Brits believe there will be 'carbon police' by 2050. And not only that, a quarter of Brits believe ‘offenders’ will have to go to ‘energy rehab’ and take ‘energy addiction classes’. Imagine, you’re reading National Enquirer in 2050 and instead of a headline ...

First-time buyers trapped by rent rises. Young Brits can’t afford to buy a house, but soaring rents are making it hard to even rent a house. According to buy-to-let mortgage lender Paragon, monthly rent bills have risen by an average 11.7% across the UK this past year, although tenants in South ...