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A local estate agent believes that three suburbs of Birmingham leaves the rest behind and are truly the most admirable places in the city to buy property. “The south and the west side of the city are considered to be the cream which includes the areas of Harborne, Moseley and Edgbaston” said a spokesperson for Robert Powell and Co.

She also commented that out of those, Edgbaston is the on the top of the list as it includes a golf course which makes it truly expensive and popular as well as the lush greenery of the place makes it truly deserving of the first place on the list. She observed that Harborne is the best place for the first time buyers as it has an essence of a village-like atmosphere with numerous Victorian terraced homes.

If you are looking for a loan of 100 per cent of the value of your property, you won’t get many offers. Lenders will expect you to carry equity of at least 10 per cent in the property, and perhaps more, property market analysts point out. The credit crunch has forced lenders to reassess their criteria. A majority of them have withdrawn the products that they consider are rather risky.

If you took out a 100 per cent plus mortgage, say two or three years ago, property price increases in the intervening years should mean you’ve enough equity in your existing asset to remortgage on to a standard deal. If your loan is still close to your property value, you should talk to your lender. Coventry building society has a special deal for customers who took out 100 per cent or more mortgages and no longer pass the criteria for any of its products since it took back its high loan to value (LTV) loans. A fee-free fixed rate of 6.49 per cent may not be the cheapest one on the market but is quite similar to what these borrowers were on before - between 6.2 per cent and 6.7 per cent. Other lenders are also considering similar offers.

New research shows that London is the costliest city in the world to live & rent a property. In a comparison of earnings and prices in 71 cities across the globe, Swiss banking giant UBS came up with a finding that renters in London faced rather high living costs.

After renting prices were excluded from these calculations, the people in the UK’s biggest city happened to fare slightly better - with the prices of common goods & services ranking third highest behind Oslo & Copenhagen. Salaries in these two cities compensate for the high cost of living. According to UBS, Copenhagen has the highest wages (before tax), closely followed by Oslo. London just makes it to 10th spot on the list, after cities like Dublin and Frankfurt.

Zurich ranks third in terms of gross salary. However, when tax & other deductions are made to compare net earnings, the residents of the Swiss city carry home the most cash. Zurich residents also have the best purchasing power, UBS stated, with workers there having the most to spend for the number of hours they work. The report informed fluctuating exchange rates was the factor in pushing eurozone countries up the cost-of-living ladder.

If you are planning to make structural changes with the aim of adding value to your home, here are some useful and practical tips that you should follow:

•    Tip 1: You should first work out the approximate market price of your asset, by taking into account current benchmarks.
•    Tip 2: Try to gauge the potential value of your home – in consultation with experts – with the proposed changes to be made to it.
•    Tip 3: Make it a point to effect less radical changes.
•    Tip 4: Try to minimise changes, which are to be made to the existing structure. For example, some partitioning walls can be put up or knocked down.
•    Tip 5: Bigger windows can make a house seem more spacious than it actually is.
•    Tip 6: An extension may be the most appropriate option in order to really boost or enhance what you have.

If you do follow above suggestions, your renovation exercise, and the efforts, time and money involved in it, will yield the desired results and you will be able to reap expected monetary rewards.

The above idea will also help you to reduce costs and still gain more – either in terms of space or money, depending on whether you continue to occupy it or sell it post-renovation!

The UK housing market might see a further fall, the lowest in thirty years, according to some market analysts. Ambiguity among sellers and buyers and the reduced accessibility to debt will drive down the property business.

According to Simon Embley of LSL Property Services, in the fourth quarter of last year consumers got very nervous about affordability and thus the demand for property plunged. A number of lenders exited the property market so the supply of money got constrained. Many predict a further fall in housing activity. Economists expect about one million properties to sell this year taking into account the expected fall of up to twenty per cent. The transactions went down to forty five percent in 2006 and forty percent in 2006.

The situation about house prices is not very worrying yet, as house owners are not making distressed sells. This is keeping the pricing fairly strong. Most leading estate agents are closely monitoring the situation to get a fair grasp of it before they make further calls on market and scaling down their businesses.

Living in rural England is getting difficult mainly owing to a lack of attractive housing options and poor infrastructure. With sustenance becoming difficult owing to falling income levels, many houses are being converted into shops. Thus, villages are losing their good old charm. Some villages have lost their ubiquitous cultural spots and the quaint structures like a post office, school and church. In parts of Britain today, the villages are nothing but a cluster of unplanned houses with little to offer to the local community.

People who want to use and treat homes in the countryside as an option for retired life are continuing to invest in them. However, to retain the lure and charm of rural life, young people in rural areas should have access to training opportunities. The economy should be strengthened to create more jobs for the local population. Many local schools have closed down. This means that children living in these areas have to commute to a faraway school. Churches, the social hubs of rural communities, are diminishing in number. People living in rural areas often end up paying more in council tax, but they receive less by way of services. The rural communities rightfully think that they are being deprived off what they deserve in terms of facilities and services.

Homeowners keen on installing solar panels, ground source heat pumps & other microgeneration technologies will be able to do so without any need to seek planning permission from 6t of April. The housing minister, Caroline Flint, recently gave the go-ahead to such projects with an aim of reducing carbon emissions.

Most homeowners are very much interested in such projects, but are discouraged by the expense and time involved in seeking planning permission. It is now hoped that the new amendments will make them go for the same. Ms Flint declared the idea was to encourage and help people to reduce their carbon footprint. Technology like solar panels can be helpful in this. The new rules are in keeping with the Government‘s initiative of dealing with climate change that revolves around minimising emissions from housing. All new-build homes in the country are to be carbon neutral by 2016.

The Government wants to let free-standing & building-mounted wind turbines on detached properties as well as air source heat pumps to be installed without any need of planning permission later this year. These proposals will be implemented after approval from the European Commission.

Research from the financial information service, Moneyfacts, shows that the number of mortgage deals offered is declining. According to the research, the biggest falls have been seen among sub-prime & buy-to-let mortgages. The number of sub-prime deals has gone down by 81 per cent to just 1,798 whereas the number of loans made available to buy-to-let landlords has fallen by 60 per cent to 1,444.

Demand for mortgages remains strong. However, it cannot be fully met from available funding. This has resulted in many lenders to cut down their product offerings, hike their mortgage prices and hive off their lending capacity. It has already been reported by The Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) that the number of new mortgages sought by home buyers has hit a new low level in almost a decade or so.

Expectedly, first-time buyers are also suffering since several lenders have scrapped their 100 per cent plus mortgage range, meaning the former have to arrange for cash for deposits, legal fees and stamp duty. Earlier this month, Nationwide, declared that homebuyers should get ready for a new phase of mortgage lending. This would involve putting down quite a hefty deposit.

Britons, keen on turning bricks & mortar into profits, finally have some hope. Record numbers of investors are now looking at a new raft of property hotspots around the globe. Turkey tops the list! According to Conti Financial Services, an overseas mortgage broker, there has been a whopping 147 per cent rise in queries about properties in Turkey. While in Spain enquiries fell by over 28 per cent.

Property prices in Turkey increased between 15 and 20 per cent last year, according to estate agent Knight Frank. This was the case after a change in the mortgage law made finance options available to overseas buyers. Prices are still cheap going by UK standards. Julian Walker, MD of Spot Blue, a UK agent operating in Turkey, states that one-bed flats can be bought for £25,000, villas for £90,000 and two-beds for £50,000.

While no building society or bank on British soil will lend against a property overseas, funds for homes in Turkey can be secured through specialist brokers with a lender in the country. Foreign buyers will require a 25 per cent deposit. Sterling mortgages are available only over a period of 15 years. It is unusual though as British investors living in Britain at the time of applying for finance, can borrow up to 100 per cent of the home’s value in Turkey if the loan happens to be in euros.

The number of home repossessions will rise by up to 50 per cent in 2008, according to the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (Rics) predictions. Figures recently released by Rics indicate that the number of properties on offer at auction - usually an indicator of distress - was quite close to historically high levels attained last year.

The overall number of residential properties on offer at auctions went up by 15 per cent in 2007 whereas the number of repossessed properties increased by close to 20 per cent, indicating that many have indeed struggled to service their respective mortgages - following last year’s interest rate rise and tougher refinancing norms. There appears to be an emerging ‘London effect’. Success rates at London property auctions plunged to 63 per cent in the closing months of 2007, down from almost 80 per cent in the same period a year ago.

Rics economist Oliver Gilmartin stated: “Fears over further house price falls have apparently taken some stimulus out of achieved sales at the auction house, since specialist lending has all but vanished… we expect a tougher year for many in 2008.”