The pandemic has led to a savings boom, but many mortgage experts suggest that, because wealthier households are the main beneficiaries, this is unlikely to help a lot more first-time buyers onto the property ladder. Numerous studies have pointed to households having put away well over £100bn in excess deposits
Government to sell another 5pc stake in NatWest
The Government is due to sell another 5pc stake in NatWest, taking British taxpayers closer to ending their status as the bank s majority shareholder.
The sale, which starts with immediate effect as of this afternoon s announcement, is expected to be of about 580m shares with the price determined by demand from institutional investors.
It will reduce HM Treasury s holding from just under 60pc, to just under 55pc of the bank. This would mark the Government s lowest stake since it bailed NatWest out for £45.5bn in the autumn of 2008.
Barclays, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are acting as joint bookrunners.
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The average British house price reached a record high of £258,204 ($363,198) in April, as the stamp duty holiday fires up the booming market with almost £20,000 added to the value of a home since the market was closed by Covid-19 a year ago.
House prices in April were up 1.4 per cent from March and 8.2 per cent higher than a year earlier, according to the Halifax House Price Index on Monday, the highest annual growth rate in five years.
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“House prices in April eclipsed the record high set the month before as the market continued to maintain its recent momentum,” said Russel Galley, managing director of Halifax.
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British mortgage lending rose by £11.8 billion ($16.36bn) in March in the strongest net increase on record after Chancellor Rishi Sunak extended a tax break for property buyers.
The rise in mortgage borrowing, the biggest increase since records began in 1993, came as British lenders approved 82,735 mortgages in March, a decrease of almost 5,000 from February and down from the peak of 103,100 seen in November, Bank of England data showed.
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“The strong borrowing was driven by the expected ending of the temporary stamp duty tax relief at the end of March, which has now been extended to the end of June, the BoE said.