Blogs of author

The top 20 burglary hotspots in the UK have been named - and London is home to more than half of them.

According to research by MoneySupermarket.com the nation's capital has 12 of the postcodes on the list.

But Manchester had the most burglary claims overall in the past 12 months - with 45.2 per thousand people. Herne Hill and Tulse Hill in SE24 in London were close behind with 41.8, and Muswell Hill in N10 chalked up 40.9. Birmingham and Liverpool each have two postcode districts in the top 20. Leeds saw the biggest decrease in robbery claim hotspots.

The findings were based on more than

Tower Hamlets trumped Kensington this month as London’s less glamorous boroughs showed the biggest increase in property asking prices, according to property website Rightmove.

The average asking price demanded by sellers in Tower Hamlets jumped 3.6% to £531,917 in January — closely followed by Barking & Dagenham, where prices rose 3.4%. In contrast, Westminster saw an 8.3% slide in asking prices, albeit to £1.39 million while prices in Kensington & Chelsea were down 6.9% to a mere £2.05 million. Across the capital, overall average asking prices eased 0.2% to £514,704 in January.

Across the

Last call for entries into our first round of auctions of the new year!

Thinking about selling at auction? We are still undertaking property valuations for entries into the first round of auctions of 2014, and if that's too soon, then there are plenty more auctions to follow. So why not send us a few details about your property, and one of our auctioneers in your area will give you a ring, to chat further about your requirements.

Selling a property by auction is easier than many people think, and the prices that we achieve are usually higher than expected too. Our auction partners have sold

The London home jointly owned by the Monty Pythons – John Cleese, Terry Jones, Eric Idle, Michael Palin, Graham Chapman and Terry Gilliam – is for sale for £12m.

Together at the three bedroom detached property, they produced and edited some of their most famous sketches for the television series Monty Python’s Flying Circus.

Milkwood Studios, named after after a nearby house where poet Dylan Thomas worked, is a conversion on a vast scale.

The double height reception room measures almost 4,000 square feet. In total, the New York style loft property is in excess of 9,500 square feet and is set

AuctionLets.com will be revolutionizing the Lettings market combining auctions which are the tried and tested method of selling residential property and a process that will be familiar to users of one of the world's largest online auctions.

AuctionLets.com is dedicated to Landlords and Tenants. Landlords can upload their vacant properties while potential pre-referenced tenants can bid on the property they desire.

This online letting agent will bring tenants and landlords together, with a solution that they believe will become an industry standard for property rentals.

Landlords have been

The average house price paid by first-time buyers rose by 6.4% in the year to November, a faster rate than the market generally, official figures show.

The Office for National Statistics said that new entrants to the housing market paid an average of £187,000 during the month – £14,000 more than in the same month of 2012. The average price paid by movers was higher, at £284,000, which was 5.3% up on 12 months previously, while the average increase across the board was 5.4%.

First-time buyers have been assisted by the government's Help to Buy scheme, which has made properties available to those

Auction House, the UK’s largest and most successful auctioneer has announced strategic expansion across its West of England territory.

The award-winning group has created dedicated auction rooms and support teams for two distinct areas: Auction House Bristol & Somerset North – which has been formed to cover the city, suburbs and much of Somerset, and Auction House Gloucestershire – which has been created to offer auction services throughout the county.

Auction House Founding Director Roger Lake said: “We now have 33 auction rooms around the UK and sold a massive 2,575 lots in 2013 – more than

Does your renovation push design boundaries? Maybe you’ve built an affordable eco home? Or perhaps your clever extension suits its challenging plot perfectly? This is your chance to enter your project for Grand Designs Home of the Year.

No matter the shape, size, budget or location of your scheme, or whether it’s an extension, renovation, conversion or brand new-build, the competition is free for anyone to enter – homeowners, architect, designers or house-builders. Help us to celebrate homes that truly excel in design and architecture by telling us your grand design story. Enter now for your

New figures published by Halifax have highlighted the largest annual rise in the number of first-time buyers (FTBs) entering the property market since 2001.

2013 saw a 13% increase in FTB activity in comparison to the whole of 2012, with an estimated 265,000 FTBs completing transactions within the last 12 months.

Overall, FTBs increased their share of the mortgage market in 2013 to 44% - up from 40% in 2012.

Martin Ellis, housing economist at Halifax, commented: "Low interest rates, improvements in consumer confidence and government schemes, such as Help to Buy, all appear to have contributed

Ray Boulger, of mortgage broker John Charcol, says that he expects an 8% rise in house prices in 2014, based on the Halifax and Nationwide indexes. This would match the kind of annual increases seen at the end of 2013, which he admits would have been a surprise for anyone studying the market at the start of 2013.

He says that two schemes to stimulate the housing market "moved the goalposts" during the year. They were the Funding for Lending scheme, which offers cheap funds to lenders under the proviso that this is then lent on to mortgage borrowers and small businesses, and the Help to Buy sch