UK house prices rebound as market recovers from June dip
House prices in the UK returned to growth last month, as the market recovered from a dip in June after the end of a tax break on stamp duty,The average price of a home rose 0,6% in July to £272,664, following the biggest month-on-month fall in more than two years in June, according to Nationwide,Britain’s biggest building society said the annual rate of house price growth also improved to 2,4%, up from 2.
1% in June, and purchase activity remains buoyant with 64,200 mortgages approved in that month,Nationwide also noted that buying a property is now the most affordable it has been in more than a decade, although it is still almost six times the average UK wage,“The price of a typical UK home is about 5,75 times average income, the lowest this ratio has been for over a decade,” said Robert Gardner, Nationwide’s chief economist,“This is helping to ease deposit constraints for potential buyers, as has an improvement in the availability of higher loan-to-value mortgages.
”However, Nationwide said borrowing costs remain high, with the interest rate on a typical five-year fixed-rate mortgage for a buyer with a 25% deposit more than three times the level seen in autumn 2021,“On the ground, transactions are holding together relatively well,” said the London estate agent Jeremy Leaf,“As a result, looking forward we expect to see a modest improvement all round, particularly if interest rates are reduced in the next month or so as widely expected, despite lingering concerns about the economy,”Temporary stamp duty cuts in England and Northern Ireland expired in April, adding thousands of pounds to the cost of many transactions,The property sector is hopeful of a further boost on 7 August when the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee (MPC) holds its next meeting to decide on whether to reduce the UK base rate, which stands at 4.
25% and is used to set mortgage interest rates,Financial markets expect the MPC to reduce the base rate to 4% next week and again to 3,75% before the end of the year,Sign up to Business TodayGet set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morningafter newsletter promotionLast month Andrew Bailey, the governor of the Bank of England, said that the “path for interest rates is downward”,However, UK inflation rose unexpectedly to 3.
6% in June, well above the Bank’s 2% target.City economists and the central bank had expected it to remain the same as May’s reading of 3.4%, and the uptick in inflation may make the MPC more cautious about cutting interest rates.“All eyes will be on the Bank of England next week and what it decides to do with interest rates,” said Karen Noye, a mortgage expert at Quilter.“It was thought that a rate cut was fairly certain, but recent inflation data coming in higher than expected may just temper things slightly and force buyers to wait.
Should the Bank of England follow through with a rate cut, however, that will help support the buyers.”
Amazon fails to calm tariff worries with worse-than-expected financial outlook
Amazon failed to quiet concerns over how Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs would affect its e-commerce business as it reported its latest quarterly results on Thursday. Wall Street’s affinity for the tech giant faltered in response.The top line numbers from Amazon’s second quarter earnings report exceeded Wall Street’s projections. The tech company beat expectations with its revenue up 13.3% year over year to $167
How will Australia’s under-16s social media ban be enforced, and which platforms will be exempt?
Australians using a range of social media platforms including Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat and X will need to have their age checked to ensure they are 16 or older when the social media ban comes into effect from early December.Sign up: AU Breaking News emailHow will it work? And what information will people need to hand over?From 10 December, new laws will apply to platforms that meet the government’s definition of an “age-restricted social media platform”, which has the sole or significant purpose of enabling social interaction with two or more users, and which allows users to post material on the service.The government has not specified by name any platforms that will be included in the ban, meaning any site that meets the above definition could be included except if they meet the exemptions released on Wednesday.The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, has said that the covered platforms include – but are not limited to – Facebook, Instagram, X, Snapchat, and YouTube.The communications minister, Anika Wells, said these platforms would be expected to take reasonable steps to deactivate accounts for users under 16, prevent children registering new accounts, check ages, and also prevent workarounds to bypass the restrictions
Met police to more than double use of live facial recognition
Britain’s biggest police force is to more than double its use of live facial recognition to up to 10 deployments a week.The move by the Metropolitan police comes as it restructures to cover the loss of 1,400 officers and 300 staff amid budget shortages.Live facial recognition – which involves the matching of faces caught on surveillance camera footage against a police watchlist in real time – will now be used up to 10 times a week across five days, up from the current four times a week across two days.The tactic will be deployed at the Notting Hill carnival over the August bank holiday.An older form of the technology was trialled at the event in 2016 and 2017
Zuckerberg claims ‘superintelligence is now in sight’ as Meta lavishes billions on AI
Whether it’s poaching top talent away from competitors, acquiring AI startups or proclaiming that it will build data centers the size of Manhattan, Meta has been on a spending spree to boost its artificial intelligence capabilities for months now.The massive splurge is paying off, according to Meta’s chief executive. In a new memo posted on Wednesday ahead of the company’s quarterly earnings report, Mark Zuckerberg, describes his ambitions for developing what he calls “superintelligence”.“Over the last few months we have begun to see glimpses of our AI systems improving themselves,” Zuckerberg wrote. “The improvement is slow for now, but undeniable
Wall Street delighted with Microsoft as it spends $100bn on AI
Microsoft, the world’s second-most valuable company, is dumping enormous sums of money into its artificial intelligence efforts. At the same time, the company is earning money hand over fist. Investors are thrilled.The enterprise software giant reported fiscal fourth-quarter results that exceeded expectations on Wednesday as the company races to acquire datacenters and talent, which continues to be investigated by investors. The company predicted its capital expenditure for the next fiscal year would top $100bn, a 14% increase from the year prior
YouTube to gauge US users’ ages with AI after UK and Australia add age checks
YouTube announced on Tuesday that it will begin to use artificial intelligence to estimate the ages of users in the US, in order to show them age-appropriate content.The rollout of the new feature comes one day after Australia’s government announced it would ban children under 16 from using YouTube and less than a week after the UK implemented sweeping age checks on content on social networks.YouTube’s AI age verification on its home turf indicates it is putting into place a form of compliance with the Australian and UK requirements, despite its persistent opposition to age-check requirements.“Over the next few weeks, we’ll begin to roll out machine learning to a small set of users in the US to estimate their age, so that teens are treated as teens and adults as adults,” wrote James Beser, director of product management for YouTube Youth, in a blogpost titled Extending our built-in protections to more teens on YouTube.YouTube was promised an exemption from Australia’s social media ban last year by the then communications minister, but the Australian government said on Monday that the platform would, in fact, be included in the country’s ban on children under 16 using social networks
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