Mortgages

House prices are rising at their fastest since the 2006 peak, according to new figures. But is this good news for people trying to get onto the property ladder?

House prices are on the rise – usually the symptom of a an increasingly buoyant property market. But some economists are warning that you can have too much of a good thing.

Parents are giving their children £2bn a year to help them buy their first homes, according to the housing charity Shelter.

Chancellor George Osborne meets housebuilders and mortgage lenders to discuss the second phase of the government’s scheme to increase home ownership.

Over a quarter of a million mortgage holders have no plan for paying off their interest-only loan, and the regulator warns such borrowers not to bury their head in the sand.

George Osborne’s plans to boost home ownership risk harming the housing market and leaving the treasury with a significant hole in its coffers, a powerful committee warns in a new report.

Iain Duncan Smith says he could live on £53 a week – but could he? Channel 4 News looks at the numbers and speaks to one woman who is struggling to cope on this amount of money.

Chancellor George Osborne unveils a new “help to buy” scheme to boost the housing industry, but lenders want assurances that it will not be uneconomical for them.

As quarterly figures show bank lending for businesses and homeowners fell by £2.4bn at the end of 2012, Vince Cable suggests the funding for lending scheme may need “adapting”.

RBS is the third bank to be fined for attempting to fix the benchmark lending rate for financial institutions. What did these banks do and why does it matter?

Royal Bank of Scotland is fined almost £400m for its role in the Libor rate-fixing scandal, the third bank forced to pay a penalty by regulators in Britain and the US.

As MPs carry out an inquiry into the private rented sector, councils say “extortionate fees” charged by some letting agents are making it harder for people to find a home.

Mortgage complaints shoot up as thousands of people struggle to meet payments, the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) says.

Most people want to own their own homes, despite the state of the economy and the effects of the credit crunch.