The housing market will not suffer due to the icy weather, an expert has said.
Anyone seeking a home loan deal such as a tracker mortgage was unlikely to have witnessed the housing market being overly affected by the spell of icy weather that enveloped much of the UK over December 2010.
The festive period in Britain was characterised by a flurry of snowy conditions which had a slight impact on sales of properties,
but this will not have an ongoing effect on the country's housing and mortgage sector as a whole, an expert has said.
According to Helen Adams, managing director at online resource First Rung Now, the cost of residential properties is instead likely to remain flat throughout the coming 12 months.
"I think that demand is perhaps a little bit worse than last year and sales were down a bit because of the weather. It might have had an effect just before Christmas but I don't think that it is really going to significantly affect the market for the whole of the UK," she remarked.
Ms Adams was speaking following the publication of research by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors last week (January 18th 2011), which stated that the level of completed house sales stabilised at the end of 2010, but the outlook for the property market remains mixed for the foreseeable future.
This study found that the highest level of transactions in the country was seen in Yorkshire and the Humber and the East Midlands in December, while the lowest was in East Anglia.
The specialist from First Rung Now went on to say that if prices are slightly depressed or dipping, this represents a good time to negotiate and get a better value deal on a property.
Halifax revealed recently (January 10th 2011) that the average cost of a house in the UK slipped by 1.6 per cent to £162,435 last month.
Meanwhile, an expert has said consumers must prioritise essentials such as gas and electric bills.
Essential bills such as those for gas and electricity supplies are being put lower on the list of priorities by households feeling the strain on their current account balance because of debts accrued on personal finance options such as credit cards.
That is according David Rodger, managing director of the Debt Advice Foundation, who has said that charges for utilities such as gas and electric are being left at the bottom of the pile in terms of the urgency with which people whose cash is being "sucked away" by debt pay them off.
"Many people begin to struggle when interest-free periods on store cards they've maxed out end and higher monthly credit card payments are due," he explained.
Mr Rodger was speaking following the publication of research last week (January 25th 2011) by online resource My Voucher Codes, which revealed that January is the month when most people turn to borrowing in order to ease their financial situation, with 26 per cent of people who loaned money in 2010 doing so in January 2011.
Furthermore, the study established that four per cent of Britons had already borrowed money in the opening weeks of the new year, possibly to help meet fees being charged to them following the festive period.
In addition, 48 per cent indicated that they will borrow money in some form throughout 2011, with August being the least likely month to get into debt.
"It's the reality of spending that often hits in January when the bills begin to arrive," the Debt Advice Foundation official noted.
Mr Rodger went on to advise that "basic essentials" such as utility bills should not be treated as anything but compulsory, but stated that many people seem to be willing to avoid these priorities as their income is taken away by debts.
