To celebrate Kensington’s 20th anniversary, Mortgage Solutions is taking a long look back over the years since its launch in 1995.
This week, it’s 2000.
Round-up
Average house price: £82,188
Base Rate at year-end: 6.0%
House Price inflation: 9.3%
General inflation: 3.0%
Oscar Best Picture Winner: American Beauty
Best-selling album: Parachutes, Coldplay
Must-have Christmas toy: Teksta the robotic dog
Christmas number one: Bob the Builder, Can we fix it?
Mortgage/housing market highlights
The first year of the new Millennium saw the Bank Base Rate stabilise at 6% in February and stay there for the rest of the year, but property prices were anything but stable. The UK housing market was booming and the average home gained £23,000 in value over 12 months. Offset mortgages gained some traction but most borrowers still opted for fixed rates and discounted variables.
The year’s highlights
- January 14 – The Dow Jones Industrial Averagecloses at 11,722.98 (at the peak of the Dot-com bubble).
- March 26 – Vladimir Putin is elected President of Russia.
- April 3– United States vs. Microsoft Corp.: Microsoft is ruled to have violated United States antitrust laws by keeping “an oppressive thumb” on its competitors.
- May 12– The Tate Modern Gallery opens in London.
- July 2 – France defeats Italy 2-1 after extra time in the final of the European Championships, becoming the first team to win the World Cup and European Championships consecutively.
- July 25– Air France Flight 4590, a Concorde aircraft, crashes into a hotel in Gonesse just after takeoff from Paris, killing all 109 aboard and 4 in the hotel.
- August 12 – The Russian submarine Kursk sinks in the Barents Sea during one of the largest Russian naval exercises since the 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union, resulting in the deaths of all 118 men on board.
- September 15 – October 1 – The 2000 Summer Olympics are held in Sydney, Australia.
- November 7 – In London, a criminal gang raids the Millennium Dome to steal the Millennium Star diamond, but police surveillance catches them in the act.
- November 7 – United States presidential election, 2000: Republican Governor of Texas George W. Bush defeats Democratic Vice President Al Gore in the U.S. presidential election but there is a miscount in Florida resulting in a recount of the votes.
…and that was the year that was.
