This week, it’s 2004.
Round-up
• Average house price: £152,653
• Average standard variable mortgage rate: 6.15%
• Base rate at year-end: 4.75%
• House Price Inflation: 12.7%
• General inflation: 2.5%
• Oscar Best Picture Winner: Lord of the Rings, The Return of the King
• Best-selling album: Scissor Sisters, Scissor Sisters
• Must-have Christmas toy: Robosapien (robotic dog)
• Christmas number one: Band Aid 20: Do they know it’s Christmas?
Mortgage/housing market highlights
2004 was the fourth year of double digit house price inflation overall, but it was a year of two halves: the first five months saw average residential property prices increase by 11.4%, but between July and December that slowed sharply to a mere 1.2% rise.
In March, David Miles published his report on the potential for developing longer-term fixed rate mortgages in the UK market.
And a major change to the mortgage market occurred when the Financial Services Authority took responsibility for this previously unregulated sector on October 31st – known in the industry as M-Day – and issued the Mortgage Conduct of Business rules (MCOB). From this day on the FSA would regulate mortgage lending, administration, advice and the arranging of homeloans, with the exception of buy to let.
Also in 2004, Kensington set up its first business development unit telephone team.
The year’s highlights
January
January 26 – A whale explodes in Tainan City, Taiwan, while being transported through the town to a university for an autopsy
February
February 4 – Facebook launches.
March
March 25 – British prime minister Tony Blair visits Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, in return for the dismantling of Libya’s weapons of mass destruction programme in December 2003 (the first time a major Western leader had visited the nation in several decades).
May
May 1 – The largest expansion to date of the European Union takes place, extending the Union by 10 member-states: Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Hungary, Malta and Cyprus.
July
July 4 – Groundbreaking for the Freedom Tower begins at Ground Zero in New York City.
The Greek national football teamwins the 2004 UEFA European Championship in Portugal.
September
September 1 – Chechen terrorists take 1,128 people hostage, mostly children, in a school in the Beslan school hostage crisis. The hostage-takers demand the release of Chechen rebels imprisoned in neighbouring Ingushetia and the independence of Chechnya from Russia.
October
October 29 – European heads of state sign in Rome the Treaty and Final Act, establishing the first European Constitution.
November
November 2 – United States presidential election, 2004: Republican incumbent President George W. Bush is declared the winner over his Democratic challenger, U.S. Senator John F. Kerry, in a close election.
December
December 14 – The world’s tallest bridge, the Millau bridge over the River Tarn in the Massif Central mountains, France, is opened by President Jacques Chirac.
December 26 – One of the worst natural disasters in recorded history hits Southeast Asia, when the strongest earthquake in 40 years, measuring 9.3 on the Richter scale, hits the entire Indian Ocean region, which generates an enormous tsunami that crashes into the coastal areas of a number of nations including Thailand, India, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Malaysia, Myanmar, Bangladesh, and Indonesia. The official death toll in the affected countries stands at 186,983 while more than 40,000 people are still missing.
And that was the year that was 2004…
