This week, it’s 2011.
• Average house price: £163,822
• Base rate at year-end: 0.5%
• House price inflation: 1%
• General inflation: 4.48%
• Oscar Best Picture winner: The King’s Speech
• Best-selling album: 21, Adele
• Must-have Christmas toy: Air Swimmers
• Christmas number one: The Military Wives with Gareth Malone – Wherever you Are
*source: Nationwide
Mortgage and housing market highlights
This was yet another difficult year for mortgage advisers but the vice-like grip of the top six lenders began to loosen slightly for the first time since the crash.
Big building societies like the Nationwide, Yorkshire, Coventry, Skipton and Leeds leapt up the market share league tables and challenger bank Aldermore made it into the top 20 for the first time. ING emerged as the fastest growing UK lender of the last two years.
The ‘prime London effect’ in both wealthy and up-and-coming areas continued to mask falling or negative growth elsewhere in the UK, like the North East which saw -7.3% house price falls this year. Chelsea and Kensington saw rises of just over 10% where the east and west Midlands saw falls of 3.1 and 4.1% respectively.
Gross mortgage lending edged up to £138bn but overall, the depressed state of the market was little cheered by the higher loan-to-value lending finally starting to re-emerge. The tighter state of the lending market continued to drive more and more would-be home buyers into the rental market.
And on a lighter note, Kensington wins Best Specialist Mortgage Lender at the 2011 Your Mortgage Awards.
The year’s highlights
• January 14 – The Arab Spring: The Tunisian government falls after a month of increasingly violent protests; President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali flees to Saudi Arabia after 23 years in power.
• February 22 – March 14 – Uncertainty over Libyan oil output causes crude oil prices to rise 20% over a two-week period following the Arab Spring, causing the 2011 energy crisis.
• March 11 – A 9.0-magnitude earthquake and subsequent tsunami hit the east of Japan, killing 15,840 and leaving another 3,926 missing. Tsunami warnings are issued in 50 countries and territories.
• March 19 – The Arab Spring and the Libyan civil war: after continuing attacks on Libyan rebels by forces in support of leader Muammar Gaddafi, French fighter jets make reconnaissance flights over Libya.
• April 29 – An estimated two billion people watch the wedding of Prince William, Duke of Cambridge and Catherine Middleton at Westminster Abbey in London.
• May 1 – U.S. President Barack Obama announces Osama bin Laden, the founder and leader of the militant group Al-Qaeda, was killed on May 2, during an American military operation in Pakistan.
• May 16 – The European Union agrees to a €78bn rescue deal for Portugal.
• May 21 – Grímsvötn, Iceland’s most active volcano, erupted and caused disruption to air travel in Northwestern Europe.
• June 12 – Arab Spring: Thousands of Syrians flee to Turkey as Syrian troops lay siege to Jisr ash-Shugur.
• July 22 – Anders Behring Breivik kills 77 people in twin terrorist attacks in Norway.
• August – Stock exchanges worldwide suffer heavy losses due to the fears of contagion of the European sovereign debt crisis
• August – NASA announces that its Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has captured photographic evidence of possible liquid water on Mars during warm seasons.
• August 20 – 28 – Arab Spring and the Libyan civil war: In the Battle of Tripoli, Libyan rebels take control of the nation’s capital, effectively overthrowing the government of Muammar Gaddafi.
• September 17 – Occupy Wall Street protests begin in the United States.
• October 20 – Arab Spring and the Libyan civil war: Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi is killed in Sirte, effectively ending the war.
• October – Basque separatist militant organisation ETA declares an end to its 43-year campaign of political violence, which has killed over 800 people since 1968.
• October 27 – After an emergency meeting in Brussels, the European Union announces an agreement to tackle the European sovereign debt crisis which includes a write downof 50% of Greek bonds, a recapitalisation of European banks and an increase of the bailout fund of the European Financial Stability Facility totaling to €1 trillion.
• December 15 – The United States formally declares an end to the Iraq War.
..And that was the year that was 2011.
