This week, it’s 2012.
- Average house price: £162,262
- Base rate at year-end: 0.5%
- House price inflation: -1%
- General inflation: 2.84%
- Oscar Best Picture winner: The Artist
- Best-selling album: Our version of events, Emeli Sande
- Must-have Christmas toy: Furby (new version with app)
- Christmas number one: He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother -The Justice Collective
Mortgage and housing market highlights
The UK mortgage market began to recover shakily in 2012, with mortgage lending and property transactions increasing gradually. However, with worries over Greece and the instability of the eurozone looming large, the cost of mortgage funding to lenders showed no signs of falling. That said, with Bank Base rate remaining at 0.5% for the whole year, many mortgage borrowers enjoyed relatively low rates in historic terms. However, with average property values falling slightly and very few lenders offering higher loan-to-value mortgages, thousands of homeowners remained trapped on their existing deals – so-called ‘mortgage prisoners’.
The government’s NewBuy scheme was introduced in March, aimed at helping buyers to purchase new build property and encouraging developers to build more.
The Financial Services Authority’s Mortgage Market Review, which originated in 2009, culminated in October 2012 with recommendations which would be turned into rules and implemented in April 2014.
Canadian banker Mark Carney was sworn in as the governor of the Bank of England in November 2012, and promised to issue ‘forward guidance’ pre-empting any future change to interest rates.
Also this year, Kensington won the title of Best Intermediary-Only Lender at the What Mortgage Awards.
The year’s highlights
- February 6 – The Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II marks the 60th anniversary of her accession to the thrones of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and the 60th anniversary of her becoming Head of the Commonwealth.
- February 21 – Greek government-debt crisis: Eurozone finance ministers reach an agreement on a second, €130bn Greek bailout.
- April 26 – Former Liberian President Charles Taylor is found guilty on 11 counts of aiding and abetting war crimes and crimes against humanity during the Sierra Leone Civil War.
- June 24 – Lonesome George, the last known individual of the Pinta Island tortoise subspecies, dies in Galápagos National Park, thus making the subspecies extinct.
- July 4 – CERN announces the discovery of a new particle with properties consistent with the Higgs boson after experiments at theLarge Hadron Collider.
- July 27 – August 12 – The 2012 Summer Olympics are held in London, England, United Kingdom.
- October 14 – Austrian skydiver Felix Baumgartner becomes the first person to break the sound barrier without any machine assistance during a record space dive out of the Red Bull Stratos helium-filled balloon from 24 miles (39 kilometers) over Roswell, New Mexico in the United States
- November 29 – The UN General Assembly approves a motion granting Palestine non-member observer state status.
- December 8 – In Qatar, the UN Climate Change Conference agrees to extend the Kyoto Protocol until 2020…
…and that was the year that was, 2012.
