Latest news with #YahooFinanceUK
Yahoo
7 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
UK sellers offer £16,000 discount on average to secure house sale
Homes are selling for an average of £16,000 below asking price as sellers try to secure a sale in a buyers' market. The UK housing market is experiencing its most active May since the pandemic boom of 2021, amid improved mortgage affordability and a surge in supply, according to Zoopla. However, while buyer interest has returned, sellers are being forced to temper their expectations. The average home is currently being sold for £16,000 below the asking price, a discount of around 3%. Changes in how mortgage affordability is assessed are fuelling buyers' return, with purchasers now able to borrow up to 20% more than they could earlier in the year. This has helped counter the effect of higher interest rates, which caused a fall in transactions through 2022 and 2023 when mortgage rates briefly hit 6%. Sarah Coles, a columnist at Yahoo Finance UK and head of personal finance at Hargreaves Lansdown, said: 'There are now plenty of [mortgage] deals priced at under 4%, which opens up affordability for so many more buyers.' Average house prices have risen 1.6% over the past 12 months to £268,250 — an increase of £4,330. Despite growing demand, price growth remains modest by historical standards, amid the lingering impact of inflation on household finances. Read more: Lenders push under 4% deals but mortgages set to rise amid inflation jump The most substantial gains are being seen in the North West of England, where employment growth and relative affordability is driving price rises. Blackburn leads with annual price growth of 5.8%, followed by Wigan (4.4%), Birkenhead (4.1%), and Liverpool (3%). Manchester posted a 2.5% increase. Martin Bennett, owner of Crown Estates and Letting Agents in Blackburn, said: 'Business is booming, with increased demand for properties both at the lower and top end of the market. This is reflected in house prices, with an entry-level property now averaging £75,000, up from around £50,000 two years ago. 'From my experience, properties that are priced correctly are going under offer within two weeks of being listed. It's not uncommon to have 10 or more viewings on the first day.' Scotland is also outperforming the national average, with prices up 2.9%, although Aberdeen remains an outlier with a 1.4% annual decline amid weaker economic conditions tied to the oil and gas sector. By contrast, southern regions are seeing an increase in supply and relatively subdued price growth. The number of homes for sale has risen 21% in the South West, 17% in London, and 15% in the South East. Price growth across these areas remains below 1%, with affordability concerns also limiting further gains. According to the latest Zoopla House Price Index, the number of sales agreed in May is at its highest level in four years, on the back of a 13% year-on-year increase in homes listed for sale. Read more: Odds of more Bank of England interest rate cuts fall as food inflation rises "More homes for sale means more buyers looking to move home,' said Richard Donnell, executive director at Zoopla. 'This, coupled with more attractive mortgage deals and changes to how lenders assess affordability, is supporting an increase in the number of sales being agreed. 'Sellers and buyers need to adopt different tactics based on where they live across the UK; however, all sellers need to keep their feet on the ground and be realistic on pricing expectations." Zoopla forecasts continued momentum in sales in the second half of 2025, with national home values expected to end the year around 2% higher than they began.
Yahoo
25-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
'Proving people wrong on our plastic solution is my boldest achievement'
Insiya Jafferjee has always taken an ambitious approach to engineering — ever since she made robots swim across the bathtub as a child. Fast forward to her burgeoning business career and, last month, she received a Veuve Clicquot Bold Woman Award at the Royal Opera House for her achievements at Shellworks, a London-based start-up which turns bacteria into biodegradable materials and performs like plastic. Read More: 'Why we set up a sustainable mobile operator to save people money' Standing on stage to receive her award, which celebrates female entrepreneurs of the future, she noted how Madame Clicquot had revolutionised an age-old industry in champagne making and why her company had similar aspirations. 'We're really trying to take on an industry that hasn't been disrupted and doesn't want to be disrupted,' the 33-year-old tells Yahoo Finance UK. 'And you kind of need that naivety outside to be able to do it.' The Bold Woman judges said they were impressed by Jafferjee and her co-founder Amir Afshar's commitment to building a company that had significant scale since launching in 2019. It has already replaced 40 tonnes of plastic and 1.2 million units of packaging and is on track for £4.5m in revenue in 2025. 'We are very ambitious and we have been quite ruthless about it,' she added. 'People often doubt that what we do is even possible. Proving them wrong at every stage has been my boldest and bravest achievement.' The company name was born out of initially extracting shellfish waste into a versatile, biodegradable bioplastic. However the founders, who met at Imperial College, realised from the outset it would be hard to scale and made the first of several pivots into creating the world's first biodegradable material that is durable enough to withstand heat and humidity. Vivomer, says Jafferjee, is the perfect plastic replacement. A polymer grown by microorganisms that breaks down naturally in any environment, it also has a longer shelf life. Nature's answer to plastic, adds Jafferjee. 'When you look at the fundamental technology, you are able to grow a polymer in the cell of a microorganism and you kind of scale that up using fermentation, similar to what we do for food,' she says. Read More: The life lesson behind a 335-year-old funeral business? 'Never sleep on an argument' 'What is amazing is that material, when you take it out of the cell, behaves just like a plastic. But when you put it back into a natural environment, that could be a soil, marine or landfill, it can be degraded by the same microorganisms. 'Amir and I would always say, 'Wouldn't it be amazing if you had a material that did everything that you wanted plastic to do, but only when you threw it away, it would degrade'. When we found something like this, we really tried to understand why it hasn't been scaled because it is really the true solution to plastic.' Making materials from shellfish waste saw unique headlines which left the start-up fielding several hundred enquiries a day. In 2023, they had also around 200 largely smaller brand customers in its pipeline and paused most of their operations. Shellworks, which employs around 20 staff, then spent six weeks calling every industry to gauge where it could pivot and accrue faster close rates. 'I don't know anything other than trying to do like 200 million units in 12 months right out of the gate and very high quality,' admits Jafferjee. Hailing from Sri Lanka, resilience has also played its part in being able to deal with risk and pressure in business — the business suffered a fire in 2021 and had to restart operations by purchasing machines at auction — and leveraging her skill set. 'The environment itself forces you to be quite resilient because we've always gone through hardship and grew up during a war, the economy is always on and off and nothing is ever certain,' she says. Read More: Meet the company that finds 'must-haves' to make everyday life easier As is Jafferjee's wont, she has focused on fast growth thanks to a background in large-scale manufacturing and operations, having interned at Ford (F) and worked at Apple (AAPL) for nearly three years before moving to London and setting up Shellworks. 'I used to have this frustration with Apple where they have such incredible people, but I always felt like we're leveraging these people to make a product versus being able to do something that's really world-changing.' Shellworks still had to overcome scepticism as to whether their production was 'truly green', but they now partner with major retailers including Tesco (TSCO.L) and Boots and count companies such as Wild Cosmetics, which was purchased by Unilever (ULVR.L) recently, as a client. The latter could also be a game-changer for Shellworks as it aims to hit £10m revenue come 2026, having received around £7.5m in funding from global investors. 'I really do think it is scale that enables us to actually truly compete with petrochemical plastic, because they operate on such a great magnitude than we do,' says Jafferjee. 'I think a lot of people know for a long time that plastics have kind of been vilified in terms of consumers hating it, it's a material and everyone wants to get rid of it." The entrepreneur says that Shellworks remains naive and sometimes overestimates what it can achieve as a biotech start-up. Yet optimism abounds, just as her Bold Future award showcases. 'But we always shoot for the moon and then hope that we can meet it,' she adds. Read more: Meet the 'jokers from London' who sold 100,000 blocks of butter in first 10 weeks 'My sofa took six months to arrive — so I built a £20m business' 'I paid myself £4 an hour to get my Rollr deodorant off the ground'Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
16-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Can the US and China maintain progress on trade talks? Yahoo Finance readers have their say
Stocks have rallied this week after the US and China agreed to temporarily cut tariffs on each other's imports, marking a de-escalation in trade tensions. US Treasury secretary Scott Bessent said on Monday morning that the US and China had agreed to lower their tariffs on each other's imports by 115% for 90 days, following negotiations in Switzerland. The move lowers US reciprocal tariffs on Chinese goods from 145%, to 30% and cuts China's retaliatory duties from 125% to 10%. Investor optimism around the agreement has eased economic concerns and driven markets higher throughout the week. The S&P 500 (^GSPC) is up 4.7% over the past five days, at the time of writing, while the tech-focused Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) has advanced 6.8% in that time. The UK's FTSE 100 (^FTSE) is 1.2% in the green over the past five days and the pan-European STOXX 600 (^STOXX) is up 1.7%. Wall Street opened higher on Friday, after president Donald Trump said that the US would unilaterally impose new tariff rates for a number of countries "over the next two to three weeks". Read more: Five 'buy' rated European travel stocks Trump said his administration cannot negotiate trade deals with all countries at once due to limited capacity. 'I think we're going to be very fair. But it's not possible to meet the number of people that want to see us,' Trump said during a meeting with business executives in the United Arab Emirates. While Monday's agreement marked a de-escalation in tensions between the US and China, the nature of a longer-term agreement is still uncertain. Mark Williams, chief Asia economist at Capital Economics, said in a note on Monday that the "US still has much higher tariffs on China than on other countries and still appears to be trying to rally other countries to introduce restrictions of their own on trade with China. In these circumstances, there is no guarantee that the 90-day truce will give way to a lasting ceasefire." Earlier in the week, we asked Yahoo Finance UK readers if they believed that the two countries would continue to make progress on trade talks. We received 215 votes, with 46% of respondents believing that they would, while 39% disagreed and 15% were undecided on the matter. Read more: Delay inheritance tax changes until 2027, ministers urged UK economy grows 0.7% in first quarter of the year Savers making costly 'bad decisions' around pensions as 15 million risk retirement povertyError while retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data
Yahoo
16-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Can the US and China maintain progress on trade talks? Yahoo Finance readers have their say
Stocks have rallied this week after the US and China agreed to temporarily cut tariffs on each other's imports, marking a de-escalation in trade tensions. US Treasury secretary Scott Bessent said on Monday morning that the US and China had agreed to lower their tariffs on each other's imports by 115% for 90 days, following negotiations in Switzerland. The move lowers US reciprocal tariffs on Chinese goods from 145%, to 30% and cuts China's retaliatory duties from 125% to 10%. Investor optimism around the agreement has eased economic concerns and driven markets higher throughout the week. The S&P 500 (^GSPC) is up 4.7% over the past five days, at the time of writing, while the tech-focused Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) has advanced 6.8% in that time. The UK's FTSE 100 (^FTSE) is 1.2% in the green over the past five days and the pan-European STOXX 600 (^STOXX) is up 1.7%. Wall Street opened higher on Friday, after president Donald Trump said that the US would unilaterally impose new tariff rates for a number of countries "over the next two to three weeks". Read more: Five 'buy' rated European travel stocks Trump said his administration cannot negotiate trade deals with all countries at once due to limited capacity. 'I think we're going to be very fair. But it's not possible to meet the number of people that want to see us,' Trump said during a meeting with business executives in the United Arab Emirates. While Monday's agreement marked a de-escalation in tensions between the US and China, the nature of a longer-term agreement is still uncertain. Mark Williams, chief Asia economist at Capital Economics, said in a note on Monday that the "US still has much higher tariffs on China than on other countries and still appears to be trying to rally other countries to introduce restrictions of their own on trade with China. In these circumstances, there is no guarantee that the 90-day truce will give way to a lasting ceasefire." Earlier in the week, we asked Yahoo Finance UK readers if they believed that the two countries would continue to make progress on trade talks. We received 215 votes, with 46% of respondents believing that they would, while 39% disagreed and 15% were undecided on the matter. Read more: Delay inheritance tax changes until 2027, ministers urged UK economy grows 0.7% in first quarter of the year Savers making costly 'bad decisions' around pensions as 15 million risk retirement povertySign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
05-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
How Trump and Melania meme coins are performing after 100 days
In the first 100 days of Donald Trump's return to the White House, two politically charged memecoins — Official Trump ($TRUMP) (TRUMP-OFFICIAL-USD) and Melania Meme ($MELANIA) (MELANIA-OFFICIAL-USD) — have emerged as unexpected focal points at the intersection of retail speculation and partisan fandom. Both tokens launched on the weekend before Trump's January 20 inauguration, and quickly caught fire across crypto forums and political media alike. As the US president marks his hundredth day back in office, Yahoo Finance UK examines how these so-called "politifi" tokens have performed — and what their trajectories reveal about the evolving fusion of crypto, celebrity, and power. Read more: Crypto live prices As of the time of writing, the Official Trump memecoin appears relatively stable. After peaking during early trading on Thursday, $TRUMP is trading around $13.23, up 3.23%. The $MELANIA token has climbed 5.28% to approximately $0.422, according to data from CoinGecko. In the weeks that followed the inauguration, $TRUMP has surged into the top 40 cryptocurrencies by market cap, before stabilising in a volatile trading band between $13 and $14. By day 100 of Trump's second term in office, $TRUMP had gained approximately 30% over the previous month — holding firm in the face of mounting media scrutiny and regulatory concerns. Meanwhile, $MELANIA has seen a modest rebound from its February lows, though it remains well below the euphoric highs it hit shortly after launch. The latest surge in the Official Trump memecoin's price was triggered by a high-profile announcement on 23 April, when the Trump campaign unveiled an exclusive event for top $TRUMP holders. Published on the campaign-affiliated website, the announcement billed the occasion as 'the most EXCLUSIVE INVITATION in the world,' a gala dinner with President Donald Trump on May 22 at Trump National Golf Club in Washington, D.C." "Eligibility is strictly limited to the top 220 holders of the $TRUMP token, with the top 25 wallets granted an ultra-VIP experience that includes a private reception with the president and a guided White House tour." Within hours, $TRUMP surged over 50%, adding more than $100m to its market capitalisation as investors scrambled for a spot at what some dubbed 'the presidential table.' The stunt sparked a frenzy across crypto trading communities, but also reignited a backlash in Washington. Democratic lawmakers including senators Elizabeth Warren and Adam Schiff denounced the event as a blatant 'pay-to-play' scheme, accusing the Trump campaign of monetising access to public office. Attention is now shifting to broader policy signals. According to analysts at Bitfinex, crypto investors are closely monitoring the administration's rhetoric for any explicit mention of a strategic crypto reserve, deregulatory initiatives aimed at unlocking capital flows into US-based digital asset platforms, or language that positions bitcoin as a pillar of America's long-term financial infrastructure. Even in the absence of concrete policy moves, the analysts noted that a tone emphasising institutional legitimacy — or framing crypto through the lens of economic nationalism — could further entrench bitcoin, and the wider cryptocurrency market, within the macro-political narrative, enhancing its appeal as a sovereign-aligned store of value. "Simultaneously, there's been a meaningful decline in cryptocurrency exchange deposits, we are at multi-week lows for the metric," the analysts said. "This suggests reduced selling pressure and an uptick in conviction-driven custody behaviour for bitcoin and the wider crypto market." Read more: Why pension funds are buying bitcoin What we know about Elon Musk's controversial blockchain vision for US How AI could change the internetSign in to access your portfolio
