Bridget OConnell

Bank of England has brought an end to six years of cheap funding schemes.

Average prices leapt 20.5% last year, prompting warnings of a property bubble waiting to burst.

The International Monetary Fund warns that houses have increasingly become a commodity like any other, exploited by global investors in the relentless hunt for high-yielding assets.

David Baker and Julian Frost ran Abbott and Frost estate agents in Burnham-on-Sea, one of five agencies that secretly agreed that their commission fees would be fixed at 1.5%.

Experts are warning that many retailers will have to radically change this year to survive, after several high street brands were forced to close stores or issue profit warnings in…

Britain is desperate to relieve a housing shortage, but plans to build on “greenbelt” land around London have angered many of Theresa May’s supporters.

The clothes seller closed 11 stores in the year to January and posted an underlying operating loss of £2.1m.

The extreme weather conditions in March gave online expenditure a boost.

Halifax said prices rose by 1.5% last month compared with February. This exceeded the 0.2% figure that economists had been expecting and was the biggest rise since August.

There are now more than 24,000 coffee shops, with forecasters anticipating continued growth.