— The average cost of moving in Britain has tripled from £2,925 in 1997 to £9,486 today. Research by the website Propertyfinder shows the biggest rises have been in stamp duty, up to £5,009 from £543, and estate-agency fees, up to £3,027 from £1,257. Removal costs climbed to £450 from £376, while lawyers’ fees dropped to £1,000 from £1,257.

— Prices of homes in London rose by 1.8% in March, their biggest monthly increase for four years, says Hometrack, a consultancy analysing data from 4,000 estate agents in England and Wales. Average prices rose in more than 80% of the capital’s postcodes. “The robust London housing market appears to be largely disconnected from the rest of the country,” says Richard Donnell, research director of Hometrack.

— Elsewhere, there are clear signs of a slowdown. Although prices rose 0.8% in both East Anglia and the southeast, most other regions saw little or no growth last month. But Fionnuala Earley, chief economist of Nationwide, says the market is not going into reverse: “Not only are insufficient numbers of homeowners putting their properties on the market, levels of housebuilding continue to undershoot levels of demand.” In England and Wales as a whole, the asking prices of flats have nevertheless risen an average 16.1% in the past year, according to Rightmove, the property website. Prices of terraced houses have grown by 11.9%, detached houses by 11.1% and semis by 8.9%.

— Buy-to-let remains highly popular. Council of Mortgage Lenders figures show the number of mortgaged buy-to-let properties soared from 120,300 at the end of 2000 to 849,900 by the end of 2006. An extra 150,000 buy-to-let mortgages were issued last year alone, despite falling yields.

— British homes are becoming more energy-efficient and cheaper to run, says the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS). It claims new homes are 40% more energy-efficient than those built before 2002, and 70% better than those built before 1990. The RICS says that government targets obliging builders to make all new homes carbon neutral by 2016 are achievable, but that mini wind turbines should not be installed with every new development.

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