fiona davies

Five years ago, Charles and Iona Cole led an extravagant life that many of us cou;d only dream about. Their home was a £2.25 million manor house in the heart of Devon set in 214 acres, with matching luxury cars on the long and windy driveway, not to mention the 84 buy to let properties that made up his portfolio that they owned in the area of Yorkshire.

Louis Walsh has spoken out about the 10 million euros he has lost during the property downturn due to the slump in the economic climate. The X factor judge and music mogul who has six properties around the world which include four homes in Dublin Ireland, an apartment in London and a beautiful house on the beach in Miami, Florida has revealed that they are now worth half the value to what he paid for them.

Homebuyers will now find it harder to obtain a mortgage once rules planned by the Financial Services Authority come into force. Homebuyers will find it harder to qualify because the rules will become more stringent. The way that these will be imposed is through taking a new approach to assessing how much buyers can borrow whilst imposing bans on some types of loans for some customers.

It is widely predicted that property prices will slump by 3% in 2012 which will mean that property prices will drop for five years on the row. Homeowners will find it virtually impossible to sell their home in 2012 with the rise in unemployment, the sluggish economy and the pressure on income all being to blame.

The Royal Wedding memorabilia is everywhere at the moment as people begin to try and cash in on the frenzy surrounding the big day. However there is an opportunity about to arise which will allow someone the opportunity to live in Kate Middleton's childhood home, yours for just £460,000.

Historic houses and buildings all over the country are up for sale due to desperate town halls trying to save money. Hundreds of Historic buildings are being sold off by desperate councils due to the government cuts that are being imposed upon them. Councils are trying to raise extra funds and one of the easiest ways to do this is to sell these buildings that would otherwise be costly to maintain.

The house featured in the first ever episode of Midsommer Murders is up for sale for a cool £2million. Black Park Cottage is a 400 year old house and was a home and office of the Black Park at this time. Black Park is 530 acres of pine woods, heathland and it situated two miles from its neighbour which happens to be Pinewood Studios. It is five miles from Slough which is where Midsommer was based, except it was called Causton in the programme.

Fistral beach in Newquay is one of the most glorious places in the UK and it would seem that if you were house hunting along Pentire Road, the road that runs alongside it, you would not have much choice. This has not been the case over the last three years though, locals have seen abandoned blocks of flats on Pentire Road ever since the property crash, and they are a sad reminder of the boom times.

Prince Charles's plans for a carbon copy of Buckingham Palace have been thrown out by locals opposing the designs. His architects designed the new homes which are to be built on land owned by the Duchy of Cornwall. The plans were for a grand crescent which would look exactly like Buckingham Palace, almost a replica.

Anyone wanting to buy a cheap house in Britain only has to look as far as Burnley. It has some of the cheapest streets in the UK, twelve in fact of out of the top twenty cheapest in Britain. The Lancashire town has properties for sale at just £32,400, these can be found in Angle Street although locals who live there say that it is a great place to live and they would not want to live anywhere else.