Aberdeen is the most cost-effective place in Britain to get on the property ladder while London is the best location for renting rather than buying, a property website has found.

Someone buying a property in Aberdeen with a 10% deposit can expect to be better off than if they had rented after just one year of home ownership, according to Zoopla.co.uk.

But in London, it would take a projected 18 years for someone with a 10% deposit to be better off financially compared with the situation if they had rented, the website calculated.

Zoopla also named Dundee, Glasgow, Cambridge, Edinburgh

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Nearly half a million UK households are still in negative equity - meaning their homes are worth less than the mortgages on them, figures show.

There is wide regional variation, with 41% of borrowers in Northern Ireland - 68,000 homeowners - in negative equity at the end of 2013, the figures from mortgage group HML show, In north-east England and Cumbria the figure is 16%.But in London, where house prices have surged, only 1% are in negative equity.

That is actually worse than six months previously, when the figure was 14%, presumably tracking a further decline in house prices in the region

House prices rose by 0.6% in February, a 9.4% increase on the same month in 2013, according to the Nationwide Building Society.

The annual rate of growth is the fastest for almost four years. It puts the average price of a UK home at £177,846, which is still almost 5% below the 2007 peak.

Meanwhile the average house price in London has risen to £410,000, according to the Land Registry for England and Wales. Its latest monthly report said London prices were rising fast - up 2.1% in January - which left them 11% higher than a year ago.

The Nationwide said the rise in sales and prices were being

A lot of you probably saw this report in yesterday's news, but we thought it interesting (if not highly amusing), so thought we'd share the report from MSN again.....

"Streets with rude-sounding names like Crotch Crescent, Turkey Cock Lane, Bell End and The Knob could turn out to be a haven for property hunters looking to snap up a bargain, research suggests.

The study for website NeedaProperty.com looked for evidence of what impact living in a street with a suggestive name could have on the value of your home. Properties on streets with innuendo-laden names were found to be around one fifth

A tenement block used by mill workers in the conservation village of New Lanark is to be restored after being awarded Heritage Lottery Fund cash.

Double Row, the last derelict tenement row in the 18th century village, is part of a £1.6m project, which the fund has agreed to support. The grant means they can restore seven of the tenements for residential use. The eighth, Museum Stair, will become a 3D visitor attraction.

New Lanark in South Lanarkshire, founded in 1785, became famous as a model industrial community under the "enlightened" management of Robert Owen in the early 19th century.

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The average price of a house across the UK has hit £250,000 for the first time, according to official figures. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said the figure was reached at the end of 2013. The news suggests that tens of thousands more buyers will be paying stamp duty at the 3% rate, which starts at the £250,000 threshold.

However other measures, such as those produced by the Halifax and the Nationwide, suggest prices are lower. Their latest price indices put average prices at about £175,000.

Overall, the ONS said, house prices were now 1.6% higher than in the pre-financial crisis

We found this a very interesting read and thought you might too.  It is a a detailed article on property valuation written by the Romans Group Managing Director Peter Coles:

The UK economy is starting to show signs of recovery but what does this mean for the housing market? Romans explored results from the last few years, focusing on property valuations and what changes there have been specifically across Berkshire, Hampshire and Surrey.

Property values depend on the quality of a house or flat, its location and more importantly what a potential buyer will pay for it. There is no doubt that

Graham Penny Auctions’ first sale of the year has secured a 70% success rate and more than £1.3m in sales for its clients. The auction saw 27 residential and mixed use property and development land lots go under the hammer in front of a packed auction room of excited bidders.

Newly appointed Vejay Pal, senior valuer at Graham Penny Auctions, said: "There was a really positive attitude in the auction room this month with many of our vendors achieving sale prices above their expectations and several buyers getting their target property under their maximum budget."

Amongst the properties selling