Money blog: 10 UK towns seeing biggest house price increases (2024)

Aldi has revealed a list of priority London locations for new stores.

The UK's fourth-largest supermarket recently announced plans to open another 100 stores within the M25, creating around 3,500 jobs.

The expansion will come as part of a £500m investment, which will ultimately lead to 1,500 shops across the UK.

Here is Aldi's wish-list of locations in the capital:

• Bromley
• Beckenham
• Richmond
• Walthamstow
• Wanstead
• Winchmore Hill
• Notting Hill
• Chelsea
• Kensington
• Chiswick
• Highbury
• Hackney
• Barnet
  

Property agents are being offered a finder's fee of either 1.5% of a freehold price or 10% of the first year's rent for leasehold sites for recommending a previously unknown location.

The retailer is looking for sites big enough for its standard 20,000 sq ft stores, which need around 100 dedicated parking spaces, as well as locations that can accommodate its Aldi Local store format, which are around 5,000 sq ft.

Rightmove has named Chard, a market town in Somerset, as the new sales hotspot for Great Britain, with the number of agreed sales rocketing by 123% compared with this time in 2023.

It was followed by Hilton in Derbyshire and Padgate in Cheshire, which both saw a 112% rise, while Caerphilly in Wales recorded a 104% increase in house sales.

According to the latest figures from Rightmove, agreed sales have risen by 13% across Britain as a whole when compared with last year.

Detached houses have driven the increase at 17%, while flat sales rose the least at 6%.

ByJames Sillars, business reporter

A strong start for shares on the FTSE 100.

Higher oil and commodity costs were reflected in energy and mining stocks, with retail also doing well.

That was after Next maintained its outlook for the current year after reporting a 5% rise in annual profits.

Its shares rose 2%, with the index as a whole up 1% at 7,737.

Brent crude oil was trading half a cent higher above $86.

It has been at levels recently that are likely to result in further upwards movement at the fuel pumps.

It's seen as an inflation threat as the Bank of England prepares to reveal its latest interest rate decision at midday.

No movement is widely expected - for the fifth consecutive meeting.

That would see Bank rate remain at 5.25%.

The rate-setting committee has previously spoken of worries about the inflation outlook - dashing hopes for an imminent rate cut.

Every Thursday we look at a different savings option, explain the pros and cons, and reveal the best deals on the market (see table below for that).This week we're talking about the top Lifetime ISA accounts. Here's whatSavings Champion founder Anna Boweshas to say...

It's good to see that although the savings market has slowed recently, there are still plenty of inflation-beating accounts available – especially when those accounts offer a tax-free return.

The top Lifetime ISA spot is still taken up by app-only provider moneybox, offering 4.40%. In second place is newcomer Tembo with its Cash Lifetime ISA. This is paying 4.30% - the rate does not include the bonus.

Neither of these providers are banks in their own right – instead they are financial apps that use various partner banks which will change from time to time. So you need to do your research, to check that opening a LISA with either provider will not take you over the Financial Services Compensation limit which is £85,000 per banking licence.

The top online LISA, which is offered by Paragon Bank, is still paying 3.51% - but could be the best choice for those who need to know exactly who their cash is deposited with and would prefer not to use an app.

Introduced in April 2017, the Lifetime ISA (LISA) offers a much-needed boost for younger savers who are looking to save for a deposit on their first home or for retirement.

The LISA is the obvious choice for anyone aged between 18 and 39, as you can deposit up to £4,000 a year and you'll receive a government bonus of 25% on each deposit, which you can keep as long as you use the proceeds to buy your first house – or until you are aged at least 60 as a retirement pot. And the proceeds are tax free.

If you deposited a lump sum of £4,000 a year for five years, you would receive £1,000 bonus in the month following each deposit – and after five years, assuming an interest rate of 4.40% which is currently the best cash LISA rate available, you would have roughly £28,500 – made up of:

• £20,000 personal deposit
• £5,000 government bonus
• £3,500 tax-free interest

There are plenty of rules to watch out for with a LISA, so it's important to know the restrictions as well as the benefits before committing the money. For example, there is a penalty for withdrawing the cash before the age of 60 for anything other than a first home purchase and the LISA must be held for a minimum of 12 months to avoid the charge.

The penalty, if it were to apply, is 25% of the amount withdrawn. Although this would seem to simply be a return of the government bonus, it actually works out that there is an extra penalty of roughly 6.25% that will apply. So, as well as losing the bonus, some of the money deposited would also be taken.

Click here to look at the best Lifetime ISA accounts on Savings Champion

The supermarket shelves are full of chocolate eggs with Easter just 10 days away - but you may have noticed a few differences this year.

New research by consumer champion Which? has found that some popular eggs from brands such as Cadbury, Lint and Maltesers have risen by more than 50% in the space of a year, while others have shrunk in size.

It comes against a backdrop of chocolate prices rising as a whole due to poor weather in West Africa, which produces much of the world's cocoa.

In some of the worst examples of shrinkflation, Which? found that a largeMarsmilk chocolate egg, which weighed 201g in Morrisons and Tesco last month, was actually 252g last year, while theTerry's chocolate egg with mini eggsshrunk from 230g in 2023 to 200g this year at four big-name supermarkets.

ASmarties chocolate orange egg, meanwhile, changed from 226g to 188g at Asda and Tesco.

The Twix milk chocolateEaster egg at Tesco wentfrom 246g to 200g.

Which? found that the Maltesers Truffles Luxury Easter egg 286g saw the largest price rise, from an average of £8 at Waitrose in February last year to £13 this year (a whopping 62.5% increase).

A Lindt 5 Gold Bunny milk chocolate 50g from Asda cost £3.11 on average - up 55.6% from £2 a year ago.

At Tesco, a Ferrero Rocher Golden Easter egg 250g rose from around £10 in 2023 to £15 in 2024. Meanwhile, a Kinder Easter with Surprise 36g from Sainsbury's increased to £2 on average - up 33.3% from £1.50 last year.

The research included regular discounts but excluded any loyalty card prices or multibuy offers.

Ele Clark, Which? retail editor, urged shoppers to ensure they shop around and compare prices per gram to make sure they get the best value for money.

All supermarkets mentioned were contacted for comment, as well as the manufacturers of Mars, Smarties, Terrys and Twix.

Waitrose said it works "incredibly hard" to keep prices down and said the Maltesers egg mentioned above was available for £8.50.

Mars Wrigley, which makesMars, Maltesers and Twix, cited "growing pressures" as the reason behind price rises, while some products have been reduced in size as a "necessary measure" to keep them available to customers.

Nestle said it too had been "experiencing significant cost increases" but price adjustments were necessary for some products.

BySarah Taaffe-Maguire, business reporter

All eyes will be on the Bank of England at midday when its Monetary Policy Committee announces its latest interest rate decision.

They're choosing whether to increase Bank rate (the central or base interest rate) and make borrowing more expensive; to keep them at the current 5.25%; or reduce them to make debt, such as credit card or mortgage bills, cheaper.

It's a topic of big significance to those with savings, loans and especially those who aredue to sign up to a new fixed mortgage orhope to buy a home.

But there's likely to be very little new from the announcement itself.

The economic consensus is the interest rate will be kept where it is for now. No new forecasts will be released, so it will be up to interviews with the Bank governor Andrew Bailey and market reaction to give us some sense of what's to come in future months - that's where today gets interesting.

In August, rates were hiked to their highest level since 2008 after 14 consecutive rises. It was done in an effort to bring down the rate of price rises as official measures showed double digit inflation from September 2022 to March 2023. High energy costs after the invasion of Ukraine made goods across the economy more expensive.

Upped interest rates, with the associated costlier borrowing and greater rewards for savers, can make people spend less which draws money out of the economy and lowers prices. Latest official data arguably shows the policy is working. We found out yesterday inflation dropped to 3.4% in February, the lowest level since September 2021.

At present the markets expect the first fall in rates to be brought about in June with the dropping below 5% in August, according to data provided by the London Stock Exchange Group via Refinitiv. That could all change, depending on what comes out today.

BySarah Taaffe-Maguire, business reporter

A positive market reaction to the news that, while US interest rates are staying where they are for now, we can expect three cuts and cheaper US borrowing costs this year.

Good news from a UK perspective - the pound is up against the dollar following the announcement from the US central bank, known as the Fed.

One pound buys $1.2774, a high not seen since Thursday last week.It means the cost of buying US goods, like imports of oil and gas, is slightly cheaper than this morning.

High interest rates tend to be good for the strength of a country's currency as they encourage overseas investment.

With rate cuts on the cards the dollar weakened, allowing sterling to make gains.

There was no holding back stock performance as shares in the 500 most valuable companies listed on US stock exchanges - the S&P 500 index rose 0.7% and hit a new high.

Elsewhere, the price of oil ticked down as the day wore on after it this morning reached a high not seen since October, $87 a barrel. By evening a barrel of the benchmark Brent crude oil cost $86.

Britons got their clearest hint yet about the answer in a speech by shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves last night.

In a lecture in the City, she committed to sticking with the government's fiscal rules which restrict borrowing.

She said Labour would abide by the rule that debt must be on course to fall as a percentage of GDP within five years.

It's a rolling five-year period - so debt doesn't actually have to fall, just be forecast to.

The rule has been criticised as the current chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, has met it by presuming the 5p fuel duty freeze will end - something that's not seen as politically likely.

On Labour's decision, deputy political editor Sam Coates said: "This is hugely important because it will significantly constrain the amount of money that Labour can borrow after an election, dramatically narrowing the options for higher spending - which some on the Labour left think is worrying."

By Sarah Taaffe-Maguire, business reporter

The US central bank has again opted to hold its base interest rate but paved the way for three cuts this year which would bring down the cost of borrowing 0.75 percentage points in 2024.

The announcement means the Federal Reserve, also known as the Fed, has kept its core interest rate range steady between 5.25 to 5.5% (unlike in the UK, the US rates are a range, rather than a single percentage, because the Fed does not set a specific figure).

The rates-setting body here in the UK, the Bank of England, today came to be in a very similar position to the Fed; official data on the rate of price rises show inflation is down to 3.4%.

Now the UK has joined the US in facing reduced inflation - it's no longer drastically above the monetary policy bodies' 2% target.

Both have kept interest rates high and have the eyes of mortgage holders, market analysts and politicians on them, with the likelihood of a cut constantly being assessed.

The Bank of England will make its next interest rate decision at midday tomorrow.

Economic observers think it will do the same as the Fed and keep rates. They're set to remain at 5.25%.

If you're looking to book a winter break, Thursday morning could be the best time to do it.

EasyJet is releasing millions of flights for 1 December 2024 until 2 March 2025.

It told the Sky News Money blog these flights will go up online by 9am - although they could be released earlier.

So why book now?

Consumer expert Martin Lewis explains that because easyJet uses demand pricing, flights are cheapest when demand is lowest - so the best time to book is the minute the flights are released.

It does mean you may spend your morning refreshing the easyJet website, of course...