The Halifax Bank has released its annual quality of life survey which ranks the best places to live in the UK.

Hart in Hampshire is, by their measure, the ‘best place to live. Followed by Elmbridge, Wokingham, East Cambridgeshire, Brentwood, Wychavon, St. Albans, Maidstone, South Cambridgeshire and then Epsom and Ewell.

So that pretty much takes care of the ‘top ten’ towns you could possibly hope to reside in based on a combination of the following factors using Hart as the shining example of borough desirability:

And here are some other key facts according to the Halifax.

Employment is highest in Maidstone in Kent where the rate is 84.0%, closely followed by the Shetland Islands, (83.8%) and West Somerset (83.7%).

The highest weekly average earnings are in Kensington & Chelsea (£1,521 per week) followed by the City of London (£1,239), Westminster (£1,141) and Elmbridge (£1,127).

The biggest homes  are in Wychavon in  Worcestershire with an average of 7.4 habitable rooms; followed by Derbyshire Dales and Hertsmere (both 7.0).

90% of homes in the Western Isles have central heating, closely followed by Blackburn with Darwen at (89%).

The lowest percentage of vacant properties is in Waveney (0.1%).

Nine out of ten households have  a good level of broadband access (i.e. a download speed of 2Mbps is regarded as the minimum for good broadband service) in one in three of the local authority districts surveyed. In some of the areas in central London, such as the City of London and Kensington & Chelsea, potentially all households have broadband access at this level.

There are only 26 areas across the country where the average house price to earnings ratio is below the UK historical long-term average of 4.0. The lowest ratio is in Pendle in Lancashire (3.5), followed by North Ayrshire and Blaenau Gwent (both 3.6). The highest ratio is in Kensington & Chelsea, where the average price is 12.2 times local annual average earnings.

Traffic flows are lowest in Scotland, which has 8 of the 10 best ranked districts on this measure. The lowest traffic levels are in the Western Isles, the Highlands,  Argyle and Bute, Orkney and Shetland Islands. The Isles of Scilly and Powys are the two areas outside Scotland in the top 10.

The lowest burglary rates per 10,000 households  are in the Western Isles (3.8) followed by  the Orkneys (5.0), West Devon (7.8) and North Norfolk (7.9).

The ten lowest CO2 emissions per person are all in southern England. The lowest emissions are in Tower Hamlets (1.50 tonnes of CO2 per household), followed by Southwark (1.60 tonnes) and Camden (1.68 tonnes).  The national average is 2.21 tonnes per capita.

The lowest population density in Britain is in the Western Isles and the Highlands with just 9 persons per square kilometre. The average for the UK is 257.

The lowest average annual rainfall  (508  mm)  is in Castle Point in Essex.   Eight of the ten  driest districts in the UK are in the East of England; Medway and Barking and Dagenham are the only areas outside the East of England in the top 10.

The sunniest place in the UK is the Isle of Wight where residents enjoy an average of 37.4 hours of sunshine a week. The national average is 29.7 hours.Good health scores most highly in Wokingham, Isles of Scilly, Hart and Surrey Heath in the South East with 95% of households rating themselves in good or fairly good health in all these areas.  Nine of the top ten areas on this measure are in the South East.

Life expectancy is highest in Kensington & Chelsea (85.1 years),  followed by Westminster (83.8 years) and East Dorset (82.0 years). The top ten in this category is dominated by local authority districts in southern England.

Primary school class sizes are smallest in the  Western  Isles (14 pupils), followed  by  Shetland Islands and the Orkneys (both 17). Five of the ten  local  authority districts  with the smallest  average primary school class sizes are in Northern Ireland.

The best GCSE results in England are in Darlington where 92% achieved five or more GCSE results – grades A-C, followed by Hammersmith and Fulham, Sutton, East Dunbartonshire, Shetland Islands, and Kensington and Chelsea (all over 90%).

A pretty comprehensive survey, thanks to the UK’s largest mortgage lender who definitely do not publish this survey every year just for publicity over that otherwise deathly quiet news time that is the Christmas period.

Inflation is at 4%, so the latest figures reveal today.

Ordinarily, interest rates would rise in order to stem this elevated cost of living. Higher money costs equal less spending and therefore lower demand. Consequently prices are not upwardly pressured.

I’m not sure, given the current fragile economic climate, that the Bank of England will vote to raise rates in the near future though.

But if Mr King and his cohorts did hike them to deal with inflationary pressure, it might just be what the housing market needs.

You will probably be shouting at your PC screen at this point ‘Hold on! Higher interest rates mean more expensive mortgages! How is that good for property??’

Bear with me…..my belief is this: There are around one million homes languishing for sale across the UK currently. The average asking price is the SAME as it was in 2007 (Rightmove) despite values having dropped by a typical 15% depending on region (Halifax).

In other words, properties are too expensive and this is partly because estate agents give misleading valuations to perhaps overly optimistic sellers but also because those home owners are servicing mortgages that aren’t costing them much (comparatively).

An interest rate rise would make home loans pricier. And that might just encourage vendors to have to cut their prices to realistic levels so then buyers would actually want to buy them, thus unlocking the current stalemate in the housing market that has resulted in transaction levels hitting a record low.

Bad tasting medicine perhaps but a remedy nonetheless….

A look at the Halifax house price index shows that sold prices of residential properties in the UK dropped 15% between the market peak of 2007 and the end of 2010. This though, is contrasted by Rightmove’s asking price figures which show that ‘for sale’ prices have stayed the same. Exactly the same.

This makes no sense and is exactly why the property market has ‘locked up’ with transaction levels at a lowly half of those seen in 2005/2006 and 2007. Sellers are being unrealistic. And estate agents are not telling the truth on their valuation visits (there’s a shock).

Today, Rightmove have revealed that  sellers’ asking prices have increased AGAIN in January so far by 0.3% over and above December’s.

Bonkers…

…are on the way up. They have been at 0.5% for 22 months and with inflation ever higher the Bank of England is sure to begin increasing soon.

This means higher mortgage payments. It also means (even) lower house prices due to the squeeze that a hike in rates would put on household finances.

Thinking of selling? Do it now…

The property market glitteratti have begun their annual property market forecasts for the year ahead.

Hometrack, the estate agent polling and research company say that values will decline by 2%.

Rightmove, the UK’s largest property advertising portal predicts that asking prices (rather than sale prices achieved) will drop by 5%.

The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors suggests a fall of 2%.

The Halifax says that 2011 will see no change in house prices overall.

The Nationwide Building Society says the same.

They will all, no doubt be as wrong as they always are