This could not be truer than in London, where renting works out to be 31% more expensive than the cost of ownership, leaving renters paying £6,888 annually on average compared with owners.

Rents have soared due to high demand in the sector, as would-be buyers require large deposits and job security, have struggled to get on the property ladder. Nicholas Leeming, business development director of Zoopla.co.uk, said potential buyers had been unable to take advantage of the cheap deals on offer as they struggled to get access to a mortgage.

Financial Services Authority said this week that less than 2pc of all mortgages approved this year were for borrowers with less than a 10pc deposit. He said: “The shortage of financing, especially for first-time buyers, has pushed demand for rental property through the roof, but for those lucky enough to be in a position to get a mortgage, there may never be a better time to buy.”

Buying a home Milton Keynes was the most cost-effective compared with renting, leaving renters typically £2,436 a year worse off.

So if you are thinking of selling to move into rented accommodation you may want to think again. But should you decide to move house and require a house removal company, do not hesitate to contact Woltons Removals in Bedford, Bedforshire for local, national and international removals. Wolton Removals provide an extensive range of removal services, tailored to suit your needs and budget:

• Man and Van Hire
• Free Packing Boxes
• Local Removals
• National Removals
• International Removals
• Business / Office Removals
• Packing Service
• Storage

Establish a date for moving, usually the completion date – Try to avoid Fridays and Bank Holiday weekends as these can work out to be more expensive when booking a Removal Company due to demand.

When booking a Removal Company, check they are insured and established, preferably with references from previous customers, check online.

Be realistic about your requirements – Some Removal Companies offer a packing service and will provide free packing boxes, like Wolton Removals; remember that anything you pack yourself may not be covered by the removal firm’s insurance, check first. If you are planning to transport any precious items yourself, check these are covered when in transit by your contents insurance.

Start as soon as possible by having a clear out of cupboards, wardrobes, drawers, garage and attic – allow plenty of time for this as looking through photos and reading old letters can take longer than you think! These items can be boxed, re-cycled or binned a couple of months before the move.

Start using things up, like frozen or perishable foods and cleaning supplies.

Go to your local post office and fill out a change-of-address form, or do it online at www.usps.gov.
Inform your neighbours of your new address and to look out for mail after you’ve moved.

If you are thinking of fitting new carpets to the house you are moving to, it may be advisable to wait until after the move, there will be a lot of traffic through the house on the day of the move, and it may be raining.

You may need to put some items into Storage – Ask your removal company for details. Insurance can be arranged through the storage firm or through your household insurance.

One Month Before

Notify relevant parties of your move and new address:

• Telephone and Internet service providers

• Utility companies and arrange meter readings

• Contents and Building Insurance

• TV Licensing, you won’t be covered at your new address. Simply log on to tvlicensing.co.uk or call 0844 800 6722 and follow the instructions.

• Banks, building societies, pension provider and any company you have loans or investments with.

• Credit card and store card companies.

• Inland Revenue – see hmrc.gov.uk for a list of offices.

• Local council regarding council tax

• Subscriptions to magazines, charities, etc.

• Employers

• Schools

• DVLA – It is a legal requirement to renew your driving licence and vehicle registration document

• Register with a Dentist and Doctors Surgery and arrange for your medical records to be sent on or obtain copies of them yourself.

Two Weeks Before

Time to finish packing – Start with items you seldom use like games and out of season clothes. Make sure all your boxes are labelled clearly with the destination on the top of the box for the removal company, for example: ‘Garage’ or ‘Bedroom 1’, you may want to write the general contents on the side of the box for yourself.

Notify friends and relatives with change of address cards.

One Week Before

If your refrigerator is moving with you, make sure to empty, clean, and defrost it at least 24 hours before moving day.

Reconfirm the moving company’s arrival time and other specifics and make sure you have prepared exact, written directions and a map if necessary to your new home for the staff. Include contact information, such as your mobile phone number.

If you haven’t already arranged to pay your mover with a credit card, get a money order, cashier’s check, or cash for payment and tip. If the staff has done a good job, around 10 percent of the total fee is a good tip. Don’t forget that refreshments are always appreciated.

Organise a list of what you will need as soon as you arrive, for example: kettle, mugs, tea, coffee, milk, glasses, plates, cutlery, tea towels, towels, soap, light bulbs, toiletries, toys, clothes for that evening and the following day, have the boxes ready to take with you in your car.

Moving Day

Make sure the removals lorry that shows up is from the company you hired! Scams are not unheard-of. All you packing should be complete, labelled and ready to move into the lorry or van.

Finally, before you leave, have a last look around to check there is nothing left in the garage, attic or garden. Hand in the Key and let the movers use their experience to complete the job.

Wolton Removals meet the above critria to ensure your house move is streamlined and stress free.

George Osborne announced a new scheme to help out buyers having trouble getting their hands on deposits and hence houses. Under the Firstbuy direct scheme you have to save up a 5% deposit. Then the government and a housebuilder will both put up another 10% for you, via an equity loan on a very low interest rate. That gives you a total of 25% – enough to make sure you can get a well-priced mortgage. According to various employees of estate agency Kinleigh, Folkard & Hayward this is “great news” for property companies and “great news” for first time buyers.

I’ll go with the first – any buyer is a good buyer for a house builder these days. But the second? No. House prices are too high and they will come down – in real terms at the very, very least. So it doesn’t make any sense for the young to buy them now. They are much better off saving and waiting regardless of the various bribes chucked out by interested parties.

So why should the budget be making them happy? Because it has at a stroke made investing in what they really need – good quality rental portfolios – a much more attractive thing for big investors to do. Until now, if investors have bought groups of flats, they had to pay stamp duty as one tax on the lot. So if they bought five £200,000 flats together they had to pay 5% of the purchase price away – £50,000. That was pretty off putting.

Now they won’t have to do that any more. Instead they will pay stamp duty based on the median value of the properties in the portfolio, so 1% (the rate on properties that cost below £250,000) or £10,000. That makes a big difference – to them because it makes investing more likely to give them the yields they need, and to non-home owners because it means they will end up with more choice in the rental market.

Right now the rental sector in the UK is dominated by buy-to-let investors. This isn’t good enough. Some buy-to-let landlords are great. Some are awful. But most suffer from lack of scale one way or another (they don’t have full-time handymen at their beck and call) and from cash-flow problems: when the purchase of a new boiler requires several months’ worth of rent to be set aside and there is a mortgage to be paid, not very many tenants get new boilers. That’s why 40% of the privately rented property in the UK is considered substandard.

However that aside, the buy-to-let sector just can’t provide for the fast-rising number of people needing quality rental property in the UK; they aren’t big enough and they can’t get the finance to ever be big enough. For that we need institutional investors. Cutting their stamp duty bills is a good way to start luring them in.

The asking price of an average home climbed £58 a day in the last month, an jump of 0.8 per cent to £231,790.

But owners of terraced homes are being squeezed out of the market as first-time buyers are unable to move because of high deposits demanded by lenders. The March Rightmove House Price Index shows that asking prices have risen 0.9 per cent over the past 12 months.

Miles Shipside, a director of Rightmove, said: “The falling time on the market and stable spring stock levels would normally point to a healthy housing market. However, this year’s celebrations will be severely muted by the knots the market has found itself tied up in.”

He added: “The market is still restrained by low transaction volumes and restricted liquidity.” However, in a positive sign, the average time a property is on the market reduced to 89 days, from 98, in the month to 12 March.

But the housing market is now being driven by the need for larger deposits, leading to greater liquidity for more expensive property types, which appeal to a wealthier demographic. Meanwhile, first-time buyers and sellers of terraced homes are struggling. The property website says the number of terraced properties coming on to the market is down by almost a third – 31 per cent – since March 2007.

“Terraces’ target audience of would-be first-time buyers are stuck in rented accommodation, with 30 per cent of them in our recent survey expecting to stay there for three years or more,” Mr Shipside said.