Tread carefully in the mortgage market

Tim Bennett rounds up this week’s personal finance news, including the reality behind the rising housing-market figures, and how to avoid getting fleeced on rental car charges.

The property bulls are out in force again. The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (Rics) this week reported that in April a majority of their members saw a rise in house prices for the first time since June 2010.

According to property website Rightmove, the number of house hunters has hit its highest level for three and a half years. The reasons? Rock-bottom interest rates and headlines about government schemes such as Help to Buy', which are designed to help new buyers onto the property ladder.

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Tim graduated with a history degree from Cambridge University in 1989 and, after a year of travelling, joined the financial services firm Ernst and Young in 1990, qualifying as a chartered accountant in 1994.

He then moved into financial markets training, designing and running a variety of courses at graduate level and beyond for a range of organisations including the Securities and Investment Institute and UBS. He joined MoneyWeek in 2007.