How students can buy a £400,000 home with zero deposit

A building society is offering 100% mortgages to 18-year-olds while at university. Spoiler: you’ll need wealthy parents

Fancy literally lording it over your college flatmates? A growing number of building societies are offering deals that let young adults buy their university home and pay the monthly mortgage with the rent they charge other students.

This week the Vernon building society in Stockport, Greater Manchester, launched a range of “buy for uni” mortgages, the third lender to do so. The other two are the Bath and Loughborough building societies, though the property can be purchased at any university town in England and Wales.

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Let’s move to Tavistock, Devon: Dartmoor photobombs every street

Its beautiful architecture is mostly down to a spot of relatively benign dictatorship

What’s going for it? What a joyful town Tavistock is. Is there something in the Tavy? Or maybe it’s the town’s geographical DNA. The up-down topography, perhaps; the rollercoaster hills, Dartmoor photobombing at the end of every street? Its position, on the “other” side of Devon, means it’s rarely rammed with tourists and too far from anywhere much to have succumbed to chainstores and Frankie & Benny’s. Instead its centre is plump with (seemingly) perky shops, pubs, cafes and all manner of enterprises, like Creber’s grocery and Warrens bakery. Every street and alley is a delight, its beautiful architecture mostly down to a spot of relatively benign dictatorship. The Dukes of Bedford dominated the town until the 20th century, and the Bedfords were very partial to a grand design; it was they who commissioned Covent Garden’s piazza in London in the 17th century, bringing classical architecture to barbarous England, and they liberally peppered Tavistock with equally exotic delights. PS: you’re too late to fatten your goose for Christmas; Tavistock’s famous Goose Fair has just finished. What about a turkey crown from Iceland?

The case against Relatively off the beaten track, which has its advantages and its disadvantages. No trains (see below).

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Let’s move to Tavistock, Devon: Dartmoor photobombs every street

Its beautiful architecture is mostly down to a spot of relatively benign dictatorship

What’s going for it? What a joyful town Tavistock is. Is there something in the Tavy? Or maybe it’s the town’s geographical DNA. The up-down topography, perhaps; the rollercoaster hills, Dartmoor photobombing at the end of every street? Its position, on the “other” side of Devon, means it’s rarely rammed with tourists and too far from anywhere much to have succumbed to chainstores and Frankie & Benny’s. Instead its centre is plump with (seemingly) perky shops, pubs, cafes and all manner of enterprises, like Creber’s grocery and Warrens bakery. Every street and alley is a delight, its beautiful architecture mostly down to a spot of relatively benign dictatorship. The Dukes of Bedford dominated the town until the 20th century, and the Bedfords were very partial to a grand design; it was they who commissioned Covent Garden’s piazza in London in the 17th century, bringing classical architecture to barbarous England, and they liberally peppered Tavistock with equally exotic delights. PS: you’re too late to fatten your goose for Christmas; Tavistock’s famous Goose Fair has just finished. What about a turkey crown from Iceland?

The case against Relatively off the beaten track, which has its advantages and its disadvantages. No trains (see below).

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Five of the best island homes – in pictures

These properties all sit on an island – for some you’ll need a ferry, for one you’ll need your own boat

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Revealed: the plan to end gazumping in house sales

Homebuyers and sellers could be required to sign £1,000 reservation agreements to make it harder to walk away

Could this mean an end to the heartache and expense of a house sale falling through? A revolutionary new scheme that would require a homebuyer or seller who pulls out of a transaction without a very good reason to pay compensation is set to be trialled by the government early next year.

Between a quarter and a third of all house sales fall through, resulting in huge amounts of stress and wasting hundreds of millions of pounds a year.

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Ignoring the lessons of the financial crash | Letters

Mistakes that led to the 2008 financial crisis are about to be repeated, fears Milan Bollecker, while David Reed is worried by the economic impact of soaring property prices

History never repeats itself but, according to the IMF, it might this time (Red alert as world ignores history lesson, 17 October). Despite countless publications and studies related to the 2008 financial crisis and its effect on the whole economic system, politicians, central banks and economic institutions seem to keep using the same logic that they used 10 years ago.

The decrease in interest rates caused by central banks’ policies provoked the boom of private debt held by companies. Together with the constant diminution of companies’ abilities to repay their debts, this presents a clear underlying problem and a terrible outlook of a new global economic crisis. By favouring short-term decisions and policies in order to maintain growth at an acceptable rate as the recent IMF report proves, central banks keep committing the same errors. Will the world economic system be able to avoid another crisis if we continue to accumulate more and more risk factors?
Milan Bollecker
Paris, France

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Berlin state cabinet agrees five-year rent freeze

Proposal to counter rising housing costs still requires approval by state parliament

Berlin’s state cabinet has agreed on a rent freeze for five years to counter rising housing costs in the German capital.

The city’s leftwing coalition government wants to freeze the rent for apartments built before 2014, according to a report by the German news agency dpa.

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