Interesting Facts

One of Mrs Thatcher's legacies was the "right-to-buy" scheme, which started in the 80s and allows council tenants to buy the property they are renting from the council. (Right-to-buy, an ongoing scheme, allows tenants to buy their council property at a discount, but 33 years later a third of ex-council homes bought under the right-to-buy scheme, are now in the hands of private landlords, and in one London borough almost half of ex-council properties are now sub-let to tenants. A Daily Mirror investigation has found that the multi-millionaire son of a Tory minister who presided over the scheme allegedly owns at least 40 ex-council flats on one South London estate.) Source

According to researchers at Bristol University in the UK, ants are ‘better than humans’ when it comes to choosing a new home. (The ants were given a choice between two nests, one of which was superior to the other in its construction. The scientists noted that the ants chose the superior nest even though it was nine times further away than the alternative. It's all very clever, but what the scientists failed to figure in is the ants were never presented with a mortgage to pay at the end of the month.)

powered by ODEO According to ING Direct Bank, UK home buyers spend an average of 17 minutes looking at a house before deciding to buy it. (17 minutes! It takes me longer than that to make my mind up about what pair of shoes to buy.)