Change of Prime Minister

Tomorrow will see Gordon Brown take over as the UK Prime Minister. For the last 10 years the economy has been dominated by Mr Brown in his position as Chancellor of the Exchequer - now that he's moving into 10 Downing Street, many analysts will be interested to see how the economic outlook will change.

Over the next few weeks we are likely to see if there is likely to be any early impact for the housing market.

In one other piece of news, it seems that many more of us have started to take out so-called offset mortgages. For those of you that are unfamiliar with these types of mortgage, they allow you to "off-set" your mortgage with money that is kept in your bank accounts.

So, for example, if you have a £200,000 mortgage but had £20,000 in a savings account then you would only pay interest on £180,000.

According to figures from the Council of Mortgage Lenders, 170,000 offset mortgages were taken out last year (a rise of 49% when compared to the previous year). These mortgages are now worth some £30 billion in total.