Property price fever

WE love our homes. We invest hundreds of thousands of pounds in them — along with a lot of blood, sweat and tears.

Down the pub or at a dinner party, the topic of house prices inevitably crops up. Everyone seems to have an opinion. Predictions on what they will do next can unite or divide us.

So it’s understandable that when there is a fundamental shift in the housing market, people start doing crazy things.

Figures show that house prices are falling and sales slowing, but some sellers refuse to accept this. They think that just because the house next door sold for half a million a few years back when prices were flying, theirs will, too.

And when it doesn’t, they are turning to extreme measures.

The last time home raffles were this popular was in the wake of the financial crisis, when property prices had plummeted.

Renu Qadri, Roger Hickman and Susan DeVere (featured on pages 34 and 39) all say they had tried to sell their homes using a traditional estate agent but to no avail. They couldn’t get the price they wanted or, in some cases, even an offer. So instead, they put their houses up for raffle online in the hope that this would make them more cash.

However, as they’ve discovered, home raffles are not an easy solution. They are a huge amount of work and rarely successful.

Anyone thinking of entering a competition to win a home should also tread carefully — there are often good reasons why seemingly desirable properties don’t sell through traditional routes.

Always ask yourself: can you afford to run the property if you win, or does it come with a lease that’ll soon need to be renewed?

Bill buster

LAST week, Dan Hyde launched our switching competition to find Money Mail’s best bills bargain hunter. For me, it was a timely reminder to shop around as Admiral had just sent over my home insurance renewal quote.

New rules mean that insurers now have to tell you how much you paid last year. Admiral, it seemed, had hiked my premium by more than 20 pc.

After popping my details into a comparison site, I could see other insurers were much cheaper. After a nine-minute call, Admiral had matched the best price and reduced my excess.

‘ Often renewal prices are automated and you just need the human touch,’ the operator said.

So you may not even have to switch to make a saving — just politely threaten to.

Buying time

MORE and more shops are now asking customers if they want receipts emailed to them.

In the past, my answer has always been no, assuming it’s a ploy for firms to get their hands on our details and spam us with ads.

But, actually, it turns out they could be very useful.

My Nutri Bullet has stopped working. It isn’t very old so it should be possible to exchange it for a new one.

The problem is that the receipt was binned ages ago and as I paid for it with a gift card, there is no way to prove where it came from. If I had a copy of my receipt safely stored in my inbox, life would be much easier.

You could even set up an account just for receipts, to avoid receiving junk mail in your usual inbox.

It’s a date

NEW Year, new diary. They are invaluable for remembering holidays, birthdays and what not, but they are also a lifeline when it comes to keeping track of important financial anniversaries.

There are home and car insurance policies that need renewing annually, not to mention your road tax, MOT and breakdown cover, TV licence, fixed savings accounts, mortgages, energy tariffs and broadband deals.

So every January 1, I gather my paperwork and get organised. It means you’ll never miss a deadline or pay over the odds for anything. v.bischoff@dailymail.co.uk