Good morning: House price growth is expected to grind to a halt next year as owners hold off moving home and new buyers reach the peak of what they can afford. Estate agents and surveyors expect national house price growth to be at a standstill by the middle of 2018, with London and the southeast expected to show a drop in prices by the end of 2018, according to a survey by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. On the corporate front BT appears to have failed in its latest lobbying attempts, with the government announcing plans for a universal service obligation system for broadband similar to that for fixed-line telephone services. Rivals had threatened to take legal action if the government had accepted alternative…

Source: The Times December 20, 2017 09:00 UTC