30% discounts for first-time buyers

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Want 30% off a new home?

Choose your job carefully. A new scheme is being unveiled today to give a 30% discount on the price of a new home to key workers, such as nurses, police, and the military. It’s hoped that the “First Homes” scheme will save eligible buyers around £100,000 on their first property. Consultations start today, but we know that a proportion of new builds will be made available for the discount, with funding from the developers.

Cheaper bills

Energy bills will fall by £17 for millions of households this year, thanks to new price caps that will come into force in April. Ofgem, the energy watchdog, says 11 million households will be better off under the lower cap. Water bills are also set to fall by around £17 at the same time.

Older first-time buyers

The average age to buy your first home is going up (paywall), with people now being forced to wait until they’re 33 to get on the property ladder. In London, the average first-time buyer is 37.

Paying for cash

A quarter of all ATMs now charge a fee for withdrawals. Consumer group Which? estimates that more than 8,700 free cash machines have closed in the past two years and over 1,200 bank branches, and rural communities are the worst affected. The result? Last year, we paid a total of £104 million to access our own cash.

Credit Suisse spying scandal

Tidjane Thiam has resigned from his post as chief executive of Credit Suisse, after a dramatic case of espionage involving two of the bank’s former high flyers. It was revealed in September that Thiam’s predecessor had hired private detectives to track two former colleagues. The bank boss, who has held the top job for five years, said he didn’t know about the surveillance, but his resignation was accepted unanimously by the board.