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July 28, 2008
by Gill Montia
The National Housing Federation (NHF) is predicting that UK residential property will make a strong comeback from 2010.
According to the body, which represent 1,300 not-for-profit housing associations in England, the current market downturn will be followed by five-years of property price inflation, during which the value of homes in England will rise 25%.
Working from research provided by ...
by Gill Montia
Hometrack has reported that house prices fell 1.2% in July, declining for the tenth consecutive month.
According to the property intelligence firm, the price of the average home now stands at £168,500 or £2,000 less than one month ago.
This marks an annual decline of 4.4% that has taken £7,800 off the average house price.
Hometrack is convinced that the property market slowdown is ...
by Kay Murchie
High Street lender Abbey is set to overtake Halifax as Britain’s biggest mortgage company for the first time ever.
Abbey, which is owned by Spanish bank Santander, is due to announce tomorrow that it gained over 25% of all new mortgages sold in the first half of 2008 - up from its previous share of only 10%, allowing it to ...
July 26, 2008
by Brian Turner
The US Senate has approved a $300 billion plan to rescue the country's beleaguered mortgage market, which has continued to destabilise the US finance industry over the year.
Property prices in the US have already fallen by 16% year on year, and sales are at a record low.
Worse still is that defaults on mortgage payments continue to rise with nearly three-quarters ...
July 25, 2008
by Gill Montia
Halifax and Yorkshire Building Society have both announced cuts in mortgage interest rates.
From tomorrow, Halifax is reducing rates on 16 products by up to 0.3%. Bank of Scotland, which is also part of the HBOS group, will make cuts across 29 of its home loans.
In the case of Halifax, two-year fixed rates are not affected, as these were reduced last ...
by Brian Turner
US financials and housebuilder stocks took a hit on Wall Street yesterday, as investors turned bearish on weak economic data.
The Dow Jones industrial average closed down 2.43%, losing nearly 300 points on the day's session.
The financial sector lead the decline, losing 4.12%, with stocks across the US banking sector seeing typical falls of 10%.
Investment banks were especially hard ...
by Kay Murchie
A study carried out by Yorkshire Building Society has found that 36% of Britons could only survive 11 days if they were to lose their job or be too ill to work.
The survey finds just how many Britons are overstretched by mortgage payments, rising fuel and food costs and higher utility bills.
The news comes as the UK economy ...
by Kay Murchie
Figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) have revealed that the UK economy grew 0.2% in the second quarter of the year, which is the lowest quarter-on-quarter growth since the third quarter of 2005.
It grew 1.6% compared with the same quarter a year ago - also the weakest growth for three years, and much lower than ...
July 24, 2008
by Elaine Frei
European equities markets were lower on Thursday after the Ifo Institute reported that German business confidence dropped in July, while reports from the United States showing that existing home sales declined in June and that first-time jobless claims climbed last week also hurt markets.
In London the FTSE 100 was down 1.61 percent to 5,362.3 while the FTSE 250 dropped 1.99 ...
by Gill Montia
Moneysupermarket.com is alerting homeowners to the fact that the average two-year tracker mortgage is offering increasingly good value.
The price comparison website's weekly credit crunch monitor shows that at the beginning of June, there was little difference between the cost of the average two-year fix and the average two-year tracker.
However, the latest update puts the difference at over 0.5%, in ...
by Kay Murchie
Official figures have revealed that UK retail sales fell 3.9% in June - this represents the largest monthly fall since records began in 1986.
An unexpected 3.6% increase was announced in May, therefore, a fall of just 2.5% was forecasted by analysts for June due to consumers cutting back as they struggle with rising fuel and food costs.
The ...
by Gill Montia
The National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA) has reported that first-time buyers are making a tentative return to the housing market.
In a survey of its members, the NAEA found that in June first-time buyer sales represented 11.8% of the housing market as compared with 9.8% a year earlier and up from 10.6% in May 2008.
NAEA president, Chris Brown, believes that this ...
by Gill Montia
Homeowners who have chosen to improve, rather than move in the current market downturn, will be dismayed by new research from Abbey, which suggests that the cost of a home improvements is unlikely to be reflected in a sale price.
Falling house prices mean that previously profitable projects can now cost homeowners serious amounts of capital.
According to Abbey, an ...
July 23, 2008
by Kay Murchie
Former vice chairman of Barclays, Gary Hoffman, has been named as Northern Rock’s new chief executive.
Newcastle-based Northern Rock will pay Mr Hoffman almost £2 million over two years to manage the crisis-torn bank.
Mr Hoffman's basic salary is £700,000 plus three separate payments of £400,000 in compensation for the loss of his participation in Barclays' long-term incentive plans.
Hoffman, who was ...
by Gill Montia
Which? has been investigating competency among mortgage advisers and has found that many are omitting to check information on clients' abilities to meet repayments.
The consumer group sent its researchers to gather advice from banks, estate agents and independent mortgage advisers.
Acting as first-time buyers, they visited 24 banks, 13 estate agents and 13 independent mortgage advisers in England and Scotland, between February and ...
by Gill Montia
The British Bankers' Association (BBA) has released figures for mortgage lending in June, showing that the number of new home loans approved by the UK's leading lenders fell 23% in a month.
In May, BBA members approved 27,499 new home loans but the figure declined to 21,118 in June, representing a 66.9% fall on the same period of 2007.
The annual fall ...
by Gill Montia
The number of house sales completed in June of his year fell by 45% when compared with the same period of 2007.
According to HM Revenue & Customs, which requires notification of all transactions over £40,000 for stamp duty purposes, 140,000 homes were sold in June of last year, with the figure declining to 77,000 for June 2008.
Latest information from the National Association of Estate Agents ...
by Gill Montia
One time subprime mortgage specialist, Edeus, has taken the unusual step of offering cash-back to selected customers who redeem their mortgages.
The lender closed its doors to new business last year and has been struggling to sell its loans to investors in mortgage-backed securities.
Much of the debt is in the sub-prime sector and the market for this is virtually dead.
The firm ...
by Gill Montia
Research from price comparison website, mform.co.uk, shows that the arrangement fees applied to the most competitive mortgages on the market have increased by an average of 20% during the past 12 months.
The average fee paid buy borrowers for a best-buy product has risen from £738.33 in August 2007 to £889.69.
For three-year fixed-rate deals the rise is even steeper, with the ...
July 22, 2008
by Kay Murchie
The Bank of England’s Governor, Mervyn King, has said today that banks should put billions of pounds into a fund over the next 10 years to compensate customers in the event of another Northern Rock collapse.
Mr King was speaking members of the House of Commons Treasury Select Committee on the issue of banking reform, and said that he believed the ...
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The National Housing Federation (NHF) is predicting that UK residential property will make a strong comeback from 2010.
According to the body, which represent 1,300 not-for-profit housing associations in England, the current market downturn will be followed by five-years of property price inflation, during which the value of homes in England will rise 25%.
Working from research provided by ...
Halifax and Yorkshire Building Society have both announced cuts in mortgage interest rates.
From tomorrow, Halifax is reducing rates on 16 products by up to 0.3%. Bank of Scotland, which is also part of the HBOS group, will make cuts across 29 of its home loans.
In the case of Halifax, two-year fixed rates are not affected, as these were reduced last ...
European equities markets were lower on Thursday after the Ifo Institute reported that German business confidence dropped in July, while reports from the United States showing that existing home sales declined in June and that first-time jobless claims climbed last week also hurt markets.
In London the FTSE 100 was down 1.61 percent to 5,362.3 while the FTSE 250 dropped 1.99 ...
The Bank of England’s Governor, Mervyn King, has said today that banks should put billions of pounds into a fund over the next 10 years to compensate customers in the event of another Northern Rock collapse.
Mr King was speaking members of the House of Commons Treasury Select Committee on the issue of banking reform, and said that he believed the ...