Chelsea Building Society has launched a five-year fixed-rate mortgage at 3.19 per cent. The deal is available on a maximum loan-to-value (LTV) of 70% with a fee of £1,495. The building society’s product manager Jemma Smith said the product “is the lowest five-year fixed-rate mortgage ever to come to the market which is great for [...]
Norwich & Peterborough Building Society (N&P) has launched a low rate, low fee mortgage to attract buyers who plan to stay in their property for a longer period of time. The ten-year fixed rate mortgage offers an interest rate of just 3.99 per cent APR, making it one of the cheapest deals on the market. [...]
December marked the fifth consecutive month of year-on-year growth in mortgage lending, with a 12 per increase, according to the Council for Mortgage Lenders (CML). Gross mortgage lending in December was an estimated £11.7 billion, while for the whole year it totalled £140 billion, £2 billion higher than the CML’s expectations. December’s figures represent a [...]
HSBC has announced plans to lend more than £15 billion in mortgages this year, with £3m of this ring-fenced for first-time buyers. This should provide mortgages for up to 150,000 home buyers during 2012, including 27,000 people buying their first home. The sum amounts to 11 per cent of all the mortgage borrowing predicted for [...]
The number of first time buyers increased significantly last year as more high loan to value (LTV) mortgages became available, according to the latest Mortgage Monitor from e.surv chartered surveyors. The number of mortgages advanced at an LTV of 85% or more increased by 32 per cent to 57,301 in 2011 compared with 43,379 in [...]
In the last year around seven million UK house buyers have been forced to use payday loans or unauthorised overdrafts to meet their mortgage repayments, according to housing charity Shelter. With both of these sources of finance potentially carrying extremely high interest rates, this represents one in seven Britons who could be at risk of [...]
52,854 mortgage loans were agreed in principle in November according to the latest figures from the Bank of England, just 68 higher than the previous month. Although mortgage lending in November 2011 was 12% higher than in November 2010, there has been no significant improvement for four months. Mortgage approvals remain at half their 2007 [...]
The FSA’s report into lending, due to be published next week, is expected to include proposals to help home owners in negative equity. The Council of Mortgage Lenders estimates that one in 12 homeowners are in negative equity, with their home now worth less than the price they paid for it, making it impossible for [...]
The Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) expects the number of house repossessions to increase by 21.6 per cent from 37,000 this year to 45,000 in 2012 due to an increase in unemployment and falling household incomes. The CML also expects housing transactions to fall next year, with 825,000 homes expected to be sold compared with [...]
October was a difficult month for first-time buyers according to the latest figures from the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML). Ten per cent fewer home loans were offered to first-time buyers compared with September and the average deposit they had to find was a hefty 20 per cent. In the current economic climate and with [...]
The government has announced a review of its Support for Mortgage Interest scheme (SMI), which helps people receiving certain benefits if they are finding it difficult to pay their mortgage interest. SMI, which is available to people on benefits such as Income Support, Income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance and Pension Credits, costs the Government around £400 million [...]
PSigma Investment Management’s chief investment officer, Thomas Becket, has added his voice to the growing criticism of the government’s mortgage indemnity scheme. According to Money News, Mr Becket claims that the scheme is doomed and that a return to 95 per cent loan-to-value (LTV) ratio mortgages will cause problems in the future. The scheme was [...]
Leeds Building Society has announced a reduction in the rates on its Direct Only Offset 2 Year Discount mortgage by up to 0.25 per cent. The building society’s 75 per cent loan-to-value offset mortgage now offers a rate of 2.65 per cent. In order to help customers with upfront costs, the building society has launched [...]
New data from the Bank of England suggests that house owners are focusing on repaying their mortgages as part of their efforts to reduce debt. Consumers are concerned about the state of the economy and their incomes are under pressure from pay freezes, rising unemployment and high levels of inflation. These pressures, together with falling [...]
HSBC claims to have launched the only mortgage with a rate of less than 4% for first-time buyers and has also promised to make a further £350m available to borrowers with smaller deposits by the end of the year. It latest mortgage offers a rate of 3.84% for two-years to borrowers with a deposit of [...]
Mortgage lending in Scotland rose by 8 per cent in the third quarter, with the number of loans increasing to 12,400, 900 more than in the previous quarter. However, the rate of growth was much lower than for the UK as a whole, where mortgage lending increased by 16 per cent. The data, from the [...]
Lenders and financial experts have highlighted a number of potential problems with the Government’s mortgage indemnity scheme, which was announced yesterday. Banks and building societies have commented that the scheme was rushed through with insufficient thought, while financial commentators warned that first time buyers taking advantage of the scheme could end up owning a house [...]
Despite the slump in the housing market, Nationwide Building Society’s gross mortgage lending increased by 48% to £8.9 billion in the six months to September. Although the number of first-time buyers in the market continued to fall, Nationwide lent more than £1.2 billion to this group in the first half of the year, 3 per [...]
Mortgage lending fell by 4 per cent to £13.1 billion last month, compared with £13.7 billion in September when it was at its highest level for two years. Lending was up by 13% year-on-year in October 2011, from £11.6 billion in October 2010. However, the figures include a strong year-on-year increase in remortgage activity rather [...]
The Chancellor George Osborne is expected to announce a scheme to help first-time buyers in his autumn statement on November 29, according to a report in The Telegraph. The statement, which will set out plans to encourage growth in the UK’s economy, could include a mortgage indemnity guarantee scheme, which would see the government underwriting [...]
3.19% five-year fixed mortgage launched
Chelsea Building Society has launched a five-year fixed-rate mortgage at 3.19 per cent. The deal is available on a maximum loan-to-value (LTV) of 70% with a fee of £1,495. The building society’s product manager Jemma Smith said the product “is the lowest five-year fixed-rate mortgage ever to come to the market which is great for [...]
Fewer people declared bankrupt in 2011
The number of people declared insolvent in 2011 in England and Wales declined to 119,850, the lowest level for three years and a fall of 11.3 per cent from a record high in 2010. There was a sharp decline at the end of 2011, when personal insolvencies fell by 5.6% compared with the last three [...]
Government finds land for 80,000 homes
The Government launches its NewBuy mortgage guarantee scheme in March, which will help house buyers by underwriting 95% mortgages on new-build properties up to £500,000 in value. The scheme depends on having sufficient sites available to house builders and housing minister Grant Shapps revealed today that sufficient land for 80,000 properties has already been identified. [...]
Volcanic ash insurance claims to go ahead
Travellers whose flights were disrupted by the Icelandic volcanic eruption in 2010 can now go ahead with insurance claims. Following the eruption of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in April and May 2010, the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) ruled that the resulting volcanic ash cloud, which led to airspace being closed, could be considered a “poor weather [...]
The UK economy needs a fiscal boost of £10 billion to £20 billion in order to avoid another recession, a leading think tank said today. In its annual Green Budget, The Institute for Fiscal Studies calls for Chancellor George Osborne to include a short-term fiscal stimulus in his budget. This would buffer the UK economy [...]
Former RBS chief executive loses knighthood
Fred Goodwin, the former chief executive of the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), has been stripped of his knighthood for his role in the bank’s collapse during the 2008 credit crunch. The Queen formally approved the annulment of the honour yesterday, after it was decided Mr Goodwin’s award brought the honours system into disrepute. The [...]
ABI calls for action on flood insurance
The Association of British Insurers has warned that time is running out to ensure that UK home owners in areas at risk of flooding can afford to insure their properties in the future. A voluntary flood agreement between the government and the insurance industry expires in June 2013. Under the current agreement, which started in [...]
Personal debt falls by £377 million
Economic uncertainty and the threat of another recession is causing consumers to take charge of their finances and cut back on debt according to the latest figures from the Bank of England. Personal debt, excluding mortgages, fell by £377 million in December, the biggest fall since records began. Howard Archer an economist at Global Insight [...]
Downing Street won’t micro-manage bonuses
Speaking to the BBC after the Royal Bank of Scotland’s chief executive announced his decision to forgo his bonus this year, the government has said that it will not block bonuses to the bank’s other executives. RBS chief executive Stephen Hester was awarded £963,000 in shares but following pressure from public opinion and MPs he [...]
House prices fell 1.3% last year
The latest figures from the Land Registry show that house prices fell by 1.3 per cent in England and Wales in 2011, with the average property costing £160,384 in December. Prices remained stable at the end of the year, with no change between November and December 2011. The only place in England and Wales where [...]
About | Privacy | Disclaimer | Resources | XML Feeds | Press Releases | Directory | Contact us
