Monday, September 28, 2009

Slight Hope Appears In the UK Remortgage, Mortgage And Loan Market.

The UK economy, as has much of the world economy,has been in a state of near collapse, now ther is a slight glimmer of hope.

The UK economy has been in the biggest and deepest economic downturn in living memory. Many secured loan lenders have gone to the wall. Banks have been taken over and others have been nationalised. Record losses have been announced by The Lloyds Banking Group and RBS. Millions of people throughout the civilized world have been thrown on the unemployment scapheap due to redundancy. Firms in the manufacturing industry in general and the motor manufacturing industry in particular have seen their jobs go down the drain. It seems that we have all been living in the midst of an extremely dark cloud of such a magnitude and density that it has been impossible to escape from. House prices have plummeted, and if you require to sell your property it has been a slow and painful process.

Many homeowners who really have had to move house because of their job being relocated have been forced to rent out their property, because selling it was impossible. Buyers who may have been interested have sometimes found it impossible to obtain a mortgage to fund the purpose. Individuals who could well have benefitted from obtaing a loan have found it extremly difficult and in some cases an impossible oal to achieve.Loans of all types have decreased whether it is a personal loan, a homeownerloan, a debt consolidation loan, etc. etc. Buying a property for first time buyers whose dream it is is to get their foot on the first rung of the property market has remaind exactly that, namely just a dream. Most mortgage lenders have restricted their maximum LTV to 70% for first time buyers making it virtually impossible for young people to acquire their first property as they would require a deposit a deposit of over £30,000 to buy a property at £100,000, and this is blow the average UK house price of over £150,000. What young person has £50,000 approximately available for a propoerty deposit? Now ther are slight signs of improvement. Some lenders have slightly relaxed their criteia for loans, mortgages and remortgages, such as Blackhorse slackening off their LTV for their secured loan product from 70% LTV to 80% LTV. Foreign banks such as the Bank of China has opened four branches in the UK in London, Manchester, Birmingham and Glasgow. This all shows signs of things moving in the right direction.However even these foreign lendres are being cautious with, for example, The bank of China insisting that to be granted a mortgage with them, you are required to call in at one of their branches for an interview. This is the way mortgages, loans and remortgages used to be dealt with before it was mortgages and loans galore. Nevertheless we can now hope to see things continuing to improve.


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Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Mortgage, Remortgage and Homeowner Loans Should Rise Due To The Increase In House Prices.

After a dire two years in the housing and financial markets in the UK, the gloom is hopefully set to receed a little.

After two years of near despair in the UK housing, mortgage, remortgage and loan markets, the increase in house prices for the last three months in a row hopefully
heralds an improvement of the finance market in general House prices rose by 1.6% between May and June of this year, and although it means that prices are 10.7% lower than they were a year ago, the fact that the increases are in three consecutive months does allow some hope of stability.

The increase has been partly due to shortness of supply. Many builders of new properties have either completely ceased building new properties or have very much cut back on the number of new houses they are building. The construction industry is at its lowest ebb since 1948 which is a lifetime ago.Another reason for a lack of properties for sale is because meny homeowners are staying put in their current properties for a variey of reasons such as fear of redundancy, fear of not obtaining a mortgage for a new propety, etc.The increase in property prices, and the greater availability of mortgages should give people the confidence to again apply for remortgages, loans, mortgages, etc., and as such hopefully will ive an ever so gemtle kick start to the ailing economy.


Friday, August 28, 2009

UK Mortgage Lending Rises

LONDON (AP) -- Britain's housing market is slowly stabilizing, though activity is still low compared to previous years due to the recession, industry bodies said Tuesday.

The Council of Mortgage Lenders said gross mortgage lending in the United Kingdom rose by 23 percent in June compared to the previous month but still lagged at about half of year-ago levels.

The trade association for the mortgage lending industry said there had been 45,000 house purchase loans for a total of 5.9 billion pounds ($9.7 billion) in June -- up from 36,500 loans in May.

Government statistics showed that house prices rose 2.6 percent in the quarter ending June 2009, after falling 3.8 percent in the quarter ending March 2009.

While that left average house prices 10.7 percent lower than last year, the overall rate of the fall has slowed from a 12.7 percent year-on-year fall in May, according to data released by the Communities and Local Government Department.

Council of Mortgage Lenders economist Paul Samter said low interest rates and realistic selling prices had helped house sales, but added ''there is some way to go before we reach normal levels of activity.''

There were 34,000 remortgage loans -- loans taken out against existing property -- approved in June. That was 13 percent higher than the previous month but still lower than normal. There were 96,000 remortgage loans approved in the second quarter of the year -- 21 percent lower than the previous quarter.

First time buyers appear to be re-entering the market, taking out a total of 17,200 loans with 1.9 billion pounds in June, up from 13,700 loans in May but down from 18,400 in June 2008. The typical buyer has a 25 percent deposit-- a level unchanged since February.

Meanwhile, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors said there is some evidence that the housing market is picking up from historically low levels. It said buyer inquiries continued to grow strongly in July, although the pace of growth was lower than June. It also said 8 percent more of its members reported seeing house price falls instead of rises in July, compared to 18 percent in June.

It said sellers were also putting their homes on the market -- the number of new instructions increased since June -- the first rise since May 2007.

IHS Global Insight economist Howard Archer warned that the numbers did not mean the housing market had made a full recovery.

''We certainly do not think that a sharp sustained upward trend in house prices is in the process of developing,'' he said. ''Any sustained rise in house prices will mean that affordability pressures will move back up at a time when still pronounced economic weakness, sharply rising unemployment and low wage growth is negative for the housing market.''


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