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Bank of England to reduce assistance for mortgage market
The Bank of England has today ruled out further assistance for the UK mortgage market with confirmation that the Special Liquidity Scheme which targeted lenders in the UK will not be extended past January 2011. For clarification, this is a totally different scheme to the quantitative easing program and was purely targeted at the mortgage arena. Mortgage lenders have reacted with surprise that t...
Read MoreMortgage lending 'recovering'
The British Bankers' Association (BBA) has released new figures which appear to show a recovery in mortgage approvals. The BBA said high remortgaging rates drove up approvals to 44,288 in January - up almost 2,000 over December, which was itself a near-record low. Total net lending also rose from £4.9 billion to £5.2 billion, BBA said. Statistics director at the association David Dooks commented...
Read MoreIs the mortgage sector returning to reality?
At a time when mortgage lending in the UK has been "surprisingly strong" yesterday's announcement by the Skipton Building Society of a rewrite of 60,000 mortgage arrangements has not helped the industry. Overnight tens of thousands of mortgage holders in the UK will see their mortgage rate increase from 3.5% to 4.95% costing the average customer an additional £1,500 a year. Could this move cause...
Read MoreGreen mortgages for green homes
Mortgage hunters and home buyers do not necessarily compromise on their principles, as a range of new mortgage products for environmentally-minded consumers are coming on to the market.So-called 'green mortgage' are becoming increasingly popular, with several lenders now offering mortgages that not only offer a favourable rate, but also offset carbon emissions, plant trees or make donations to env...
Read MoreBank of England ready to restrict mortgage lending
Charles Bean, the deputy governor of the Bank of England, has this weekend suggested that Bank of England will step in to restrict mortgage lending in the UK in the future. There is a suggestion that buyers will need to put down between a 10% and 25% deposit on any future housing purchases and indeed the Bank of England may step in to set mortgage interest rates across the UK. The idea behind t...
Read MoreUK mortgage lending fell 30% in 2008
The Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) has today revealed that mortgage lending in 2008 fell by 30% compared to 2007. As if this was not worrying enough the CML is suggesting that mortgage lending will continue to fall from the next six months to hit record lows. While the total fall across the calendar year was 30%, the trend would seem to be downwards with a 47% downturn in December 2008 alone co...
Read MoreBuilding Societies fail to pass on the recent base rate cut
It has been revealed that the likes of Britannia, Nationwide, Melton Mowbray and Beverley building societies have not passed on the recent reduction in interest rates to the consumer. Despite assurance from the government that all reductions would immediately be passed on to the consumer we are already seeing signs that this deal is dead. So what next?
While the mortgage and loan...
UK mortgage holders charged excess £1800 year
A Daily Mail investigation has today claimed that the average UK mortgage holder is now paying an excess of up to £1800 a year due to the fact that UK banks have failed to pass on recent base rate reductions. The investigation details the fact that in July 2008 the average mortgage rate was only 0.5% above the cost of borrowing on the money markets although today there appears to be an extra 2.61...
Read MoreFormer Northern Rock deputy chief executive fined £500,000
David Baker, the former Deputy Chief Executive of Northern Rock, has today been fined £504,000 after admitting that he omitted data regarding 2,000 customers who fell behind on their mortgage payments. The vital data, which showed Northern Rock customers behind on their mortgage payments, was effectively incomplete and resulted in misleading statements being made to the UK financial markets and t...
Read MoreUK banks increase savings rates to fund mortgages
Over the last few weeks there has been a significant increase in savings rates across UK with banks and building societies all very keen to secure finance for the future. By increasing savings rates to around 5%, a full 4.5% higher than the UK base rate, they are then able to charge in excess of 5.5% for mortgage arrangements and take the difference as their profit.
It is no surpris...