Sub-prime mortgages withdrawn in credit crunch
Potential homebuyers are set to find it ever harder to enter the housing market as a result of providers withdrawing sub-prime products from their portfolios, it has been predicted. Research conducted by price comparison site Moneyfacts.co.uk has found that the number of lenders offering sub-prime products has dropped from 32 to 20 in the last 12 months. Meanwhile, the number of mortgages available to borrowers with adverse credit has dropped by 71 per cent. Julia Harris, an analyst with the firm, said the findings were indicative of how much the market had changed in that period in response to the credit crunch and warned that buyers will from here on in find it increasingly difficult to afford property. She commented: "In a society where we continue to witness ever-increasing debt problems, this is going to limit the options available to those that have to resort to sub prime borrowing. "This is yet another way of preventing people getting on the housing ladder and in some cases even pushing them off it."
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