Homeowners 'forced into property sales'
Many properties in the UK are on the market because their owners cannot afford to pay their mortgages, a new survey of estate agents has revealed.The National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA) carried out the study for the Times and discovered that more than half of the agents polled said that at least one in five of the homes on their books were put up for sale because of difficulties over repayments.Additionally, 20 per cent of the agents reported that half of the properties they were selling were from 'forced downsizers', who had to sell because of financial problems.These people were putting 5,000 homes on the market a week, the study found."It is those homeowners who were on cheap fixed-rate mortgage deals who cannot replace them and are struggling with the rise in repayments," said NAEA chief executive Peter Bolton King.The Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) revealed today (November 21st) that the number of properties repossessed reached 11,300 in the third quarter of 2008, a rise of 12 per cent.
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