The number of mortgages approved for house purchases has fallen 10% in a year, The British Bankers Associate (BBA) have said. There are now fears that the housing market is beginning to cool.
The Mortgage Market Reviews effect on the UK’s mortgage market has reduced recently, according to the Bank of England’s latest trends in lending report.
Mortgage approvals for house purchases picked up in June and then reduced slightly in August. The number of approvals for remortgaging was broadly unchanged between the same period.
Labour leader Ed Milliband has promised priority for first time buyers to buy newly built houses in their communities. In the 2013 labour party conference Milliband promised to build 200,000 new homes a year by 2020, which will be offered to first time buyers.
New data from the Office of National Statistics has shown that the difference between the average house prices in London and in the North East has grown to its widest in history, with a £360,000 gap.
Home buyers in Scotland will no longer have to pay tax on properties valued under £130,000, Scottish finance Secretary John Swinney has announced.
This was proposed in the budget proposal for the year ahead. The finance secretary has also promised that tax would be reduced for a further 44,000 house sales up to the value of £325,000, but advised the 12% top rate would still apply to houses costing over £1 million.
The Bank of England has been granted new powers, which are intended to enable them to help the UK economy avoid another housing bubble.
The new powers will allow the Bank to set limits on how much people are allowed to borrow when purchasing a home. They said this will be based on a ‘loan-to-income’ ratio, which is likely to be set at 4.5 times a household’s annual income.
Rent has risen to an all time high of £761 a month, higher than a previous record set in October 2013, according to a survey from LSL property services. Rents rose 2.4% in the year to August across England and Wales.
30 Year fixed rate mortgages could be introduce as a product for first time buyers in the next few months.
30 year fixed rate mortgages would offer consumers the chance to lock in their mortgage rate for the rest of the term. The longest deals available at the moment are 10 year deals, but the most popular are two and five year deals.
The increase in house pricing in Britain may have started to ease, according to a survey done by Halifax, the nation’s largest mortgage lender. The survey reveals prices across the UK in the three months to the end of August rose by 9.7% - significantly down from 10.2% in July.
More than 48,000 people have bought a home through the governments Help to Buy scheme since it started. 82% of users have been first-time buyers, which shows the scheme is successfully targeting consumers who need help getting onto the housing ladder.
