Archive for January, 2008

Huge opportunity missed’ on Hips?
24 January 2008 11:30
Did you think the hips debate had died down?
Its still controversial

The uk government missed a genuine chance to really help first-time buyers (FTBs) by watering down the content of home information packs (Hips), one broker has claimed.Earlier this month, the parliamentary committee appointed to investigate the affairs of Communities and Local Government lambasted the department’s handling of the Hips rollout, including its failure to include home condition reports (HCRs) within the packs.

This criticism has now been echoed by Firstrung CEO Paul Holmes, who noted that the Hip in its original form would have provided vital information for inexperienced FTBs, thereby negating their reliance on anecdotal assistance from family members.

Yet the current format of these documents cannot provide FTBs with that same degree of assurance, he argued, with the absence of HCRs and the failure to go beyond EU-set targets on energy efficiency resulting in them completely losing their meaning.Other critics, by contrast, have branded the Hip concept a waste of time in itself, with estate agent Spicerhaart asserting that only one in ten people looked at the packs before buying a house, although this was prior to their rollout to one and

UK Mortgages. Rates, Remortgages, Getting a Mortgage.

Tags: mortgage, rates, remortgages

UK Gross Mortgage Lending Falls In December - CML(RTTNews) -
A little background to the current furore and concern over interest rates.
Article from Yahoo News

Lending had clearly fallen in December 07 dramatically prior to the recent 0.75% US cut in rates.

UK’s gross mortgage lending dropped 25% month-on-month to an estimated 22.6 billion pounds in December from 29.9 billion pounds in November, the Council of Mortgage Lendors, or CML, said Monday.

On a yearly basis, lending was down 21%. In December 2006, nearly 28.6 billion pounds worth lending were recorded.In the year 2007 as a whole, gross lending grew 5% over the previous year to an estimated 362 billion pounds and was the strongest ever recorded, the report said.

A year ago, the figure was 345 billion pounds and topped CML’s forecast of 360 billion pounds.Commenting on the latest results, CML director general Michael Coogan said, “The ‘credit crunch’ moved into its fourth month in December and continued to constrain the cost and availability of funds to lenders and, in turn, the cost and number of mortgage products available to borrowers.”

Company News Story

Tags: mortage, rate, lending

How the mortgage market  looks at the start of 2008

Change in mortgages

The housing market has not got off to the best start as we have entered a brand new year. The ‘credit crunch’ which we have read so much about has finally taken hold of a considerable number of households.

House prices are going down across the country and the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors state that 49.1%more surveyors have reported a fall in prices as opposed to a rise, thus producing the worst figure since the early 1990’s.

This situation is coupled with the fact that mortgages are becoming increasingly more expensive, with an average fixed-rate mortgage coming in at 7.30% in December, despite the quarter point reduction announced by the Bank of England in the same month.Certain banks have discretely increased their variable tracker rates, resulting in them sitting well above the official Bank Rate.

Change in mortgages

Tags: mortgages, housing, market