The Building Societies Association (BSA) chairman has said that mortgage markets will take two years to recover from the credit squeeze. Iain Cornish added that once recovered, the market will be very different to the early years of this decade, and that a more ‘sensible’ market should return in the long run. The credit crisis
House price inflation accelerated to 11.3% in April, according to the DCLG index this morning. But housing markets are vulnerable to a collapse on a ‘global scale’, according to research by ABN Amro reported in the Daily Mail. Claims that a continuing property shortage in the UK will lead to ever-rising prices ‘have as much
WORRIED BY rising interest rates? Why not spread your payments over a longer period? According to a new survey, lenders are offering mortgages running for up to 57 years boasting more affordable monthly payments. The only catch, according to mortgage brokers, is that a borrower with a £150,000 mortgage over 57 years would end up
The Bank of England (BoE) mortgage approval figures for December show that the numbers fell for the seventh consecutive month. Only 73,000 mortgages were approved last month, down from 81,000 in November. House price inflation in England and Wales also fell sharply in December, according to Land Registry figures. The average price fell 0.4 per
The housebuilding sector suffered another blow yesterday when Taylor Wimpey debt was downgraded to junk status. The downgrade, by credit-rating agency Fitch Ratings, comes amid an unprecedented decline in the housing market, with home sales plummeting, mortgage lending squeezed and new housing starts at their lowest in more than half a century. Fitch raised concerns
The Bank of England has released its credit conditions survey for the second quarter of the year and found that the availability of mortgages is likely to continue its decline during the next three months, while the number of people who default on mortgages is expected to rise. The Bank said a big factor in
In other research, a government think-tank has found that moves towards sustainable energy in the UK are being hampered by old ways of thinking. Foresight looked at how the country’s buildings and spaces will need to evolve to help cut carbon emissions and argues that the UK is ‘locked in’ to using certain forms of
Just a few days after the National Housing Federation warned the government will miss its house building target by up to nine years, the Town and Country Planning Association has also said that three million new homes will not be enough to meet the expected growth in the number of elderly people and young families.
The number of properties repossessed by mortgage lenders rose by 12 per cent to 11,300 in the third quarter of the year according to figures from the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML). The number of borrowers in arrears also increased by 8 per cent from the previous quarter, while the number of repossession orders issued
More than a third of houses in England still fail to meet the decent homes standards according to the government’s own figures. Research from 2006, containing the latest data, show there were 7.7 million homes that did not meet the standard – or 35 per cent of the total. In the private rented sector nearly