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John's Blog -
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Written by John S
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Wednesday, 26 August 2009 15:02 |
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 Interest rates could be at 0.5% till 2013
A report by a chief economist from Standard Chartered bank (which basically means the report will be wrong, sorry couldn’t resist) forecast that interest rates could stay at 0.5% until 2013.
On the face of it that is great news for the property investor sitting on existing tracker rates – and it’s also better news for those of you looking to remortgage.
Lenders have been slow to reduce buy to let rates over the last few months and the margin between swap rates and fixed rates are almost at a record high.
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Read more... [Buzz in the property market continues]
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John's Blog -
Newswire
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Written by John S
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Thursday, 20 August 2009 13:53 |
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 BM Solutions reduce buy to let rates
Something of a rarity these days is news that a lender has reduced their rates. And at the weekend BM Solutions did just that (What, didn’t you see our rate alert?).
The actual reason for this rate reduction is a little confusing - well it is for me anyway. BM are one of the few 75% buy to let lenders around and therefore do not need to try for market share at the moment. Dropping their rates will hardly affect their volumes (their credit scoring will make sure of that); however, it is a good sign that they are still committed to the buy to let market.
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Read more... [A small creep out of the woods]
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John's Blog -
Newswire
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Written by John S
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Wednesday, 05 August 2009 08:31 |
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 It looks like the stronger banks are pushing on regardless: Barclays, the parent company of Woolwich, reported pre-tax profits for the last six months of £2.98bn. Strangely, this was almost exactly the same amount that HSBC posted (isn’t that a bit weird? - two massive, complex corporate giants posting almost the same amount of profit – anyway, I digress…).
This was in sharp contrast to the poor relation, Northern Rock, who reported a loss of £724m. The interesting point about Northern Rock is that despite their losses on old loans, they are still in the market for new business – in buy to let they still have a couple of useful niches, namely: 1. Will remortgage within 6 months (albeit on the original purchase price not valuation) 2. Will lend on up to 4 flats on one single title. |
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Read more... [Time to declare the gains... & losses]
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John's Blog -
Newswire
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Written by John S
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Thursday, 13 August 2009 09:17 |
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 Lenders undervaluing properties, claims NAEA: The National Association of Estate Agents certainly went for it yesterday when they published their report criticising lenders for deliberately undervaluing properties.
Whilst the report was very restrained when compared with the conversations I have with some estate agents, (now that would have been a more interesting report), I’m sure the sentiments and frustrations are shared.
NAEA members believe that mortgage lenders could be deliberately undervaluing properties by as much as 10 per cent causing sales and remortgages to fall through.
So here’s a snippet: "Whilst I understand that lenders are operating under severe constraints, it is neither fair nor ethical for valuations to be lowered on the basis that it might reduce exposure to competitive loan rates."
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Read more... [Are lenders making it worse for the property investor?]
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John's Blog -
Newswire
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Written by John S
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Wednesday, 29 July 2009 15:11 |
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 The common theme this week seems to be confirmation that we have hit the bottom of the house price falls and low mortgage approvals and we are flattening.
The two main indicators are as follows: 1. The number of mortgages approved for house purchases in June rose to 47,584 - up from 44,169 the previous month, and the highest number since April 2008. It was the fifth month in a row that approvals have risen. |
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Read more... [So are we at the bottom of the trough?]
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