No change again in this month’s bank base rate, so no surprise there. What perhaps is a little surprising is that the NAEA have reported that the average estate agent continued to make strong sales. Despite there being less properties available resulting in slightly fewer people searching for a new home than in May.

Agents also reported that buyers are increasingly prepared to pay what a seller asks for a property – after the difference between asking and selling prices shrank to just 1.9% – down from a 6.3% difference in June.

This seems a bit of an anomaly, as it appears that despite the market being low, lack of demand tends to push prices up! This is highlighted by RICS who stated yesterday that house prices are forecast to rise for the first time since before the credit crunch hit.

The second bit of news this week carries on from last week, where I mentioned that the Bank of England Credit Conditions Survey revealed that the supply of buy to let mortgage finance is slowly improving with lenders expecting to make credit more readily available over the next 3 months. However, nothing has come of this at the moment, particularly with regards to Buy to Let products.

That said, a new residential lender has appeared on the market, Bank of China. They are offering tracker rates from 3% another reason perhaps to consider using residential property as a means to raise cash deposits for more buy to let purchases!