House prices across the UK fell by an average of 1.3% in 2011 mortgage lender Halifax says.A drop of 0.9% in December took the average house price down to £160,063.
Halifax said the property market had been surprisingly resilient in the face of falling incomes and a deteriorating economy.
The lender predicted that prices would be stable [...]
Home buyers will find it even harder to obtain a mortgage in the coming months the Bank of England warns.Its quarterly survey of lending activity shows that lenders are going to be even fussier about prospective customers.
“Lenders expected a tightening of credit scoring criteria for granting new secured loans to households,” the Bank said.
It said [...]
Mortgage lending to home buyers is likely to keep on stagnating in the coming months figures from the Bank of England show.In November 2011, just 52,854 mortgage loans were agreed in principle for home buyers.
Although this was 12% higher than in November 2010, the figures have barely changed for the past four months.
Mortgage approvals are [...]
The number of first time buyers has fallen to its lowest since records began in 1974.Around 187,000 people became first time buyers in 2011, which was 7pc fewer than the preceding year and less than half the recent peak of 402,800 seen in 2006.
The figure from Halifax, the lowest recorded since it started tracking the [...]
First time buyers will no longer receive an exemption from stamp duty from March 2012 as the government says the relief is “ineffective”.Documents with Chancellor George Osborne’s Autumn Statement reveal the view that the tax relief failed to get more people on the property ladder.
The temporary exemption meant first time buyers were free from the [...]
First time buyers are “rarely seen”, estate agents warn with their share of the UK housing market having fallen to a three year low.Sales to those buying their first home fell from a 22% share of the market in September to a 16% share in October, figures suggest.
The National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA) said [...]
Mortgage lending in Scotland rose in the third quarter – but at a much lower rate than the UK as a whole, according to the latest data released by mortgage lenders.The Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) Scotland said 12,400 loans were taken out, which was 900 more than in the previous quarter.
That figure represented a [...]
Economic uncertainty makes the future of the UK mortgage market “difficult to call”, a mortgage lenders’ group has said.Paul Smee, director general of the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML), said the market for home loans was currently stable.
The number of mortgages taken out for house purchases was 48,200 in September, down 2% from the month [...]
Mortgage interest rates could start to rise again as a result of the turmoil in the eurozone brokers are warning.Some lenders, including Woolwich, Halifax and Santander, have pushed up their tracker rates for new borrowers.
This increase follows a rise in the rate at which banks lend to each other – Libor – which has been [...]
The number of new mortgages approved for home buyers, but not yet lent, fell in September for the first time in five months.The Bank of England said approvals for home buyers were 50,967 in September, down 1,380 or 3% from August.
The figures suggest that this year’s modest revival in sales has ended and that mortgage [...]
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