Mortgages cost £1,800 per year too much
July 31, 2009
According to research from The Daily Mail, the average British home owner is being overcharged by £1,800 every year on their mortgage repayments as a result of banks failing to pass on the cut in interest rates.
The Daily Mail claims that banks are making more profit on mortgage lending now because they have increased loan rates. Chancellor Alistair Darling met with the chiefs of Britain’s banks this week to discuss the manner in which they were pricing their loan deals
According to the Mail, the banking chiefs defended their actions despite a large discrepancy in what they were charging borrowers this time last year for mortgage lending. The Mail claims that in July last year banks were adding 0.5% on most mortgage deals, whereas mortgages today feature an additional Read more
Mortgage approvals rise to highest level since April 2008
July 30, 2009
Genuine signs of an upturn in the housing market have emerged in the latest figures released by the Bank of England. The figures show that mortgage approvals stood at 47,584 for June, which is an increase from the total of 44,169 from May. It’s also the highest number of mortgage approvals since April 2008, 14 months.
The rise in June represents the fifth consecutive month that mortgage approvals have gone up, which signifies a definite upturn in the property industry. However the levels are still far below those seen at the peak of the property market which indicates that the market has some way to go before making a full recovery.
Analyst Chris Skinner added:
Demand is flat because potential buyers believe that the bottom of the market has not been reached yet.
According to Mr Skinner, buyers were breaking house chains because they feel that prices will Read more
Time running out for SRB landlords to get FSA permission
July 29, 2009
Those landlords in the ‘sale and rent back’ (SRB) sector have only a few days left to apply for the FSA’s permission to continue operating, as the National Landlords Association (NLA) has reminded them.
Commencing on the 1st July this year, companies or individual landlords operating on an SRB basis, have had just one month to apply for interim permission to continue.
SRB is becoming a regulated activity so applicants Read more
CeMAP Home Study Courses
July 28, 2009
For those people who are too busy to be able to study during the day, the option of CeMAP home study courses exist. This gives you the same CeMAP qualification that you would normally receive from training in a learning facility, but is flexible around you.
You’re able to receive the learning material and study from home in your own time, when it suits you. CeMAP home study is perfect for people who work full time and are looking for a career change (but don’t want to give up their current job while they train) or for Read more
Rent yields continue to increase
July 27, 2009
Those doing CeMAP training are likely to see an increase in buy to let mortgages if they choose to start working as mortgage advisors, as yields in the private rental sector continue to rise in the UK according to a recent survey.
The rise is due to an increase in tenant demand as consumers look to rent rather than purchase.
The latest report from Paragon Mortgages shows average yields increasing for the second quarter in a row. As the report commented, this ends a Read more
Buy to let still lagging behind
July 26, 2009
For the month of June, figures from the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) showed there was a slight uplift in the lending figures. However, it seems that buy to let lending is rising at a slower rate, which is as to be expected at the moment.
In the first quarter of this year, there were around 22,400 buy to let mortgages approved, much less than the 38,000 mortgages in the same period of last year. Read more
Buy to let attracts property investors again
July 25, 2009
With savings returns at an all time low and the stock market rarely paying out dividends at the moment, it seems that buy to let is once again attracting property investors. The key nowadays is making sure your figures add up.
Property is still providing a reliable income despite falling Read more
Conservatives want to abolish FSA
July 24, 2009
City insiders warn that the Conservative plans to abolish the FSA (Financial Services Authority) are a step too far.
The Conservatives plan to remove the FSA and completely overhaul the regulation of the banks. Generally, there is much support for allowing the Bank of England to regulate the banks on a macro level, however, concerns have been raised that this additional burden may distract the BoE from its main duty to maintain financial stability in Read more
Mortgages costs to rise as demand outstrips supply
July 23, 2009
It appears that the long term mortgage cost is looking probable to rise as mortgage brokers advise that mortgage lenders are set on resisting lending too much business now.
As we’ve seen in recent articles in our CeMAP training section, mortgage lenders have failed to drop the interest rates in correspondence to the falling cost of their funding.
When banks lend each other money to fund mortgages, they use Read more
What would Tesco mortgages mean for the rest of the market?
July 22, 2009
Yesterday, we published an article about how Tesco is considering offering mortgages but this is not the first we’ve heard about the supermarket chain investigating this option. If Tesco were to proceed, how would this impact on smaller building societies or mortgage lenders?
A Datamonitor study earlier this year warned that the expansion prospects for Tesco Personal Finance (TPF) could be similar to that experienced by the supermarket’s retail division.
Currently, many smaller building societies or those Read more
