Archive for the 'Mortgages' Category

The Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) has released results for April this year that show fixed rate deals accounting for 71% of all loans for house purchase and remortgaging – 17% more than April 2005. It says fixed rate deals are currently popular due to attractive deals offered by lenders, and consumer’s desire to lock in to long-term low rate deals.

The CML also showed that first-time buyers are now borrowed higher multiples of their salaries to get on the property ladder, with an average multiple of 3.21 – up from 3.15 in March. However, it also found that mortgage payments as a proportion of income had actually fallen from 17% in June 2005 to 16.2% now.

CML Director General Michael Coogan said: “Today’s data confirms that the market is in good shape. The strong take-up of fixed-rate deals is encouraging because they give consumers confidence in their mortgage payments and allow them to plan ahead financially.

“It is also interesting to see that while both first-time buyers and movers are borrowing a greater multiple of their income to get a mortgage, their payments as a proportion of income are lower than in the same period last year. This is potentially due to the higher take-up of attractive fixed-rate products over the past year.”

Figures released by the Bank of England today showed that lending on properties had reached £999.2 billion by the end of April 06. April showed an increase of £8.5 billion in mortgage lending; identical to the average over the past 6 months. The number of new mortgages approved in April totalled 106,000, down by 8,000 from March.

Since the total mortgage lending figure at the end of April was a mere £0.8 billion short of the trillion pound mark, then given the average increase for the past 6 months, it is likely that total mortgage lending rose to over £1 trillion early in May.

The Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) sees the release as being indicative of the rise in people owning their own homes – rising from 60% to 70% of the population in the last 20 years. Talking about the £1 trillion mark, the CML’s Michael Coogan said, “Although it is a milestone, it will perhaps soon be forgotten as home-ownership and mortgage lending continue to grow further”.

The Council for Mortgage Lending (CML) has released results for April ’06, saying that total lending for the month was £25.1 billion. This figure was 12% lower than March’s £28.4 billion, but this is likely to be due to the timing of Easter – in terms of average lending per working day, April’s figures were higher than March’s.

Michael Coogan, CML Director General, said:

“The record figures we have witnessed over the past six months illustrate that the market is in robust shape. Even so, the level of new mortgage approvals has stabilised in recent months, and we do not expect the underlying level of lending to rise from recent levels.

“In the past couple of months the interest rate picture has changed and financial markets are expecting the Bank of England to raise rates this summer. If this happens, housing and mortgage market activity is likely to slow down from the recent high levels as the year progresses.”

The Bank of England voted today to keep its interest rate fixed at 4.5%. It has been held constant at 4.5% for 9 months now. The decision was generally expected with little to suggest a move in either direction.

However, with the property market improving, manufacturing seeing an improvement, and energy prices putting pressure on inflation levels, some are predicting an increase before too long – so the interest rate on fixed rate mortgages may start to increase soon.

Earlier this morning, the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the Bank of England decided to keep the UK interest rate at 4.5%. The rate has been at 4.5% for last eight months now.

With the majority of the nine members voting for no change in the interest rate for some months now, it is widely expected that it will be sometime before a change is made. Whether the change is up or down though is one for debate. Various factors make it unclear whether an upwards or downwards movement can be expected.