Mortgages Uncovered

I am going to move away from mortgage advice a little and show you a perspective that is affecting the housing market in a positive way. Although this is being a little a unfair as the people it affects are pretty much victims of bullying. Neighbors from hell are more and more common these days and they can start from simple arguments over:

• Aggressive behaviour
• Excessive noise
• Messy property or garden

Anti social neighbors can affect the property of your price by an average of £30000. These problems should be looked to be resolved as they more or less are normally a simple misunderstanding.

In February 2010 mortgage lending has risen by 6% to 9.2 billion pound. These figures come from the council of mortgage lenders. This is an unusual increase as February normally does not see any increases in fact these are possibly some of the harder time being the start of the year and being closely after the Christmas period.

These figures are encouraging for the recovery of economy in the UK and are expected to continue to improve. Provided house prices do not fluctuate too much the UK will find these figures continually rising, however this is a big ‘IF’ and could go the way we do not want it too.

Properties in the rental market are becoming harder to come by everyday. This means that tenants are now being faced with higher rental values and these impact houses for sale and the economy as a whole. Higher rental value means that first time buyers will struggle to buy properties. This also means that low paid work will not even be worth taking for a lot of people. The economy as a whole will become affected by this.

Either landlord’s are not finding the rental market to be as lucrative as it once used to be or they are not longer investing into further properties.

The number of houses for sales has now hit an 18 month high. Prices are falling again but speculators believe this sharp rise is due to the unexpected weather the UK has experienced this year. The typical asking price is now £230000 is up to 5.3% higher than March last year. First time buyers are still struggling a lot to even be approved for mortgages. This continues to get worse as house prices are very much fluctuating. The hardest hurdle for a first time buyer is the initial down payment.

Latest figures show that sales have halved at the start of the New Year.

The housing market in January 2010 saw large dip in activity so much so that lending fell by 17%. Mortgage advances also fell in the month of January y nearly £3 Billion. These figures come just as nationwide announced that house prices have fallen for the first time in ten months in February 2010.

This fall in house prices is according to Nationwide down to the harsh winter weather that the UK has been seeing. The following months will be very interesting to watch to see how the economy is continuing to recover from the recession and the house price demands.

Nationwide yesterday defended the launch of their 125 per cent mortgages.

The building society said the “very niche” product was only available to existing borrowers who needed to move, but owed more on a mortgage than their property was worth. A Nationwide spokesman said:

“We are doing something socially responsible.

In my opinion this is just another way for the banks to get round the problem of lending money to make it look as if they are morally correct. And anybody with a bank account knows that the banks and building societies are only in it for the money at the end of the day”

“Access to mortgages at higher loan-to-value and loan-to-income ratios is to expand over the course of the next few months”

as a result it’s predicted that householders will be offered more credit secured on their homes in coming months. However not everyone will be so lucky. This will only apply to certain people. Sadly I think that the economy is in such a bad state that while there are encouraging signs, with proposals such as this a quick return to “pre-credit crunch” lending conditions seem highly unlikely posing the question will still people be struggling just as much even after the “credit crunch” is declared over?

Mortgage related fraud has become increasingly prominent in the UK in recent months. As a result measures have had to be put in place to crack down on this type of fraud. The first few months of this year saw the FSA impose fines of more than £300,000 on those found to be committing mortgage fraud, according to the figures.

Can mortgage fraud these days be seen as a plea for help or is it simply people becoming greedy. I believe it’s a bit of both but Many people are beg borrowing and stealing to survive and mortgage fraud can be seen as a way out on the other hand although times are hard and it seems like a good idea surely struggling along and having a clear conscience is better than a potential criminal record.

People that have a fixed rate mortgage cannot get out of their contract resulting in them not being about to take advantage of the low bank rates at the moment. Many people are now paying way over the odds due to being in a fixed rate mortgage a person paying five hundred pounds a month could probably save themselves a hundred to hundred and fifty pounds a month. So which type of mortgage is the best, as they all seem to have their problems in the current economic climate?

According to reports the Abbey National have the best fixed rate loan around at the moment at one time people would have jumped through fire to get paper work all sorted but now everyone is edging on the side of caution and they have reason to.

A few years ago it was said that getting an endowment mortgage was the way forward as it allowed buyer to receive cash in hand at the end of the fixed period. Now as many people know or are finding out, there are people with large short falls in the repayments of their mortgages.

Its now said that One in Three Endowments Will ‘Definitely’ Fail to Pay Off the Mortgage not only that but more than 60% of policyholders are likely to face a bill to top up their mortgage due to an underperforming endowment policy. These are sad facts as many people went into their contracts with the idea that it was going to benefit them not financially cripple them.