Welcome to The Mortgage Guide UK
Discounted and tracker mortgages are both types of variable mortgages. Changes in the Bank of England Base rate will therefore change your cost of mortgage. If you don’t like the idea of a variable mortgage choose a fixed rate deal that gives you security of knowing how much to pay. Discounted Mortgage. A discounted mortgage …
Continue reading “Discounted vs Tracker Mortgage – Which is Best”
Cheltenham & Gloucester, part of Lloyds TSB has announced that it will be requiring homeowners to save a deposit of 10% before buying a house. This follows the news that mortgage lenders will no longer be offering 125% mortgages. The move is sparked by problems in the capital markets. Since the American subprime crisis it …
Continue reading “Difficulties in Getting Mortgage Increase”
Repayment Mortgage. With a repayment mortgage, your mortgage payments are made up of both interest and capital. This means your mortgage is gradually paid off over the mortgage term. Usually repayment mortgages are weighted to mainly interest at the beginning of the repayments. Interest Only On an interest only mortgage, you only pay interest to …
Mortgage Payment Holidays. With a mortgage payment holiday you agree with your mortgage lender to stop all payments for upto 6 months. Usually, this requires at least 6 months of mortgage payments to have been made already. During the period of a mortgage payment holiday, interest will continue to accumulate and the overall final total …
A reverse mortgage scheme is way to make use of the equity locked up in your existing home. It can be particularly beneficial for those who have reached retirement, but, want to continue living in their home for as long as they live. Basically, a reverse mortgage plan involves selling your house to a equity …
In a bid to make the UK housing market less volatile. Alastair Darling has introduced plans to encourage 25 year fixed rate mortgages. The plan also involves giving kite markets to mortgages depending on how risky they are. Fixed rate mortgages will attract a better rating and so it is hope easier for the mortgage …
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Despite all the adverse newspaper headlines about the housing market and withdrawal of 100% mortgages, there are still plenty of good mortgage deals around. In the past few years, there were some exceptionally cheap mortgages. This was because it was easy for lenders to resell mortgage debt in the form of CDO – collateralised Debt …
In my opinion, variable mortgages offer better value at the moment. The state of the economy makes it more likely that interest rates will fall over the coming year. The credit crunch and declining housing market have caused the government to reduce their growth forecasts; lower growth should cause lower inflation and therefore enable the …
The global credit crunch is causing many of the top mortgage lenders to raise their standard variable rates and also raise the premium on tracker mortgages. A Tracker mortgage is a mortgage product which is tied to the base rate. If the base rate changes a tracker mortgage will automatically lead to a change in …
Continue reading “Tracker Mortgages Offer Less Value as Banks increase Margin”
The Nationwide recently moved to increase the deposit ratio on all but 2 of its mortgage products. New customers are now required to have a deposit of 10%. For an average house price of £200,000 this means new first time buyers must find an extra £10,000. However, the Nationwide did cut its standard variable rate, …
The credit crunch refers to the difficulties of borrowing money in the financial sector. This is a simple step by step guide to how the credit crunch is likely to affect UK mortgages. Rapid increase in mortgage defaults in US mean that many mortgage lenders have to write off bad debts. These Bad debts were …
A fixed mortgage prevents security against rising interest rates. At the moment, interest rate increases are mainly driven by a rise in interbank lending, rather than an increase in the base rate. Predictions for Interest Rates in UK With house prices falling and the economy slowing, the Bank of England will be looking to cut …
Continue reading “Should I Get a Fixed or Variable Mortgage?”
Finding the best mortgage deals has become alot more difficult recently with many big mortgage lenders withdrawing mortgage products and increasing the cost of mortgages. within the past month the number of mortgages on offer has fallen by 40%, with big names like first Direct, Co-op Bank and others restricting the number of new mortgages.The …
With most of the mortgage news focusing on mortgage products being withdrawn, HSBC were able to announce that they have seen a fourfold increase in the number of mortgages taken out. Previously HSBC, had a low share of the market with only 3% of the market. This has enabled them to take advantage of the …
Continue reading “HSBC Mortgage Offer Brings in New Customers”
Research by the Council of Mortgage lending shows that lending by Britain’s building societies has slumped in the past few months. Total mortgage lending in March was down by £1 billion on the same level last year. It also shows that building socities have been hit harder by the credit crunch that the big banks.Building …
Flats for Sale – But Who is Able to Buy Them? – How the credit crunch has affected the market for flats. The dilemma of the Bank of England – which is worse inflation or a recession. In the current climate it is difficult to reduce both inflationary pressure and prevent a slowdown. Rising oil …
Definition of Negative equity: Negative Equity occurs when the value of a house is worth less than the mortgage debt. Negative equity is a real problem for people who need to sell their house and then still end up owing money to the bank. Many UK Banks remain heavily exposed to negative equity because in …
Fees on fixed rate Mortgages have shot up in recent months. The cost of many fixed rate mortgage deals have increased by nearly 55%. Application fees on variable mortgages have increased, but, at a slower rate. Research by mform.co.uk suggest that best-buy discounted rate mortgages only increased 11%. The shorter the mortgage, the bigger application …
Nationwide are the first major building society to bring back a 95% mortgage. This may be helpful for first time buyers who are struggling to get a deposit. However, the rate at 7.19% is far above the base rate of 2%. Also there are still expectations of falling house prices so that many who take …
Young businesses need cash and good credit control is an essential management tool. Try and get payments in advance, letters of credit or cash on delivery but if you must give credit to customers here is some advice. Get your customers to pay on time by talking to the regularly and building a good relationship. …
An interest only mortgage is where people borrow money and pay monthly interest payments on it. They don’t make a contribution to paying off the Capital that they owe. The idea is that an interest only mortgage should work alongside another investment scheme which builds up equity to be able to pay off the mortgage …
Continue reading “Problems in Paying Back Interest Only Mortgages”
The Bank of England performs several tasks in the UK economy. 1. It issues notes and coins. The Bank of England is the sole issuer of notes and coins in the UK. In theory you could take a £10 note to the Bank of England and ask for you equivalent sum of Gold. I don’t …
A recent article by Intelligent Finance suggest offset mortgages can be worth having a current account savings rate of 11%. The way offset mortgages is to combine your mortgage with your current account. THus any savings in your current account can be used to reduce your monthly mortgage payments. This is very worthwhile for those …
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Iran is selling more of its oil for payment in euros than dollars as it seeks to shift its foreign currency reserves away from the depreciating currency of its political enemy, the United States. The world’s fourth-biggest oil exporter has inserted a clause in its oil contracts allowing it to request payment in alternative currencies. …
Continue reading “Iran turns from dollar to euro in oil sales”
Another development of the UK mortgage industry has been an increase in the number of people seeking a joint mortgage. Basically this enables buyers to share the costs of buying a house, helping some to be able to buy their first house. See advantagage and disadvantages of Joint Mortgages
Bank of England have a video about the usefulness of money. (would make a good video for my AS economics students) Pretty down to earth for the Bank of England. “It would be pretty hard to buy a CD if you didn’t have any money” Via: UK Economics The bank have been given a target …
A recent analysis of the lending policy of the top 125 mortgage lenders found that approximately 30% were now offering mortgage terms of 40 years of more. Furthermore this trend to longer mortgages is becoming more popular as first time buyers struggle to get on the property ladder. Long term mortgages of 40 years and …
Continue reading “40 Year Mortgages Benefits and disadvantages”
Since 2001 the dollar has been in steady decline. Against the £ the dollar has fallen from a low of £1 = $1.45 to close to the £1 = $2 mark. Against the Euro the $ has also depreciated from 0.85 to the present level of 1 Euro to $1.35. From several perspectives the fall …
Types of Mortgages Remortgage Quotes Bad Credit Mortgages Self-Certification mortgages Unconventional Mortgages Fixed Rate Mortgages Current Account Mortgages Interest Only Mortgages Top 100 mortgage Companies Welcome to Mortgage News. A blog about the UK economy and housing market. Will be looking at the benefits of trying to get a mortgage for first time buyers Also …
The housing market is facing acute short term difficulties. In particular: Drop of mortgage lending (there has been 45% fall since this time last year) has caused a big fall in demand for housing. It means that potential homeowners, especially first time buyers are finding it very difficult to get a mortgage. If this freezing …
Continue reading “Long Term Forecasts for UK Housing Market”