Use of Help to Buy scheme picks up pace May 29, 2014 INTEREST in chancellor George Osborne’s controversial Help to Buy scheme is accelerating among buyers, even amid warnings that it is doing nothing to boost the UK’s supply of homes. Up to March, 7,313 applications for the mortgage guarantee part of the scheme had been approved. Demand was much stronger in the later months of the [...]
How rich are Help to Buy users? May 29, 2014 Today the Treasury released their figures on the use of the controversial Help to Buy scheme – specifically for the second (mortgage guarantee) part of the policy. It has been used 7,313 times so far – but Berenberg’s Rob Wood notes that the figures lean heavily towards more recent months. Only 818 mortgages were [...]
Full steam ahead at Nationwide as chief issues warning on housing market May 28, 2014 Nationwide has reported its best ever annual results, but has warned that the housing market may well start seeing a “natural correction”. “At some point buyers just start saying no”, said the mutual's chief executive, Graham Beale, to the BBC’s business editor Kamal Ahmed. The prognosis came as Nationwide reported that it opened 430,000 new [...]
April regulation clips lending to housing market May 27, 2014 THE NUMBER of mortgage approvals for house purchases in the UK fell for a third month in April, despite the overall recovery of the housing market during the last year. There were 42,200 mortgages approved last month, according to the British Bankers’ Association (BBA). The figure is down from 45,000 in March, and has fallen by [...]
BBA mortgage approvals for April miss expectations May 27, 2014 In April, the number of mortgages approved by the British Bankers' Association (BBA) fell to its lowest point in eight months, reaching 42,200. Analysts had expected the figure to reach 45,200. Recent data from the Bank of England has also showed a slowdown in household borrowing. However, house prices continue to surge, with the London experiencing [...]
What you need to know before the open May 27, 2014 After a day out of the loop yesterday, the FTSE will be playing catch up with European markets, which saw a strong session yesterday. The European and Ukraine elections don’t appear to have affected equities too much. Several bourses saw encouraging gains, with the Dax posting a record high. Eyes are still on European Central [...]
London Report: Help To Buy under the microscope as new data released May 27, 2014 HELP To Buy will be under the microscope again this week when the Treasury publishes data showing the impact of the second part of the controversial scheme to aid borrowers. Following fast-growing criticism that the mortgage guarantee element is fuelling a housing bubble, analysts will be keen to dissect the government’s figures on Thursday. More [...]
What you need to know before the open May 22, 2014 With no surprises from the Fed’s open market committee meeting minutes last night, European markets are expected higher, although investors will be focusing on European PMI numbers out today. Again, the worry is that the numbers will reinforce concerns over growth for the second quarter, with powerhouse economy Germany even beginning to show signs of [...]
Now that banks are rationing loans, time to scrap Help to Buy May 20, 2014 SO the great crackdown on mortgages has started. With the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee uninterested in hiking interest rates, the only solution to contain house prices, sadly, is to ration credit. In theory, that is the job of the financial policy committee and its new-fangled macroprudential tools; but it has yet to act. [...]
Austerity is working – but we must continue to challenge its diehard critics | City A.M. May 15, 2014 THE “BACKFIRE effect” is a term coined by the US political scientist Brendan Nyhan to describe how a person’s deeply-held convictions may actually get stronger when presented with contradictory evidence. In one recent study, Nyhan and his colleagues presented a group with information confirming the safety of vaccines. Faced with the facts, those who already [...]