London pricing out first-time home buyers February 25, 2015 THE LONDON housing market is cooling, according to figures yesterday released by the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML). Loans to first-time buyers totalled 12,000 in number and £2.9bn in value in the three months to 31 December. It marks a drop of 11 per cent in number and seven per cent in value on the three [...]
Lender lobby’s animated pitch February 24, 2015 THE COUNCIL of Mortage Lenders (CML) yesterday set out its election manifesto, as a short video. The animated clip lays out many of the policies the CML wants parties to consider for the election, to help “the old, the young, and the in-betweeners” including promotion of shared equity opportunities. Paul Smee, director general of the CML, said: [...]
The Yorkshire attacks account switch stitch up February 24, 2015 THE YORKSHIRE Building Society wants to become a challenger in the current account market, but its boss yesterday said it cannot because the switching service is not working. Seven-day switching helped the numbers moving between banks rise to 1.16m last year, but chief executive Chris Pilling told City A.M. that this is not the “game-changing shift” the [...]
Persimmon share price falls despite profits jumping 44 per cent February 24, 2015 The figures Persimmon, the UK's biggest listed housebuilder, said underlying pre-tax profit jumped 44 per cent to £475m for the fiscal year 2014, up from £330m a year earlier. Full-year revenue rose 44 per cent to £475m, up from £330m in 2013. Completions – the number of homes built – rose 17 per cent to 13,509 while [...]
Frantic race to remortgage as rates plummet February 22, 2015 HOMEOWNERS are rushing to remortgage to take advantage of record low mortgage rates, new figures from the Mortgage Advice Bureau (MAB) show. Remortgage applications jumped 24 per cent in January from December. Year-on-year, January saw a 17 per cent increase in remortgage applications. It compares to the 12 per cent climb in applications for [...]
Why 2015 is the year to remortgage your home February 22, 2015 With the end in sight for record low borrowing costs, now is an "ideal time" for people to remortgage their homes, using fixed rates to lock-in favourable repayment terms ahead of a rate hike expected early next year. Since their peak in summer 2012, fixed rate mortgages fell in 18 of the 28 months to 3.15 [...]
Insurance sector to be hit by M&A fever as Fairfax buys Brit February 17, 2015 Analysts said yesterday that Brit’s acquisition by Canadian firm Fairfax Financial Holdings could be the precursor to other deals set to sweep the insurance market. Shares in Brit jumped by 11.23 per cent following the news that Fairfax had made an offer of £1.22bn that has been agreed by private equity owners CVC and Apollo, [...]
London’s house prices fall 2.3pc over six months February 17, 2015 LONDON’S house price boom ground to a halt at the end of 2014, official figures showed yesterday, while prices across the rest of the country continued to rise modestly. The average British property in December cost £272,000, up 0.7 per cent on the month and 9.8 per cent on the year. By contrast, London homes [...]
Mortgage lending eases off as buyers’ frenzy draws to a close February 17, 2015 The boom in mortgage lending over 2013 and 2014 came to an end by the final months of last year, industry data showed yesterday. Last year saw a total of 676,900 home-owner purchase loans, up 11 per cent on the year and the highest number since 2007. By value, they amounted to £112.7bn, a rise [...]
In charts: London house prices are now 2.3 per cent below their peak February 17, 2015 London house price growth is slowing along with the UK’s, according to new data. In December, prices in the capital were 2.3 per cent below their August peak, with the rate of growth slowing from 15.3 per cent to 13.3 per cent. Back in May, London prices were on an annual growth roll of 20.1 [...]