Homebuying faster than building May 15, 2014 PRESSURE mounted further on Britain’s strained housing market yesterday as a raft of new data showed home purchases soaring at a far higher pace than house building. Mortgage lending jumped by 17.4 per cent in the year to March, according to the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML). The rise means 50,500 mortgages were advanced in the [...]
Carney: No rate hike to cool house prices May 14, 2014 INTEREST rates will not be hiked to slow London’s housing boom, Mark Carney said yesterday, arguing there are limits to the Bank of England’s powers when the crisis is caused by a crippling shortage of home building. Instead, Carney said he could make it more expensive for banks to give out mortgages, taking some of [...]
Housing market may finally be cooling down May 8, 2014 THE RECENT upswing in housing market activity may be moderating, with an early indication from one bank that growth in house prices could be reaching a plateau. House prices increased by 8.5 per cent in the 12 months to April, according to Halifax – slower than the 8.7 per cent increase in the year to [...]
House supply shortfall set to push prices higher May 1, 2014 HOUSE prices are now surging upwards at double digit rates across the country, as a Bank of England deputy governor indicates that the climb is set to continue. Sir Jon Cunliffe’s speech in London yesterday suggested that the lack of houses and ongoing recovery could continue to push prices up. “There is good reason to [...]
Mortgage borrowers now face tougher questions on finances April 28, 2014 HOME buyers will have to show they can cope with a rise in interest rates when applying for a mortgage, under new rules introduced over the weekend. The City watchdog hopes households will be protected from losing their homes if interest rates rise, and lenders will only give out higher quality loans. Self-certified loans are [...]
Bank of America pushed into the red by legal bills April 16, 2014 SURPRISE legal bills pushed Bank of America Merrill Lynch (Baml) to a $276m (£164.3m) loss in the first three months of the year, the lender said yesterday. Revenues fell 2.7 per cent to $22.6bn, compared with the same period a year ago, while expenses increased 14 per cent to $22.2bn. But the main blow came from [...]
Persimmon says house demand is up across UK April 16, 2014 HOUSEBUILDER Persimmon said yesterday that demand for new houses continued to strengthen, helped by government intervention to help first-time buyers. Persimmon, which builds homes across the country apart from central London, said its new financial year had started well, with private sale rates per site up 25 per cent in the first 15 weeks of [...]
Crazed global investors have become gluttons for punishment April 10, 2014 CREDITORS are strange beasts: they appear to have virtually zero memory, to be gluttons for punishment and to embrace rewards for failure. There can be no other possible explanation for Greece’s astonishingly successful return to the bond markets yesterday – apart, that is, from the fact that there is clearly far too much cash burning [...]
London is home to a quarter of mortgage debt April 8, 2014 ONE IN every four pounds of outstanding mortgage debt in Great Britain is tied to a house in London, figures out yesterday showed, in the latest sign of the capital’s dominance of the housing market. Data put together by the Council of Mortgage Lenders showed the 20 most-mortgaged postcodes are all in London, as well [...]
London owes a quarter of all housing mortgages April 8, 2014 There's more proof, if anyone still needs it, of London’s runaway dominance of the housing market out today. Data put together by the Council of Mortgage Lenders has shown the top 20 most-mortgaged postcodes are all in London, as well as the vast majority of the top 100. With a total of £649,426,811 in outstanding [...]