West LB’s bad bank records €1bn in losses October 7, 2010 GERMANY’S first bad bank, WestLB’s EAA, posted risk provisions of €1.44bn (£1.2bn) for its 2010 fiscal year and expects more to come as its markets show little signs of recovery. EAA (Erste Abwicklungsanstalt) posted a net loss of €1.05bn in its shortened fiscal year from December 2009 to June 2010, co-head Matthias Wargers said yesterday. [...]
FSA mortgage plans would have left 4m without loans October 5, 2010 NEARLY four million homeowners would have been denied a mortgage between 2005 and 2009 under affordability proposals put forward by the Financial Services Authority (FSA), the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) said yesterday. It said that amounted to over half of all loans during the period not being granted to potential borrowers, despite the fact [...]
Criteria for loans gets tougher September 30, 2010 SMALL businesses had more access to credit in the last quarter than any time this year but many companies remained wary of taking on debt, the Bank of England said yesterday. A survey by the Bank showed that demand for loans tailed off in smaller companies in the three months to the start of September. [...]
Paragon set for a return to buy-to-let September 28, 2010 PARAGON, the buy-to-let mortgage provider, has returned to new lending after pulling out two years ago due to the global economic turmoil. Paragon chief executive Nigel Terrington said the company would specifically target professional landlords – an area of the market which it believes is underserved by buy-to-let lenders. Terrington said there were two primary [...]
US property sales stabilising… September 23, 2010 SALES of existing homes in the US rose last month following a big correction in July, a new report said yesterday. The National Association of Realtors (NAR), the US trade body representing estate agents, said existing-home sales increased 7.6 per cent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.13m in August from an upwardly revised [...]
PERSONAL FINANCE NEWS September 23, 2010 LONDONERS WORRY ABOUT DEBT… R3, an insolvency trade body, has conducted research showing that 40 per cent of adults in the UK are anxious about their personal debt levels. Londoners are most affected: 49 per cent admitted being concerned. Nationwide, credit card debt is the source of the greatest worry at 51 per cent, followed [...]
Mortgage approvals drop as housing market stalls September 23, 2010 The number of mortgages approved by banks for home buyers dropped in August for the third month in a row. Banks approved 31,767 home loans down from 34,219 in July, the British Bankers’ Association (BBA) said. The figures are another indication that the UK property market has stalled. A raft of data has shown that [...]
US house prices at 6-year low September 22, 2010 US HOUSE prices fell 0.5 per cent in July to their lowest level in six years, official figures showed yesterday, heaping further woes on homeowners as the end of government-backed tax credits aimed at first time buyers began to bite. The US government had offered first time buyers a tax credit of $8,000 (£5,106) to [...]
Borrowing at a 10-year low September 20, 2010 MORTGAGE lending in the UK hit a 10-year low in August falling to £11.4bn, down 14 per cent from £13.3bn in July, the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) said yesterday. The figure was also down six per cent from £12.1bn in August 2009 with the CML warning lending levels were likely to remain subdued until [...]
Mortagage lending falls in August September 20, 2010 Gross mortgage lending fell six per cent year-on-year in August to £13.3bn, the Council of Mortgage Lenders has said. That was the lowest August total since 2000 and represented a drop of 14 per cent from July. The figures chimes with other surveys in showing a cooling in the housing market following a sharp recovery [...]