- Wednesday, April 2, 2008, 17:25
- Mortgages, Personal Finance
First Direct has closed its doors to new mortgage business, fuelling growing concern that increasing borrowing costs are fast becoming unaffordable for first time buyers.
First Direct has announced that they are presently experiencing an influx of mortgage applications that have caused a massive backlog. Until the backlog has been cleared, they will not be accepting new applications. The move was announced as an alternative to ...
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- Friday, March 28, 2008, 18:51
- Mortgages
Nationwide this week released a report showing that UK house prices are rising at the slowest rate for twelve years. Typical house prices have fallen to an average of £179,100 – a drop of 0.6%. These findings are providing yet more evidence that the UK housing market is heading for a ‘sharp correction’, as happened last year in the US with the collapse of the ...
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If you were to take a snapshot of UK consumer finances at the moment, you’d be excused for feeling less than chipper. The Centre for Policy studies has recently published a report that shows that the total cost of running an average home (with mortgage) rose from £9,837 during 2006, to £11,780 during 2007. This equates to a rise of almost 20% - almost double ...
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- Thursday, February 7, 2008, 13:49
- Loans, Mortgages, Personal Finance
The Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee has voted to reduce interest rates to 5.25% this morning. The second rate drop in three months, today's vote was in response to growing evidence of an economic downturn, combined with the increasing risk of inflation in the coming months as global financial markets face further uncertainty and borrowing conditions for consumers and businesses tighten. Higher energy and ...
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- Wednesday, February 6, 2008, 13:39
- Credit Cards
Thousands of Egg credit card customers have had their credit cards cancelled following an extensive one-off credit review. Egg wrote to around 160,000 customers last week, informing them that their Egg credit cards were being cancelled. Affected customers will no longer have access to credit through Egg, but are able to continue repaying their debts as usual.
Egg, owned by Citibank, claims the move was in ...
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Yesterday the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee voted to maintain interest rates at 5.5%, to the surprise of many economists who had been predicting a further drop following that made in December. Until the minutes of the meeting are published later in the month it remains to be seen how close the vote was, but the general consensus is that it may have been ...
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- Friday, January 4, 2008, 16:03
- Mortgages, Personal Finance
Like many homeowners, I have been watching the predictions regarding interest rates and economic change during 2008 with great interest, particularly the endless speculation over the future of the housing market. Many economists are predicting as many as four interest rate drops during 2008, which will relieve some of the pressure on banks’ access to funding, which should in turn make borrowing more affordable for ...
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The Bank of England has today reported a reduction on the availability of secured credit to households over the last three months, and expects the same to continue over the first quarter of 2008. What does this mean for consumers? In a nutshell: that secured lending is becoming harder to access due to more stringent lending criteria. Economists are predicting this will spur an interest ...
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