A weekly insight into residential property and the home loans market.
00:01 | 20 Aug 2008
| By
Lorna Bourke
Despite the sharp falls in house prices, first-time buyers remain reluctant to enter the fray, preferring to wait for the market to bottom out. All this means that mortgage intermediaries could be facing a fruitless autumn.
00:01 | 13 Aug 2008
| By
Lorna Bourke
As remortgaging fails to materialise as the saviour of the mortgage market, intermediaries must make tough business decisions if they are to keep afloat as the credit crunch bites deeper.
00:01 | 06 Aug 2008
| By
Lorna Bourke
Are parents who buy properties for their student children paying less for their mortgages than they would dish out on rent? The second of a two-part article weighs up the expenditures.
00:01 | 30 Jul 2008
| By
Lorna Bourke
As parents wait to find out if their children will be going to university in October, the first of a two-part article weighs up whether renting or buying a property for them makes sense in the falling housing market.
00:01 | 23 Jul 2008
| By
Lorna Bourke
House prices may be falling but farmland is rising in value and working farms provide huge inheritance tax advantages. Can funds that invest in agricultural land keep investors’ money safe, or is this just another bubble?
00:01 | 16 Jul 2008
| By
Lorna Bourke
While amateur buy-to-let investors are the first to suffer as the bottom falls out of the market, professionals are battening down the hatches with a view to the longer-term, but even they are not immune to the downturn.
07:00 | 09 Jul 2008
| By
Lorna Bourke
Today’s tumbling property values reinforce the message that good financial advisers have long preached to clients: do not rely on a home to subsidise life after work and diversify your investments.
07:00 | 02 Jul 2008
| By
Lorna Bourke
Changing exchange rates have made European-currency mortgages rise in value. While repayments have also risen, some lenders also want borrowers to make extra payments or switch to a higher interest rate.
10:32 | 25 Jun 2008
| By
Lorna Bourke
The volatile house market means lenders are having to stump up even bigger deposits. However, Wimpey has come to the rescue with a price deferral offer, in tandem with lenders
00:01 | 18 Jun 2008
| By
Peter Tsouroulla
The market may be tough but this intermediary has his Blackberry charged up and his marketing hat on as he embarks on a busy schedule of meetings, interrupted only by dreams of oil prices and Ainsley Harriott’s couscous
09:52 | 11 Jun 2008
| By
Darren Cook
The mortgage advice market is changing rapidly. Product ranges are more restricted and things are a whole lot more competitive, which means treating customers fairly is becoming an increasing challenge for brokers.
07:00 | 04 Jun 2008
| By
Lorna Bourke
With mortgage sales in freefall, intermediaries looking for a new revenue stream should brush up on their equity release qualifications, as demand from homeowners is rising rapidly.
07:00 | 28 May 2008
| By
Lorna Bourke
Government help to first-time buyers is a drop in the ocean for those struggling to find a good mortgage deal, and many in the industry are calling for further measures, such as a cut in stamp duty.
09:13 | 21 May 2008
| By
Lorna Bourke
What lessons can we learn from the previous house price crash of the nineties?
07:00 | 14 May 2008
| By
Lorna Bourke
Consumers can now get better rates from lenders if they deal with them direct – but this is squeezing brokers and denying people a full view of the market via independent mortgage advice.
07:00 | 07 May 2008
| By
Lorna Bourke
More banks are cutting back on big loans and terms for the formerly much-courted high-net-worth client are worsening – yet another income stream for brokers is now running thinner.
07:00 | 30 Apr 2008
| By
Lorna Bourke
The chancellor’s rescue package to exchange mortgage bonds for up to £50 billion in gilts should plug banks’ shortfalls but is unlikely to rejuvenate lenders’ appetites for lending to riskier clients, says Lorna Bourke.
00:01 | 30 Apr 2008
| By
David Campbell
Stuart Law, chief executive of Assetz, is going against the grain in his bullishness about the housing market, planning to offer new services and a vulture fund specialising in distressed and repossessed property.
07:00 | 23 Apr 2008
| By
Lorna Bourke
Despite the risk of burning bridges an increasing number of lenders are restricting mortgage applications to direct business only in an attempt to choke off demand for home loans.
07:00 | 16 Apr 2008
| By
Lorna Bourke
It is hard to dismiss the growing cry from the doom-mongers and there's little light at the end of the tunnel for your average intermediary at present.
1 | 2 | next page Total pages: 2