Editor's Blogs
There was good news at the start of the year that the number of advisers leaving the market has slowed significantly...
My belief is that we should now see the market continue to build. 2011 is now behind us and although for the wider economy the news has in general been somewhat downbeat, it was a year for the mortgage market where further stability returned and a significantly greater degree of confidence was re-established, particularly within the intermediary sector...
Any new year appears to be a time when many of us are kick-started into action. While I’m sure the most common resolutions are to get fitter and lose excess pounds put on over Christmas, there are others who use the New Year as a time to get their finances in order, to remortgage or to move house...
With the results for November released by HM Land Registry, we can now begin to assess just how 2011 was for the housing market...
Unauthorised regulated business Last month, the press reported that the FSA had arrested five people over allegations relating to land banking investments sold through an unauthorised collective investment scheme...
This week has seen the publication of the much anticipated Mortgage Market Review, with the FSA setting out its proposals on changes it wants to bring about in the mortgage arena...
I believe that the FSA’s recent Mortgage Market Review consultation paper will be warmly received by mortgage intermediaries as it focused on achieving the right consumer outcomes...
This week, the monthly charade that is the RICS’s ‘sentiment survey’ was published with the collective views of about 250 chartered surveyors and what their gut instincts say has happened to house prices in the past four weeks...
Hi folks, I had no luck with my dinner jacket plea, unfortunately. Does anyone read this blog? If so, please reveal yourselves (in the decent way, of course!)...
As I was making my way back home on the train from two days at Mortgage Business Expo London I wondered if indeed I was on the right train as the conductor mumbled his announcement at such a pace and so incomprehensibly that no-one could understand a word he said...
Hi folks, I’ve been wading through a spate of industry and trade magazine awards dinners...
The latest revised economic growth figures paint a continuing picture of an economy struggling to move forward...
Another month has passed with no change to the Bank of England base rate following the monthly Monetary Policy Committee meeting earlier in September...
Hi folks, it looks like it’s going to be a long, hard, cold winter ahead for several reasons...
The current economic climate has changed the lending landscape, including the secured loan market...
As the new football season kicked off – with no big summer tournament in place it seems like an age since the end of the last one – for firms across a multitude of sectors it is the time for posting their half-time results...
The first-time buyer market and the problems attached to it certainly account for a good deal of column inches, but a big, if not bigger problem are the issues facing the second-time purchaser...
Hi folks, I hope you are all getting your fair share of sunshine. It’s not been too bad here in northern Bedfordshire, although driving up the motorways to Southport last Friday took me through plenty of the wet stuff...
Forewarned is forearmed We live in a world of raised consumer awareness, where everything is questioned and challenged...
What is the state of the UK housing market? Is the glass half full, and if so, is it a glass of Retsina? Publication of the latest report from HM Land Registry on Tuesday brought the final data to provide a summary of the health of the housing market for the first chunk of this year, and with it some pretty important numbers...
The housing conundrum continues. How to help first-time buyers? How to bridge the supply gap? How to balance competition with risk? How to interpret interest and swap rates? The questions go on and on, the problem being that the answers for many potential borrowers, and providers for that matter, remain difficult to come by...
The Halifax survey at the end of May interviewed 8,000 ‘not-yet home-owners’ and found that two-thirds never expect to own their own home...
Hi folks. It was, to me, sadly inevitable. The Hammers have been dodging relegation too often in the last three seasons...
With Government spending cuts looming, higher inflation, tax increases and interest rate rises becoming more likely, it is hardly surprising that banks expect repossessions to increase in 2011...
Working within the mortgage market for far more years than I’d care to elaborate upon, it’s always been clear that in order to progress, all those operating in the intermediary market must be open-minded when it comes to innovation, ideas and new concepts...
The latest report from HM Land Registry piles yet more statistics on to our collective knowledge of the housing market in England and Wales...
It seems that it’s not just the unfeasibly good spell of weather that is shining bright at the moment, as the intermediary market has shown some increasingly positive signs since the onset of spring...
Hi folks, these are turbulent times indeed, and not just in Financial Services. Things will never be the same again for so many people in this world, who have had their lives turned upside down by both natural and man-made disasters and tragedy...
An interesting shift has taken place in the attitude of some mainstream lenders towards buy-to-let borrowers...
The spotlight has certainly returned to the remortgage market over the past six months, fuelled by some lenders’ increased appetite for remortgage business and underlying factors such as interest rate speculation and rising inflation...
It seems a little odd still talking about 2010 when we’re heading towards the business end of February...
Hi folks, I see that the Hammers have finally won something this season – the Olympic Stadium no less...
Each month over the past three years I have summarised the latest data from Land Registry, Halifax, from Rightmove...
While many had the misfortune to be laid low with man flu, swine flu or even the plain old common cold over the festive period, it appears that something has stirred certain elements within the Government which has made them come out of the New Year blocks with more guns blazing than James Bond on any given Bank Holiday...
December is a strange month. It feels like it should be a wind-down to the end of the year, but inevitably you end up cramming a month’s work into the first three weeks and being exhausted by the time the festive spirit should be in full flow...
Steve Devine blog Hi folks, I hope you are all keeping well and warm in these cold, hard days. The weather conditions and low temperatures might slow down a lot of things such as road traffic and trains, but time itself whizzes relentlessly on...
One of the team took a call last Monday from an ex-client of his. She was panicking. Sadly, she was in the final stages of divorcing from her husband of many years and on top of all the emotional upheaval that that had brought, her current mortgage adviser had, quitely honestly, made a right pigs ear of her remortgage...
Tuesday 16th November 2010 Buy-to-let was arguably one of the most influential and fastest growing sectors of the mortgage market pre-credit crunch...
Hi folks, my sincere apologies that it has been so long since my last blog post. It’s all been happening at this end...
I really don’t get why anyone was surprised by the spending review. The Government had no choice: the previous administration spent money it did not have, and I am sure if we were UK Ltd, we would long be in the hands of administrators...
The long and the short of it is a famous phrase usually associated with Shakespeare (actually, he wrote ‘the short and the long of it’, but no matter)...
It is just as well that none of our industry commentators are weather forecasters. If they were, I’d often find me and my panama hat soaked through, having been told it was going to be a scorcher, or I’d be sweating in my raincoat on an Indian summer’s day...
Hi folks, I am really struggling this week, after a fortnight’s holiday in the wonderful St Ives, Cornwall, with Mrs D...
When assessing a potential fraud perpetrator, it might be prudent to revert back to the board games of our youth to try and eliminate any suspects in order to ‘Guess Who’...
Welcome to a new monthly blog by Henry Pryor, estate agent turned entrepreneur, inventor and expert media commentator on the housing market...
Phil Whitehouse is head of The Mortgage Alliance (TMA) Some things in life are bad, they can really make you mad...
Hi, folks! I don’t know why, but I thought that August would be a fairly quiet time when everyone was on holiday (too many years working for a French company!) I managed a lovely break with the family in north Norfolk for just over a week at the end of July...
Phil Whitehouse, head of The Mortgage Alliance (TMA) The Mortgage Market Review (MMR) has cast an ominous shadow over the intermediary mortgage market for quite some time...
Although a natural optimist, recent days have seen even my reserves of good-humour and bonhomie tested to their limits...
Hi folks, what a belting day (Friday) it is as I write this. I have finally cooled down after my morning jog...
|
|
|
|
|
- Lenders urged to recognise conveyancing Search Code........
- Leeds BS to increase number of 95% loans........
- Phil Whitehouse: Blog........
- Taxman suggests FTB uplift as overall sales rise........
- Yorkshire BS gets set for expansion........
- First Complete adds serious illness specialist to panel........
- Bridging association to discuss challenges at quarterly forum........
- More lenders crack down on interest-only loans........
- Card protection firm suspends shares as FSA action continues........
- Mortgage lending up 10% on last year........
