The number of buyers in the UK housing market has risen three months in a roll, as lower prices boost interest, according to figures from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS). But it said first-time buyers were still largely frozen out of the market, as lenders demand high deposits. Existing homeowners are the main source of the increased interest, as well as investors.
Archive for the ‘Consumer’ Category
Buy enquiries still on the rise
Wednesday, February 18th, 2009Overpay your mortgage to save thousands
Wednesday, February 4th, 2009
Borrowers can save thousands of pounds in interest and trim years off the life of their mortgages by making regular overpayments. Even a lump sum overpayment can make a difference. Banks are currently pushing for overpayment as it helps to build their capital bases.
HSBC and Lloyds TSB are writing to all their customers informing them how to make overpayments after thousands have asked how to do this. But make sure the lender reduces the term of your mortgage, not your monthly repayments.
4×4s now ‘worthless’ in part exchanges
Sunday, August 10th, 2008Dealers are refusing to take ‘worthless’ gas-guzzling 4×4s in part exchange amid plummeting values for second-hand cars. They say some are worth more as scrap as demand for steel soars. A three-year-old family car worth £5,000 will drop by £600. That means it is losing around £5 every day - leaving many owners spending more for it in repayments than it is actually worth.
Experts at price guide Parkers say the slump is the result of the Government’s controversial proposals to hit millions of drivers with backdated car tax increases of up to £245, which they say have ’skewed’ the market, and the soaring price of fuel. The worst losers are the biggest 4×4s.
Andrew Harrison-Smith, owner of Peterborough-based independent Land Rover specialist Nene Overland, said: ‘Values for big petrol-engined 4×4s are about £3,000 or perhaps even £4,000 lower than for the diesels.’
Ban on selling voter lists to curb junk mail
Monday, July 14th, 2008
Councils are to be banned from selling home addresses off the electoral register to companies who bombard us with junk mail. The move will make it harder for firms to track people down when they move house - and could limit the amount of mail sent out. A long-awaited report commissioned by Gordon Brown has said that the ‘edited’ electoral roll which is sold by local authorities in electronic form should be scrapped. This roll contains the names of anyone who fails to opt out when filling in their electoral registration card each year - currently around 60% of householders or 15 million. The report also said that the opt-out directions were often written in ‘confusing’ language, and householders did not realise what they were agreeing to. Everybody has to be on the full electoral register, but this cannot be bought or sold, and is available in paper form only.
Fastest rise in cost of food in almost 20 years
Tuesday, April 15th, 2008Families already struggling to cope with the credit crunch face huge increases in food bills because of global shortages. Costs are rising faster than at any time since 1991 (when there was a recession driven by sky-high inflation and interest rates) and the average shopping bill is likely to go up by £600 a year. Added to the impact of higher charges for mortgages, heat, light, water, petrol and council tax, the average family is likely to have to find an extra £1,500 a year, just to stand still. Worldwide food shortages have been caused by increased demand from countries such as China and India, together with poor harvests linked to droughts and floods. A decision by farmers to turn over their land to the growing of biofuels is also a factor. While biofuels have been presented as the solution to global oil shortages, they are now contributing to a lack of food. Some countries have suffered food price protests, while a number of nations are imposing limits on exports to protect their own supplies. The big question for British shoppers surrounds the extent to which supermarkets and other retailers will pass on the price increases. While profits will suffer if they swallow the rises, sales will inevitably fall if they pass them on.
Lenders raise rates despite cut by the Bank
Saturday, April 12th, 2008The Bank of England cut its base rate by o.25% to 5% on Thursday to stop the economy’s slide towards recession. However, relief for home owners was instantly undermined by a new wave of mortgage rate increases from Britain’s biggest lenders. Many lenders are yet to pass on the recent base rate reductions - instead they are busy increasing rates, demanding larger deposits, tightening lending criteria and, in some cases, withdrawing deals from the market altogether. Most of the big lenders, including Halifax, Nationwide, the Woolwich, Cheltenham & Gloucester and First Direct also said within minutes of the Bank’s announcement that they will be cutting their standard variable mortgage rates by the full 0.25%. Both Nationwide and Alliance & Leicester are believed to have been overwhelmed by applications from borrowers coming off cheap fixed deals and want to choke off the demand with yet another big increase of upto 0.35% in less than two weeks. The increases followed similar moves from Woolwich, Halifax and Abbey.
10,000 City jobs face axe and a wave of pay cuts
Tuesday, March 18th, 2008Banking giant Goldman Sachs, the world’s most profitable bank, known for having the best-paid employees in the City, admitted its pay and bonuses fund had shrunk by more than a third compared with this time a year ago (and by half so far this year) even though it had managed to avoid the credit crisis by selling off most of its subprime mortgages last spring. Economists warn that if Goldman Sachs employees are suffering, it is likely bonuses for other City bankers could be disastrous this year. This, as well as the 10,000 workers expected to be laid-off in the City this year will have a major impact on the London economy as big-spending bankers tighten their belts. The knock-on effects are likely to be in the property and art markets as well as in London’s restaurants and shops.
Budget 2008: Changes to your road tax
Thursday, March 13th, 2008A new 13 road tax band will replace the existing A to G categories from 2009/10. The new top band M - for cars emitting more than 255g of carbon dioxide a kilometre - faces a £455 annual charge from 2010-11 and £950 in the first year only. This would affect the so-called Chelsea Tractors such as Land Rover, Toyota Land Cruisers and high-performance sports cars such as Porsches which are blamed for high emissions of the greenhouse gas linked to global warming. The government claims that the new band M cars are charged more in the first year to reflect the environmental cost. Some low emission cars will have their tax reduced, some for free and others with inflation busting increase. A reduction in the capital allowances on company cars on the most polluting fleet cars was also announced, aimed at encouraging employers to offer staff more green-friendly cars. Compare new tax bands with your current tax band to see how much it will cost you from April 2009.
Government plans to grade mortgages
Wednesday, March 5th, 2008The Government is planning to use next week’s budget to introduce plans to grade all mortgages in a bid to kick start the wholesale money markets. Chancellor Alistair Darling is understood to be arranging the introduction of a new system under which all mortgages are graded, with the least risky awarded a gold standard ‘Kitemark’. Investors have been reluctant to buy mortgage-backed securities for fear they contain risky sub-prime loans and this has made it difficult for banks to remove mortgage assets from their books. It is hoped that by providing investors with greater reassurance about the quality of the loans they are taking on, it will make it easier for lenders to sell on mortgages to investors. The scheme could help re-vitalise the wholesale money markets and provide banks with access to cheaper funding, which subsequently could be passed on to consumers in lower mortgage rates.
Free financial advice for thousands
Monday, March 3rd, 2008The Government has pledged £12m for a large-scale trial of a free personal finance service that will offer general advice on issues such as managing debt, budgeting, retirement planning and understanding financial jargon on a two-year trial. The “money guidance” pilot project was the main recommendation of the final report of a 14 month long work led by Otto Thoresen, chief executive of life insurer AEGON UK which proposed an impartial, sales-free, personalised advice service to help people better manage their money. The report also claimed that consumers could be more than £15bn better off if they had access to financial guidance over the next 50 years. Over the same period, it could save the government some £6bn through reductions in Pension Credit payments and other benefits and also make the financial services industry £5bn because they would benefit from lower levels of bad debt, a better relationship with consumers and a reduction in advertising and selling costs. The recommendations come at a time when Britons have raked up a record UK personal debt of £1.4 trillion and are increasingly feeling the effects of the credit crunch.
