Category Archives: Mortgages

NatWest urges Reeves to ‘get balance right’ when changing debt rules

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Bank’s boss says chancellor must signal intentions clearly amid risk to borrowing and mortgage rates

Rachel Reeves must “get the balance right” when announcing changes to Britain’s debt rules in next week’s budget given the potential knock-on effects to borrowing and mortgage rates, the boss of NatWest has said.

The bank’s chief executive, Paul Thwaite, said markets would be sensitive to the chancellor’s reasons for releasing up to £50bn of borrowing headroom after she confirmed in Washington on Thursday that she planned to rewrite her fiscal rules.

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Don’t be fooled by the interest rate cut – higher rates are here to stay

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Mortgage payers and business owners vainly hope cut to 5% signals return to pre-pandemic era of cheap borrowing

Mortgage payers and business owners will be hopeful that a cut in interest rates to 5% by the Bank of England this week signals a return to the pre-pandemic era of low borrowing costs.

Unless much lower interest bills arrive soon, thousands of homeowners and businesses could be forced to sell up.

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Nationwide stops lending on some flood-risk properties

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Banks may follow suit after UK weather-related claims on home insurance reach new high

Britain’s biggest building society has stopped granting mortgages on some properties where there is a high risk of flooding but said this affected only “a very limited number” of homes.

Nationwide’s head of property risk, Rob Stevens, said the lender used mapping technology to identify which homes were vulnerable to flooding, and it would decline to grant a mortgage to buy a property it deemed to be at high risk.

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Barclays profits tumble 12% as UK interest rates hit mortgage demand

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Pre-tax profits drop to £2.3bn between January and March, down from £2.6bn last year

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Profits at Barclays tumbled 12% in the first quarter, as higher UK interest rates weighed on demand for mortgages and loans and its investment bank was hit by a backdrop of economic uncertainty.

The UK bank said pre-tax profits fell to £2.3bn in the first quarter, down from £2.6bn last year, when it reported the strongest quarterly profit since 2011 after a string of interest rate hikes by the Bank of England.

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UK house prices rise by 1.5% in biggest increase for 10 months

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Data from property website Rightmove finds average asking price has reached almost £370,000

An increase in buyer demand and stronger house sales during March have combined to push the average UK home’s asking price up by a further £5,279 to almost £370,000, as the market picks up after a “muted 2023”.

According to the UK’s biggest property website, Rightmove, this month’s 1.5% price growth is notably higher than the historical March average of 1%, and is the biggest monthly increase for 10 months.

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Mortgage reforms have excluded first-time buyers, say UK building societies

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Report calls for overhaul of rules on loan affordability and repayment, and more flexible mortgage products

Mortgage reforms introduced after the 2008 banking crisis have “tilted too far” in support of financial stability to the point that first-time buyers are being excluded from the housing market, building societies have warned.

A report commissioned by the Building Societies Association has called for an overhaul of affordability and repayment rules, which they say have contributed to a steady decline in first-time buyer mortgages since the mid-2000s.

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UK house prices rise at fastest rate since January 2023

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Lower mortgage rates lead to increased buyer and seller confidence, says Halifax

UK house prices rose 2.5% in the year to January, recording the biggest increase since January last year, as lower mortgage rates and fading inflationary pressures led to increased buyer and seller confidence, Halifax has said.

January marked the fourth consecutive monthly rise, with a 1.3% uplift on December, the UK’s biggest mortgage lender said, with the average home costing £291,000, £3,9000 more than in December.

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UK banks expect sharp rise in defaults on unsecured debt

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Lenders forecast biggest quarterly increase in missed repayments on credit cards and loans since 2009

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Britain’s biggest high street lenders expect the sharpest rise in defaults on unsecured lending since 2009, according to a Bank of England survey, as households come under growing pressure amid the cost of living crisis.

The figures from Threadneedle Street show banks expect a marked rise in the number of people who fail to meet repayments on credit cards, loans and other forms of unsecured borrowing over the next three months.

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UK house prices rise for third straight month as mortgage rates fall

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Nationwide says average property price was £258,557 in November, £5,231 down on same month last year

UK house prices rose for a third consecutive month in November as the market responded to hopes that mortgage rate costs had peaked.

Nationwide, the UK’s biggest building society, said prices rose 0.2% month on month in November, after a 0.9% rise in October and a 0.1% rise in September. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast a 0.4% fall in prices in November.

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UK house prices will not stop falling until 2025, Lloyds predicts

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Britain’s biggest mortgage lender forecasts 5% drop over this year and another 2.4% decline in 2024

UK house prices will continue to slide this year and in 2024 and will not start to recover until 2025, Lloyds Banking Group has forecast.

The lender, which owns Halifax and is Britain’s largest mortgage provider, said that by the end of 2023 UK house prices would have fallen 5% over the course of the year and were likely to decrease by another 2.4% in 2024.

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Buyer’s market fuels fastest fall in UK house prices in 14 years

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High mortgage costs result in sixth straight month of sellers being forced to reduce prices, says Halifax

UK house prices fell at the fastest annual rate in 14 years in September, as high mortgage costs fuelled a sixth consecutive monthly drop in a “buyer’s market”, according to Halifax.

Halifax, Britain’s biggest mortgage lender, said prices fell by 4.7% in September, the biggest year-on-year decrease since 2009.

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Supply shortages and mortgage rate rises push UK rents to highest point ever

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Average rental property receives three times more enquiries from prospective tenants than in 2019

Private home rents in Great Britain have increased to their highest point on record after shortages in supply and mortgage rate rises combined to push the cost up by 10% over the past 12 months.

The average rent for new properties being put on the market now stands at a record £1,278 per calendar month outside London in the July to September period, according to Rightmove.

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First-time buyers in UK drop by a fifth as higher mortgage costs bite

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Lender says homes needing renovation are most in demand as people seek cheaper properties

The number of first-time buyers in the UK has fallen by more than a fifth, while homes in need of renovation are most in demand as buyers look for cheaper properties, in the latest evidence that people are struggling with higher mortgage costs.

There were 22% fewer first-time buyers between January and August compared with the same period last year, according to the mortgage lender Halifax. They still accounted for more than half (53%) of all home loans agreed in the first eight months of this year, similar to a year earlier (52%).

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Proportion of UK house sellers cutting asking price reaches ‘highest in over a decade’

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More than 36% of properties have had asking price cut at least once — the highest figure since 2011

UK house sellers are cutting their asking prices at the fastest rate in more than a decade, after high interest rates dampened demand for property this summer.

The proportion of homes on the market which have had at least one price reduction is at its highest level since January 2011, the property website Rightmove has reported.

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UK ‘mortgage meltdown’ looms amid ‘terrifying’ growth in arrears

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Jump in borrowers unable to make payments with landlords particularly hit and ‘worse to come’

Mortgage arrears jumped by 13% in the second quarter of the year to the highest level since 2016, according to Bank of England figures that underscore the stress in the UK mortgage market.

Rising interest rates and unemployment over recent months have put pressure on household disposable incomes, forcing some families to cut or suspend their monthly mortgage payments.

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UK house prices fall at fastest rate since 2009, says Nationwide

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August 5.3% drop comes as sales completions down by about 40% in first half of year compared with 2021

UK house prices fell 5.3% in August compared with the same month last year, the fastest annual drop in 14 years, according to Nationwide Building Society.

The lender said the fall, which was the biggest since July 2009, when the global economy was in the depths of the financial crisis, was driven by soaring mortgage costs, which are putting off potential buyers. Average house prices are more than £14,500 lower than they were a year ago and mortgage approvals have plummeted by a fifth compared with pre-pandemic levels.

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UK home sales in 2023 will be lowest in a decade, says Zoopla

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Interest rate rises on mortgages are weakening demand, property website says

The number of UK homes sold this year is expected to fall to the lowest level in more than a decade, as the soaring cost of mortgages puts off homebuyers.

House sales reaching completion are expected to fall 21% year-on-year to about 1m in 2023, the lowest level since 2012, according to a report from the property website Zoopla.

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Homeowners left out of pocket after two-year delays at UK Land Registry

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Administrative hold-ups leave buyers missing best mortgage deals and some owners unable to sell

Long delays in registering properties with the Land Registry across Great Britain are causing frustration among homeowners and buyers with some being left out of pocket as a result.

Latest figures from His Majesty’s Land Registry show that it is taking almost two years for some applications to make changes to the register to be completed.

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UK house prices fall at fastest annual rate since 2011, says Halifax

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Average price of property drops by 2.6% year on year in June as mortgage rates climb

UK house prices experienced their biggest annual fall in 12 years, according to Halifax, the latest sign that soaring interest rates on mortgages is bringing a halt to the housing boom.

The average price of a UK home tumbled 2.6% year on year last month, the largest annual decrease the lender has reported since June 2011, a significant acceleration from the 1.1% decline record in May.

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Average rate on five-year fixed mortgage deal in UK climbs above 6%

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Rate is at highest level since last November, and average two-year fix is now 6.47%

A typical five-year fixed mortgage deal in the UK now has an interest rate of more than 6%, putting further pressure on borrowers who are hoping to buy a home or reaching the end of their existing deals.

Data from the financial information firm Moneyfacts shows the cost of a five-year deal for homeowners rose to 6.01% on Tuesday, up from 5.97% on Monday. It is the highest level since last November, after mortgage rates had been driven up by the mini-budget chaos of last autumn.

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