Due to the lack of money available to them, banks and building societies are being forced to limit the amount of money that they lend to their customers. Any money that they are lending needs to fit increasingly strict criteria. …
Family Mortgages
Just as one door shuts another one opens. Recently, Halifax and Cheltenham Gloucester have said that, because demand is low, no longer will they offer guarantor mortgages. Hot on the heels of this announcement, the Mortgage Works, the specialist lending…
Right to Rent, Not Right to Buy?
According to the Chartered Institute of Housing, the golden age of ownership” within the UK housing market has ended for a lot of people who can no longer afford to buy a home and must therefore look to live in…
Payment Free Mortgages for the over 55’s
Most people with a mortgage will have always had it in mind that they wanted it paid off by the time they retire. There is, however, a type of mortgage that you can have for the rest of your life…
Pay a Little More, Get a Lot More
When we do our food shopping, we all love a bargain. There are some things that we will make sure that we get the cheapest brand available, some that we’ll go for a mid-range brand and there are some things…
Falling Off the Tracks
During the last year or so, a lot of our clients who have come to the end of their mortgage tie in period have stayed with their existing lender. We have generally advised this because the new deals they have…
The Year Ahead
As I look forward to 2010, I think it is worthwhile looking back at 2009 to hopefully give us some clues to what lies ahead for us this year. We started the year with the banks struggling to survive and…
The Real Value Your Home
The biggest investment most of us will probably ever make, will be the purchase of our home. Even though we’ve recently seen property prices drop, we’d hope that in the long term they’re an asset that will grow in value…
The Potential Problems of a Hung Parliament
It looks likely that we are going to end up with a hung parliament and commentators are speculating on the impact this will have on the economy as a whole. The general consensus is that that the effect will be…
The Mortgage Market Review
Would you lend money to somebody who had a bad reputation for not paying people back? Or somebody who would really struggle to pay you back because their income is too low? Not many of us would. In the past…