Improved Forecast For Homeowner Loan Market
Towards the back end of last year there were a lot of awfully gloomy reports and predictions for the coming twelve months in the housing and homeowner loan markets, with experts predicting a huge fall in the number and amount of new loans being offered, as well as a large increase in the number of homeowners facing increasing arrears on their secured loan, or in many cases even repossession.
But, although we have seen a particularly bad situation in the housing and loan markets over the course of the past twelve months, it now looks as though things are not quite as desperate as was first thought.
The Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) has reassessed its predictions for the current year and although this is not exactly positive, it is not as pessimistic as their previous predictions. The CML have said that they expect the housing and homeowner loan markets to remain subdued for the rest of this year, with no real change in its predictions for new loans, which it expects to be in the region of £145 billion across a total of 700,000 separate secured loans.
They have, however revised their estimate of the number of arrears and repossession cases expected over the remainder of the year, with only 65,000 repossession expected. Although this may still sound like a huge number, it is still 10,000 fewer cases than the CML predicted in December last year.
A CML spokesman commented “The raft of measures taken by the authorities have stabilised the economy and will sow the seeds of recovery over time, including the housing market. But improvement is likely to be slow and drawn out, especially as the fiscal, monetary and credit support measures are gradually unwound. Despite some recent encouraging signs, we believe it is too early to be sure that the slightly more positive news from the housing market indicates the start of a robust recovery.”
