Loan Repossessions Could Increase This Year
Recent figured from the home owner loan and mortgage industry have shown that the number of repossessions through individuals defaulting on their loans has fallen significantly over the course of the past twelve months or so, but this could be lulling the home owner loan market into a false sense of security, according to new research.
According to the latest predictions from HML, somewhere in the region of 33,000 home owners with a loan on their property could face repossession over the course of this year, due to defaulting on their home owner loan or mortgage.
These figures equate to around 0.3 per cent of all the home owner loans and mortgages which are currently in force in the UK and the numbers are likely to rise as we go into next year, according to HML.
HML have predicted that the first half of this year will see fewer loan repossessions, with numbers increasing dramatically over the course of the second half of the year. They also anticipate that loan repossessions will increase to somewhere between 35,000 and 40,000 over the course of next year.
Neil Warman of HML said “Despite the challenging economic environment, the downward trend in repossessions we saw last year is set to continue for the first half of this year.”
“However, repossessions will then begin to rise during the second half as a number of macro economic factors start to impact on homeowners and influence lender behaviour.”
“Of particular concern this year will be the impact of rising inflation and interest rates on hard pressed homeowners and the effect of continuing job losses. However, these are unlikely to feed through into increased repossessions during the early part of this year.”
