More Positive News For Housing And Homeowner Loan Markets
We reported recently on how interest in the housing market from new buyers was starting to pick up and also on how there had been an increase in the number of new homeowner loans being approved for people purchasing houses. Although many critics argued that these figures were just a blip in the statistics, there is now more evidence to support the claims that we are starting to see some slight signs of recovery in both the housing and homeowner loan and mortgage market, however small that might be.
The latest figures from the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) have shown that the number of new buyers has increased dramatically during the month of March across the country, but particularly in London and Wales. RICS surveyors also noted that although house prices were still continuing to fall, the rate of decline had slowed significantly and that more houses were starting to sell than were coming to the market, a sign that buyer interest is certainly increasing.
According to the latest figures from the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML), there was also an increase in the number of homeowner loans and mortgages completing throughout February, with a total of 24,300 new loans for a value of £3.1 billion, although the number of remortgage cases fell sharply as many borrowers are still finding their existing lenders standard variable rate more competitive than any new loan products.
Michael Coogan of the CML commented that more needs to be done to boost the homeowner loan markets, he said “Some banks are making more funding available through enhanced lending commitments, which is helpful but will not satisfy consumer borrowing demand on its own. We need further market measures to be introduced by the government around the budget to encourage the mortgage market where all types of lenders, Banks, building societies and specialist lenders and large and small businesses, are encouraged and enabled to commit more funds to the mortgage market if we are to enhance lending activity significantly.”
