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Most people living in the UK aspire to own their own home at some point in their lives, even if this has a home owner loan or mortgage attached to it. But the latest survey from the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) has shown that home ownership is on the decrease as many individuals simply can not afford to get onto the housing ladder.

Although the average cost of a house has dropped by around 20 per cent since the start of the credit crunch, the cost of a new loan has become unaffordable for many would be first time buyers, due to tighter lending criteria and reduced loan to value ratios from banks and building societies.

In order to get the loan they require to buy a house, the average first time buyer is now having to find somewhere in the region of £34,000 as a deposit, which in many cases is far more than their annual gross salary.

As a result of this, a growing number of potential first time buyers are seeking financial help from their parents in raising sufficient deposit and even with the home owner loan repayments.

In 2006, approximately 38 per cent of first time buyers sought financial help from their parents to get the loan they needed. In 1996 this figure was just 10 per cent, but prior to the credit crunch this had risen to 45 per cent and now the CML estimate that around 80 per cent of all first time buyers are receiving some kind of help with their loan, or house purchase.

It is hardly surprising therefore, that the average age of a first time buyer has risen significantly over the past few years and the number of individuals who are able to buy a house and get a home owner loan between the ages of 25 and 34 has fallen to half the number from ten years ago.

Following a particularly good month for new loan approvals in December last year, January this year saw a significant down turn in the number of new home owner loan approvals, according to the latest figures from, the Bank of England.

The figures show that there were only 48,198 new loans approved for house purchase throughout the month of January, compared with 58,223 in December, as many buyers rushed to beat the end of the stamp duty holiday, and the six month average figure of 55,924.

Most experts are not concerned about the drop in new loan figures and usually expect a drop at the start of the year, which has only been exacerbated by the end of the stamp duty holiday and the particularly bad weather conditions.

Despite the low numbers for new loans, the net amount of consumer credit through secured loans actually increased by £1.5 billion, which is above both the figure for December and also the six month average of just £1.0 billion.

Although consumer credit lending has seen an average repayment over the course of the past six months, during January consumer credit agreements on credit cards increased by £0.2 billion and borrowing on personal loans and unsecured loans increased by £0.3 billion.

Simon Rubinsohn of the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) said “Our judgement is that this downturn in transactions will prove temporary and that buyer interest will have rebounded in the February data.”

“Lack of mortgage finance or the requirement for relatively large deposits, remains an issue as does the absence of sufficient good quality properties for sale. even so, we still expect the number of mortgage approvals granted per month to quickly climb back to the high 50,000’s seen at the back end of last year.”

It’s the list which no company wants to be at the top of. The Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) has just published its six monthly report on the number of complaints received regarding financial institutions such as Banks, building societies, insurance companies and other loan companies.

The report has focused on the number of complaints regarding individuals’ home owner loans and mortgages. The top ten organisations to receive complaints about their loans are: Bank of Scotland, Barclays bank, Santander, Cheltenham & Gloucester, Northern Rock, Nationwide, Nat West, HSBC and Mortgage Express.

The report covers the last six months of last year, between the 1st July and the 31st December and covers the number of loan complaints made and the percentage of these which have been upheld. In total the FOS received 82,136 complaints from borrowers regarding their home owner loans over the six month period.

The total number of loan complaints has increased significantly in the second half of the year, with an 18 per cent increase over the first half of the year, although on a more positive note, the percentage of loan complaints which were upheld by the ombudsman actually dropped to 53 per cent, from 59 per cent previously.

There are more than 100,000 individual businesses which are covered by the FOS, who are involved in the home owner loan business, but 88 per cent of all the complaints received, related to just 155 different firms.

David Thomas of the FOS said “While the number of cases referred by consumers to the ombudsman has continued to increase substantially, it’s encouraging to see that some businesses are committed to handling complaints better. We hope that businesses will use this data to focus their attention on addressing these key complaints handling issues over the coming months and years.”

A new report has suggested that building societies in the UK are finding it increasingly difficult to be able to offer competitive loans to their customers in the wake of the recent banking crisis and that many may find it hard to survive.

The news comes from the rating agency, Moody’s, who claim that a lack of loan funding from the wholesale money markets is leading to the decline of this traditional source of home owner loans.

With the Government effectively nationalising a number of the large high street banks in the UK through huge Treasury loans to keep them afloat and provide funding, this has created an unlevel playing field for many building societies.

A large number of building societies rely on their customers’ savings in order to fund loans to other customers, but with historically low interest rates, coupled with the implied security of a bank owned largely by the Government, many savers are withdrawing their savings from building societies to place them with the nationalised banks.

This having the effect of leaving building societies with insufficient funds to be able to offer home owner loans and mortgages to customers, whilst nationalised banks are able to offer loans with the money from Government loans.

This has led to concerns that many societies will not survive in the current economic climate and be taken over, or merge with, larger societies or banks.

Fiona Cornes of the Building Societies Association (BSA) said “We will continue to lobby to ensure that it is a fair market, we are competing with some of the part nationalised banks for funding and they have had access to tax payers’ money and other Government money that building societies have not had access to. It should be a level playing field. We do not rule out further consolidation within the sector and we are expecting some building societies to post good results this year.”

It has always been a complicated issue when it comes to finding the best loan to meet a person’s needs, but over the course of the past twelve months, with the banking crisis, tighter lending criteria and lenders general reluctance to offer loans, it has been a particularly confusing market place for those people trying to find the best home owner loan to meet their needs on their own.

As a result of this, there has been a significant increase in the number of individuals seeking professional advice from an Independent Financial Adviser (IFA), or loan broker, when looking for a new home owner loan, mortgage or other personal loan, according to the latest figures from Unbiased.co.uk.

Unbiased have seen the number of people looking for an adviser through their website increase significantly over the course of the past twelve months, with 7,000 enquiries to the end of January this year, an increase of 50 per cent above the same time last year.

large proportion of enquiries came from first time buyers, with around 43 per cent of all enquiries coming from this sector. The second most popular area was remortgage enquiries from people looking for a better deal on their existing home owner loan or mortgage.

It is an encouraging sign to see more and more first time buyers entering the housing and home owner loan market, as well as people starting to think about switching their existing loan as many banks and building societies are slowly increasing their standard variable rate of interest on loans.

Karen Barrett of Unbiased.co.uk said “It is essential that first time buyers and also those remortgaging seek advice to ensure they are making the best decisions for their individual circumstances. Only a whole of market mortgage adviser can give you advice on products from across the market, which suits your individual needs and financial position.”

These days, when somebody is looking for a new home owner loan, or personal loan, one of the most popular options is the fixed rate loan and the vast majority of people just take them for granted and assume that fixed rate loans have always been there.

But the concept of a fixed rate loan has just “come of age” and to mark the 21st anniversary of these popular loans, the Halifax, who introduced one of the first ever fixed rate loans, has published research which compares today’s loan products with those that were available on the market back in November 1988.

Towards the end of the Eighties, there were no fixed rate deals available and with interest rates on variable rate loans at a level of around 13 per cent, a fixed rate loan offering some level of stability was a welcome change for many borrowers.

We may think that there is a limited choice of loan products today, but in February 1989, there were only 12 fixed rate loan products available, from 12 different banks or building societies, compared with more than 1300 such loan products in today’s market.

It is hard to imagine that prior to November 1988 there were no fixed rate products on the market, particularly when the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) figures now show that around 68 per cent of all home owner loans are taken on a fixed rate basis.

Stephen Noakes of the Halifax said “in today’s market, borrowers can select their product based on a number of factors including term, type and rate. It’s easy for us to take that level of choice for granted, but before the introduction of fixed rates, borrowers simply didn’t have access to the same options. Ever since their introduction 21 years ago, fixed rate mortgages have been fundamental for home owners looking for certainty and stability in managing their household expenses and this is an important milestone to mark.”

The latest figures from the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) have shown that although the number of repossession cases on home owner loans in arrears and default are up for the whole of last year, the last three months of the year saw a significant decrease in the number of people losing their homes.

Despite this encouraging news, many banks and building societies, along with other specialist loan companies, are concerned about an increase in repossessions on buy to let loans over the course of the next twelve months.

A large number of landlords are on a particularly fine line when it comes to balancing the cost of their monthly buy to let loan repayments with the income they receive in rental payments from tenants.

Although there has been an increase in the number of buy to let loans offered in recent months, many lenders are concerned that only a slight change in economic factors could tip many landlords over the edge and lead to a substantial increase in repossessions.

According to the research from the Moore Blanch 2010 repossessions report, 65 per cent of lenders are concerned about the effects of a drop in rental yield, 61 per cent are concerned about the possibility of a further fall in house prices and 56 per cent are concerned about a possible increase in the Bank of England base rate of interest.

Any one of these factors could tip the scales for many landlords and place them in a serious arrears situation with their buy to let loan.

The other concern facing landlords is that although their loans are relatively cheap at the moment, there are also many cheap loans deals available on the market and many of their tenant could be tempted to buy a property rather than continuing to rent, leading to the possibility of empty properties and no rental income at all.