Tuesday, January 16th, 2007 at 11:55 am
Britain’s red-hot housing market slowed at its fastest pace in more than two years last month, in the first clear-cut signal that higher interest rates are at last cooling the market.
A survey from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, released this morning, will raise hopes that the Bank of England may not need to tighten the screws much further as it battles to constrain inflation, reports the Times.
Thursday, January 11th, 2007 at 12:40 pm
Consumer price inflation has recently risen to 2.7% per month, the highest level in more than a decade and as a consequence of this the Bank of England has increased the bank rate by 0.25% to the new rate of 5.25%
This had been expected by those in the know but the general view had been that it would not happen for another month or two.
This will be yet another financial burden on people who are beginning to find that years of spending on credit cards and remortgaging their houses isn’t an easy option and has a real cost. Those people who have buy to let mortgages but haven’t worked through the potential finance cost in the event of increased interest rates may find themselves in unsubstainable financial situations.
Tuesday, January 9th, 2007 at 8:05 am
Lenders in Britain’s booming mortgage market are guilty of “significant failings” when advising borrowers, the Financial Services Authority has found, raising fears among consumer groups that a new misselling scandal could be about to rear its head. The regulator found two-thirds of the mortgage lenders it sampled did not have satisfactory processes in place when giving advice to borrowers, writes the Telegraph.
