I guess it's interesting times in the mortgage market just now!
That's putting it mildly, to say the least. On the negative side, new entrants to the property market with small or no deposit, and existing borrowers with credit history issues are much harder, if not impossible, to find mortgages for.
On the positive side, however, increasing numbers of mainstream mortgage clients who would not have used a broker before are coming to realise that the easy route of just going to their existing lender is not as straightforward as it once was.
Some of the charges being levied by the big banks at the moment are nothing short of extortion and people are beginning to wake up to that.
We decided to waive our broker fee for the foreseeable future to help ease our clients' pain and it seems to have been very well received. So hopefully in the longer term we will emerge with a larger and loyal client bank.
Nice to see a fellow scouser on board ship!!! I was in Crosby a couple of weeks back doing some property history research on the Pheasant Inn- know it?
Yes I do. In fact I am still traumatised by the fact that on my last visit I failed to opt for the fishcakes as a starter and then saw them on another diner's plate. They were huge!
Yes I do. In fact I am still traumatised by the fact that on my last visit I failed to opt for the fishcakes as a starter and then saw them on another diner's plate. They were huge!
Well I never ate there, although I might now lol. I did the research for the pub history which will shortly go on their menus and walls etc!
so how are mortgages going these days? are they really hard to get hold of as I've heard?
See me earlier reply to RayB.
Things do seem to be beginning to settle down a little and the input of liquidity from the BoE will help. I don't think the situation will improve dramatically until all the banks have declared their next annual sets of results. Until each bank knows what exposure every other bank has had to the American defaults they will not be able to rank them and decide who the best risks are to lend money to. When this process starts again money will start to move around the system - albeit at very different rates of interest - but in time competition will bring rates down again.
The key issue for the UK market is house prices and, again, I don't think that they will collapse as fundamentally the economy is strong, interest rates are relatively low and even if there is an element of over heating in the prices at the moment (particularly new build) then the effect of the 400 million Eastern Europeans (or however many it is) needing housing has not been recognised.