OnthemarketBlog YouTube @property1 @onthemarketblog

People continue to choose fixed rate mortgages More people are choosing to fix their mortgage, according to our National Mortgage Index (NMI). There was a 0.7% increase in the proportion of buyers who opted to go for a fixed rate product in January, with 94.7% electing to sit on a fixed rate. When compared to the number of people fixing last year, the NMI shows that fixing is now 1.6% more popular than it was a year ago, when 93.1% decided to. These results are likely down to the Bank of England Governor, Mark Carney, claiming that the Ban k of England Base Rate is to stay longer than previously forecast – reinforced by the Monetary Policy Committee voting  unanimously to keep the Base Rate at its record low for the 83rd consecutive month. Inflation also slightly increased to 0.3% in January, meaning that it is now expected that interest rates will continue to remain low, with many economy experts not predicting a rise until 2017.  Head of lending at Mortga...

More buy-to-let landlords searching for mortgages on cheaper properties Purchasers of buy-to-let properties are turning to the cheaper end of the market as low rates encourage buying but incoming regulation douses demand for more expensive homes. Landlord borrowers are moving away from higher-priced properties towards those valued below £150,000, according to research that tracks 250,000 monthly mortgage product searches carried out through price comparison websites. The data, produced by the broker Mortgage Advice Bureau and search tool provider Twenty7Tec , will cause concern among housing policymakers who have warned of intensifying competition between first-time buyers and buy-to-let landlords for affordable properties. The number of buy-to-let landlords searching for mortgages on cheaper properties has risen to 70%, up 17% on the same quarter last year, according to the Mortgage Search Tracker from Mortgage Advice Bureau . Seven in ten buy-to-let investors looking ...

The Council of Mortgage Lenders and Which? are today launching a new "tariff of mortgage charges" that will introduce a standard format for how lenders communicate their fees, to make it easier for customers to understand charges and compare deals. Following a Which? campaign to end the confusion around mortgage costs, the Chancellor asked the CML and Which? to work together to find ways to make it easier for consumers to understand and compare the costs of different mortgages with different lenders. Since then, we have worked jointly to address this problem and today are launching a new tariff to help make it easier for people to understand mortgage fees and charges. There are two key improvements within the tariff: Standard terminology: Different lenders will now use the same names for fees, as Which? research previously found consumers find the existing range of names for similar fees too confusing. Common format: Each lender will list fees in the same order...

House prices, mortgages inflation , housing crisis zoopla primelocation and rightmove , the list goes on my point ? topics all in the news and we've all heard on them. And not forgetting property the property developers who have been in the news also recently. When you me or Joe Blogs , are looking to rent buy or sell a home , our first fast port of call is online Whether it's Zoopla or Rightmove we start our property search here, to get a feel of what's out there. which brings us all to the property industry spin and and counter spin of a tertiary property portal made up of the hoi polloi high end London concentric estate agency industry , whose last company accounts where Jan 2015 ( Next Accounts Due 31 October 2015 (11 months left ) Online estate agent emoov and its CEO Russell Quirk has queried whether a property website known as OnTheMarket[OTM] is running out of money.? “We recently made the point that OTM had recently been trying...

Britain’s recent economic past is closely tied with the fortunes of the housing market. It does not look like that will change any time soon. – Graphic by Vincent Flasseur The latest official figures show a familiar pattern: low rates have a much bigger impact on house prices than they do on inflation, which turned negative again in September, never seen before this year since March 1960. London house prices tend to overshoot but the national figures tell a similar tale. Very little has changed recently, especially the interest rate. Reuters   Ross Finley, Global Editor David Kern, chief economist at the British Chambers of Commerce , said they expected inflation to remain at or below 0% for most of this year. "Our forecast is that annual CPI inflation will start to creep upwards early in 2016, but will remain below the 2% target well into 2017," he added. "The benign outlook for inflation is also reinforced by our quarterly economic survey, which sho...

September 2015 sees 72,930 house purchase approvals, up almost 20% since September last year Growth takes house purchase approvals to highest level since January 2014 (the last month of support for mortgage lending via the Bank of England’s Funding for Lending Scheme) Small deposit lending hits the highest levels seen since October 2008 – now accounting for 18.1% of all purchase approvals The number of house purchase mortgage approvals has risen by 19.8% over the last twelve months, to reach a twenty-month high, according to the latest Mortgage Monitor from e.surv, the UK’s largest chartered surveyor. This represents the highest monthly total since January 2014 – the last month when the Bank of England offered support to mortgage lenders via the Funding for Lending Scheme (FLS). September 2015 has seen 72,930 house purchase lending approvals, while in January 2014 there were 75,691 approvals. Since the previous month of August, which saw 71,030 house purchase approvals, ...