The Abbey has become the second big lender this week to make slight cuts to some of its mortgage rates.
LONDON (BBC News ) - All flexible and tracker rates are being cut by 0.05% while new borrowers with 25% deposits are seeing fixed rate deals being cut by up to 0.17%.
On Tuesday, the Nationwide building society cut some of its fixed rate loans for new borrowers by up to 0.3%.
The Abbey is making the reductions in anticipation of a cut in its own borrowing costs.
It said it hoped to benefit from the Bank of England’s recent plan to lend more money to commercial banks, in the hope of reducing their borrowing costs as measured by the London Inter Bank Offered Rate (Libor). (more…)
LONDON (Reuters) - Strong rental demand will underpin the buy-to-let market and help the country avoid a more painful housing crash, though some investors will be caught out as a number of mortgage lenders exit.
The buy-to-let market has surged in a decade that has seen house prices triple, attracting a range of investors since the market began in 1998 and growing to represent 10 percent of the total market and 12 percent of new mortgages in 2007. (more…)
Controversial sale and rent back firms are to be investigated by the Office of Fair Trade (OFT) amid fears of a growing consumer scandal. The Office of Fair Trading has announced a market study into the sale and rent back sector, where companies purchase troubled homeowner’s properties at below market value and then lease them back. Citizen’s Advice branded sale and rent back ‘a disaster in waiting’ last autumn and both the Council of Mortgage Lenders and charity Shelter have called for watchdogs to investigate the sector. (more…)
The Cyprus Tourism Organisation (CTO) has reportedly been given the go ahead from the EU to provide support to airlines to introduce new routes to the island. The move from the EU and the Cypriot government is part of a strategy to bring in more tourists to help boost its flagging industry.“It’s a new scheme and it’s a transparent one, which is applicable to all European airlines, not just low-cost carriers,” said CTO director general Phoebe Katsouri in an interview with the Cyprus Mail. (more…)
Recent financial times artcile stated that all the UK high street banks made a combined £40 bn gross profit for 2007, with a total of £18 bn of write offs for bad debts. giving a net profit of £22 bn for 2007 across all banks, not bad for a years trading?
House prices may be on the wane, but for the canny buy-to-let investor that is not necessarily a bad thing.
According to the latest confidence tracker from property investment consultancy 77.5 per cent are undaunted by current interest rates, a sizeable ten per cent increase on the figure recorded at the end of 2007.
Seventy-one per cent of investors said they thought it was a good time to buy more property, although this was down on February’s figure of 80 per cent. (more…)
The Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee today voted to reduce the official Bank Rate paid on commercial bank reserves by 0.25 percentage points to 5.0%.
CPI inflation rose to 2.5% in February. The Committee expects inflation to rise further this year, reflecting the continuing impact of higher energy and food prices, as well as the recent depreciation of sterling on import costs. Such pressures are already evident in producer input costs and pricing intentions.
Even if commodity prices remain at their current high levels, inflation should fall back. But to ensure that inflation meets the 2% target in the medium term, the Committee needs to balance two risks. On the upside, above-target inflation this year could raise inflation expectations so that, in the absence of some margin of spare capacity, (more…)