I really don’t pretend to understand why market analysts are being negative about jumping onto the property ladder. It’s a fantastic time to buy a home in the UK despite what any of the market analysts have said. Interest rates are miniscule , as low as we can ever remember thus monthly repayments are normally less than would be needed as an equal rent. DIY shops abound making it easier to do up old or dilapidated houses, and the likelihood is that when We Buy Houses they tend to increase in value in the longer term.
You would imagine that anyone with even half a brain would realise that when We Buy Homes they are historically the best investment we ever make and that even if there is a temporary blip in the seeming relentless rise of house prices, it’s still possible to use the property for its initial purpose and actually live in it! But the market remains quiet – even stagnant some say, even though headline figures are down a bit. What’s the reason ? It’s obvious really . Houses tend to be on the expensive side and all of a sudden it’s gone hard to get a mortgage.
When We Buy Homes it’s very exceptional that we do so without financial help from a bank or building society. An unintended side effect of the credit crunch is that legitimate buyers who would not normally be considered as being in the “sub prime” class are not able to get into the market because of the tiniest of minutia meaning they do not fit a mortgage companies specifications right down to the last exact detail .
The other depressing factor is that some lenders are now demanding you to come up with at a minimum twenty five percent of the purchase price as a deposit. Fewer and fewer first time buyers are able to afford that sort of deposit and usually these sums are held to people who have made money on , guess what, the housing market. You would envisage that the lenders would assume now is a good time to encourage first time buyers into the housing market to support prices further up the line!
Yet another concern is that costs for taking out a new mortgage seem to have risen whilst value for money products such as cash back deals and reduced rates seem to have been withdrawn . It seems like the mortgage providers are quite happy to have been baled out by the central government and are none too keen to get back into the business of lending on solid bricks and mortar investment.
Another relatively ill thought out judgement by the previous government is that people who self certify their incomes are now not to be considered for loans when We Buy Houses. Generally lenders are not permitted to give out new mortgages or extend additional borrowing facilities to people who are not in a position to have independent certification of their income. Many of these people are entrepreneurs or businessmen who have fluctuating income that are often well above the minimum needed for a mortgage.
If I thought I could Sell My House right now then I would sell before the end of the year and pick up a real bargain. It’s only the fact that, if I were to Sell My House my mortgage options would be so restrictive because of the lack of availability of mortgage products.
Not that I wouldn’t have a large deposit or couldn’t afford the payments – it’s purely because I would not qualify with most of the major lenders as they would now judge that I would be unable to pay the mortgage despite having no problems over the past twenty years and having a deposit of well over sixty percent of the house value! All this because of a situation created in the USA, a radically different system to over here.
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