Monty's Mortgage Blog

27.06.08 by Andrew Montlake

Turn Of The Tide

To quote the album title of Barclay James Harvests 1981 long player, (now there's one for the musos out there), there are lots of little things happening at the moment that could point to a "Turn Of The Tide" in the mortgage industry.

The Land Registry has released data that shows that whilst there is an undoubted fall in the volume of housing transactions, house prices actually were unchanged in May and up 1.8% over the year.

We have seen a few green shoots from mortgage lenders with some relatively competitive tracker rates being introduced from the likes of C&G, Alliance and Leicester and Halifax.

Our behind the scenes discussions with lenders have also been a little more positive in recent weeks, and whilst no-one is kidding themselves that everything will be back to normal soon, (that is is certainly not the case), there are grounds for optimism.

The lovely Kirstie Allsop of Location, Location, Location fame has also been quoted that actually now is a good time to start looking to buy, and Abbey yesterday released stats. that say it may be better to buy in certain areas rather than rent now due to the rising rent costs and the evening out of property prices.
 
Meanwhile, price wars between rival supermarkets can only help to alleviate some inflationary pressures although I am still on a self-imposed ban from shopping at Tesco's out of principle for their world-domination tactics.
 
Anyway, the point is are we slowly seeing some sort of equilibrium return to the market ?

Comments

Comment by Dave Pulsford | 2008-07-05

It's good to see a bit of sense being written. Doom and gloom is the bread and butter of the press so a more reasonable view of the future is more than welcome.

Comment by Dominic Hiatt | 2008-06-30

Equilibrium — what I'd give for some equilibrium!!!!! Let's hope the bottom has been reached and things finally pick up.

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