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Hi just thought I would give you an updated on the fundraising disco we hell last Saturday.
I had hope that we would raise somewhere in the region of £3000, but I am really pleased to announce that we raised £6500.
I am so pleased, it was a fantastic night and over 250 people came along to hear all the old soul and funk tunes.
In fact it was so succesful that I have been inspired to do it again next year.
Thanks to all who donated and helped
When we get all the monies in from the auction, we will be making a presentation to the Phyllis Tuckwell Hospice Farnham.
Michael
Hi,
I thought I would publish something that appeared in one of the mortgage business trade journal “Mortgage Introducer”.
I think it goes to show that money is still being lent for mortgages, despite what we hear consistenly in the TV News
“27 January, 2009
In December, net mortgage lending by banks rose by £2.9 billion according to the British Bankers Association (BBA).
This was lower than in November and below the average of the previous six months. Consumer credit remained subdued, falling by £0.4 billion net, while personal deposits rose by £4.0 billion. However, the significant falls in Bank Rate and the financial sector turmoil affected both lender and customer activity in November and December, so monthly movements are less indicative than usual of trends, according to the BBA.
BBA statistics director, David Dooks, said of the latest data: “This first opportunity to compare 2008 with 2007 shows that gross mortgage lending by the main high street banks totalled £170 billion, some 23% below 2007’s total of £221 billion.
However, lending by the rest of the mortgage market was half the previous year’s total, showing how mortgage lending became much more concentrated during the year. The banks approved less than half the 2007 number of loans for house purchase, reflecting falling demand from households facing greater economic uncertainty and double-digit falls in house prices over the year which led to a wait-and-see mentality.
“Consumer credit was very weak in December as people reined in their credit card spending, despite early Sales and heavy discounting by retailers. This consumer caution was also reflected in personal deposits, which rose strongly.”
The annual growth rate for net mortgage lending was still in double digits at end-year and reflects the main banks replacing other lenders in the market. During 2008, banks’ net lending rose by £48 billion, compared with £62 billion in 2007. In 2008 as a whole, gross lending was £170 billion, some 23% lower than in 2007.
Approval activity appeared to increase slightly during December, but was more likely to reflect delayed activity from November. In 2008, house purchase approvals were 52% lower than in 2007. Approvals for remortgaging were 14% lower than 2007. Approvals for equity withdrawal & other purposes were 33% lower in 2008 than 2007″
A lot of technical info, but interesting never the less.
Michael www.mumsltd.co.uk
Wherever you look its “Doom and Gloom”, I try not to watch too much TV news, I mean how many times can you listen to the news presenter read out bad story after bad story, without getting peed off.
Last week the housing minister Margaret Beckett, said it was a good time for 1st time buyers to be buying homes. She was slammed for not recognising that our recession problems are not over. But I would like to defend her.
Yes that’s right, well up to a point. You see, it is a good time for first time buyers to be “looking” at property, so they can get a feel for the market. Now you notice that I didn’t say buy…
Of course they could buy if they have a big enough deposit and they can negotiate another 5-10% off the curent asking prices.
Most people who are desperate to move, are waiting for the price of homes to reach what they percieve to be the bottom of the market. When will this be?
Well in my opinion, sometime later this year I believe the value of houses will stop falling, then prices will stick for a while and the start to rise next year. Maybe not as dramatically as before, but they will rise in the foreseeable future.
And our 1st time buyers have to be ready. Now compared to this time last year, there are not as many mortgage products available, but there are a few alternatives and I would be glad to talk to you about your options, just give me a call 01276 67077
So I believe first time buyers should be taking a look at the market and getting a feel for the market.
As a 1st time buyer, what kind of deposit do you need?
Well the ideal customers from a lot of the banks and building societies point of view is a customer who has 20-30%, because the mortgage lenders are worried that the value of houses, still has another 10% to go down yet, so they want to minimize the risk they take..
But 10 and 15% deposit mortgages are available, but they come at a cost. If you want further information and options, call me and we’ll talk
Bye for now
Michael
www.mumsltd.co.uk
Don’t buy a mortgage today, that’s the message I am giving my clients.
I like most people was surprised by the 1.5% reduction of rates by the Bank of England. But the mortgage market is a little unstable and volatile at present and will be till at least the middle of next week.
All of the banks and building societies have withdrawn their tracker mortgages, which means that if you buy a fixed rate mortgage today and the bank rate goes down another .5% or even 1% then you will have a more expensive mortgage than you should.
On the pessimistic side, if you get a fixed mortgage at 5.5% and the economy goes tits up and we see interest rates up to 5,6, 7,8% or more, you will have been glad to obtain a “cheap” mortgage.
Hopefully next week the lenders will come to their collective senses and bring back trackers or lower fixed mortgages.
So until next wednesday or so, do not get talked into buying a mortgage until things settle and better deals come back to the market.
Have a great weekend.
Michael
Michael Usher Mortgage Services
I’ve got a feeling in my bones that this is going to be a good week for all of us. (well maybe not all of us but most of us)
A new world has just opened or so it seems with the election of Obama, the first black/mixed race president of America….
And finance has been off the front of the news bulletins for several days because of the American elections. Plus later this morning the Bank of England meet to decide what the interest rate should be. Its got to go down!!!
Its amazing that when there is no “Bad Financial News”, or its buried in page 5, people start to get more confidence about buying property.
I have had several brand new clients this week, who do not seem care about the credit crunch. The fact is that they have seen houses they want and they are going to buy them.
They have put in sensible offers, the owners understand that the market has shifted downward and have reduced prices and its a win win for all concerned.
Now of course the American elections are over, the media will do its best to shake our confidence by bringing us a daily drip of bad news. Already the news today is new car sales are down 23% on last year and there’s another report from the Halifax “The average price of a home in the UK was £168,176 in October, compared with almost £200,000 in the same month last year, representing a bigger annual fall than the 13.4pc drop recorded in September”.
Yes it just goes on and on…
Now I appreciate that news has to be reported but… its the number of “Experts” that comment on the market that shakes our confidence. The Newspapers have to fill their pages, the editors crack the whip and the journalists have to find a story…I know thinks, the journalist responsible for “house news” I’ll check my roladex and find one of my experts, phone him/her up, get a comment and build a story that’ll last a few days.
As I have said before, I know many people with businesses that are still doing OK, in fact some are doing great.
People still need to move, people have circumstances that change and need to sell their property, people want to buy a house to live in to call their own and all this hyping up in the media, just does not help anyone.
I still think that this is a good week and if interest rates go down by .5% or even 1.00% later today, it will be an even better week especially for all those people wanting to change mortgages or buy a new house.
In America, the Fed has cut its interest rates by half-point to 1 percent, there have also been cuts in China and Norway…..….Now that’s what I’m talking about.
I’m not an economist, but is seems daft that the bank of England are taking so long to cut interests rates in this country. At 4.5% with a review on 6th November.
Believe it or not, the number of new mortgages approved in September rose..(33,000 in fact) after an all time low on approvals in August. Some experts believe however that this could be down to the changes in stamp duty. We will see..
Now according to the Nationwide, house prices in the UK have now fallen for the twelfth consecutive month.
They say that property prices fell by 1.4% in the last month, taking the annual rate of fall up from 12.4% to 14.6%. As a result, £27,000 has been wiped off the value of a property, taking the average cost of a home to £158,872.
But…..the Land Registry has said that annual house prices in England and Wales have fallen 8%, while it posted a monthly fall of 2.2% in September.
This takes the average property to £168,814, according to the Land Registry.
SO WHO DO YOU BELIEVE…Too many experts… and Nationwide, like many other large companies have journalists, who feed other journalist from the newspapers with a drip of stories.
Why, because they have got to sell newspapers, mind you I think Nationwide do tend to whoop it up a bit, you know, sensationalise things more than most. They must have journalists sitting around brainstorming “How are we going to get in the papers tomorrow”
But to get this mortgage market going again, we need to see lower interest rates, I’m not suggesting an immediate cut of 1 or 2%, because that probably cause more problems than it solves. But over the next 4-6 month lets hope that Bank of England can do something in that direction.
After all, if your are on a tracker mortgage and many of my clients are, you could see your mortgage fall dramatically.Or if you get a new mortgage and are able to get it at a lower rate than it is now, you will have more money in your pocket.
And of course this means that you will have more money over at the end of the month to spend in the shops, restaurants and other businesses to help get this economy going again.
Take care
Michael