Saving
for a house
First Time Buyer
Are
you trying to buy a new home? Maybe you want
to buy your first home? What with a tough mortgage
market, inflation and all the usual costs involved
with house buying such as legal fees and tax
not to mention decoration and furnishing, now
is a problematic time to buy.
However,
certain indicators are showing that the doom
and gloom saturating the housing market may
be beginning to evaporate. OK, so we aren’t
exactly back to 2007 levels when the property
market was booming so much its repercussions
were felt across the globe. But the Nationwide
building society has said that house price inflation
had risen 10.5% year-on-year to the end of April
2010. What’s more, according to the Centre
for Economics and Business Research, British
house prices could increase by as much as 5.3%
in 2010.
However,
the average home in the UK now costs £167,802.
This is a rather large decrease on June 2007
figures, which put the average house price at
£184,070.
Property
sales are struggling too. Sales in March totalled
72,000, but this was the lowest March figure
since HM Revenue and Customs, who collected
the information, first started compiling records
in 1978. But on the other hand, this was a jump
of 22% on February’s sales figures.
Although
mortgages are still hard to come by, especially
for first-time buyers as mortgage lenders continue
to demand a 25% deposit, the total number of
new loans agreed in March was up to 48,901 from
46,882 in February; this represents a year-on-year
increase of 17%.
Choice
is beginning to increase, which will come as
long-overdue good news to first-time buyers.
The total number of mortgages now available
has reached over 2000, the highest level since
December 2008. But even better news is the increase
in high loan-to-value mortgages. There are now
19 95% mortgages – a 533% increase year-on-year
– and the number of 90% mortgages has
risen by 107% during the same period.
What
with the continuation of the 0.5% base rate
from the Bank of England and smaller deposits,
now could be the time to lock in a fixed-rate
mortgage deal. If you want to find out how much
you can borrow and more importantly, how much
you can afford to pay back, make use of free
online mortgages calculators.
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