I genuinely don’t pretend to understand why market experts are being negative about jumping onto the property ladder. It’s a great time to buy a property in the UK despite what any of the market analysts have said. Interest rates are miniscule , as low as anyone can ever remember thus monthly repayments are often less than would be needed as an similar 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 go up in value in the longer term.
You would suppose that any person 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 slight blip in the seeming inevitable rise of house prices, it’s still possible to use the property for its main purpose and actually live in it! But the market remains quiet – even torpid 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 suddenly it’s gone hard to get a mortgage.
When We Buy Homes it’s very rare that we do so without economic help from a bank or building society. An unforeseen side effect of the credit crunch is that authentic buyers who would not as a matter of course be considered as being in the “sub prime” category are not able to get into the market because of the tiniest of minutia meaning they do not fit a lenders requirements right down to the last exact detail .
The other off putting factor is that some lenders are now ordering you to come up with at a minimum twenty percent of the purchase price as a deposit. Less and less first time buyers are able to afford that sort of deposit and usually these sums are limited to people who have made money on , guess what, the housing market. You would imagine that the lenders would decide now is a splendid time to encourage first time buyers into the housing market to hold up prices further up the line!
Yet another matter is that expenses for taking out a new mortgage seem to have risen whilst value for money products such as cash back deals and discounted rates seem to have gone away . It seems like the mortgage companies 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 somewhat 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. Nowadays 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. A lot of these people are entrepreneurs or businessmen who have fluctuating income that are often well above the minimum required 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 seventy percent of the house value! All this because of a situation created in the USA, a radically different system to over here.
