Essex-based independent broker Stonebridge Group has launched a new mortgage and insurance network.

The Nationwide has called for further quantitative easing after property prices slumped 0.7% this month, continuing the price falls that started in the summer.

House purchase approvals continued to weaken in September reflecting low demand, according to Bank of England figures.

The regulator this week hit back at CML claims almost four million borrowers would have been denied a mortgage if Mortgage Market Review (MMR) proposals had been in force between 2005 and 2008.

LSL Property Services has agreed the £1.59m acquisition of mortgage and insurance distributor Advance Mortgage Funding Ltd, trading as Pink Home Loans.

Barclays is targeting borrowers with a minimum 30% deposit stuck on a Standard Variable Rate (SVR) with its fee-free, cash-back remortgage.

After a year of improving confidence, the intermediary sector has now grown more pessimistic and thinks lenders are less keen to lend than at the beginning of the year.

The FSA has banned three individuals for mortgage fraud and fined two of them a total of £414,683.

Home sellers continued to outnumber buyers in the last three months causing property prices to slip back, according to surveyors.

The Mortgage Market Review (MMR) will set house prices tumbling, says the director general of the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML).