Mortgages

The UK property market showed signs of a slowdown in December last year after annual house price inflation dropped for the second month in a row, says the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister .

Mortgage lenders have been told in a letter from the FSA there is little evidence of abuse of self-certification mortgage applicants as firms have good controls to prevent against fraud.

Nurses, teachers, police officers and fire fighters can no longer afford to buy a home in most major towns, says high street lender Halifax.

Price of an average house price in England and Wales rose 12.62% in 2003 from £145,251 to £163,584, according to the official Land Registry.

UK property prices continued their upward trend in January as first-time buyers returned to the housing market, according to Hometrack.

Abbey for Intermediaries has cut the interest rate two and five-year fixed-rate mortgage range by upto 0.25% in a bid to make the deals more attractive to customers.

Bristol & West (B&W) economist Laurence Sanders predicts the Bank of England's base rate will peak at 5.5% by December 2005, before falling back to a rate of 4.5% one year later.

The Association of Mortgage Intermediaries has launched a guide explaining how to set out becoming a regulated mortgage adviser, to coincide with the official start of the Financial Services Authority accepting application forms for direct authorisation....

Investment intermediaries should be on the look out for business deals with mortgage intermediaries who have no idea of what it is like to work under the FSA's regulatory regime, says law firm Clarke Willmott (CW) partner Philip Tebbatt.

Abbey for Intermediaries has decided not to apply for Authorised Principal (AP) status ahead of FSA mortgage regulation coming into effect on October 31 this year, despite other product providers going down that route.