|
House prices fall again but
are consumers unhappy?
|
Mortgage lending drops to 33-year low
Garnet Roach garnet@consumerchoices.co.uk
Lending to home buyers has dropped to its lowest point for 33 years according to new data from the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) (14-05-08).
Only 46,500 mortgages were approved for home buyers last month, bringing lending for the first three months of 2008 to a total of 142,000 - the lowest quarterly total since 1975.
As the number of UK surveyors reporting a drop in property prices increased for the ninth month in a row, Michael Coogan, CML director general, predicted that lending would fall even further in the coming months as the credit crisis continued to affect the banking industry.
“House purchase transaction volumes will continue to deteriorate in the coming months as recent approvals data from the Bank of England has shown. Any improvement in credit market conditions will take time to feed through into the mortgage market,” he said.
|
"House purchase transaction volumes will continue to deteriorate in the coming months"
|
But despite figures released yesterday by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors showing that 82 per cent of surveyors across the country saw prices fall in April compared to 66 per cent in March, the BBC reported that many people are actually looking forward to a housing crash.
Research by ICM on behalf of the BBC showed that only 22 per cent of people wanted house prices to go up while 28 per cent wanted them to fall - nearly half wanted them to remain the same.
Chris Eagle, CreditChoices.co.uk product director, said: “Although falling house prices are scary to the average homeowner who runs the risk of negative equity, those who have been trying vainly to get on the housing ladder could now find properties within their reach for the first time.
“People looking to trade up to a larger house could also find falling housing prices to their benefit as it is bigger properties that will lose the most value,” he added.
| 
