RSS FeedsNew home sales slowdown with the costs of UK Mortgages on the rise
22/04/2008
According to Taylor Wimpey yesterday (Britain’s largest housebuilder) as a result of mortgage costs rising this is having an effect on sales of new homes seeing a decrease. This is not an attractive picture for homebyuers who are potentially looking to enter the housing market.
The picture in the UK housemarket seems to face further gloom as interest from those potentially looking to buy homes decreases and those looking to sell their homes are continuously worried about what sort of chance they might have in getting a decent price for their home, estate agents all across the country report.
Some of the biggest names in the mortgage business have made significant changes to their mortgage products. Alliance and Leicester and Nationwide have put stricter criteria on their home loans making it more expensive for borrowerers to get a mortgage. Halifax has also made some changes to it’s mortgage products by increasing some of it’s mortgages by half a percentage despite cuts in interest rates over the last few montrhs by the Bank of England.
At its annual meeting yesterday Taylor Wimpey told shareholders that "Market conditions in the UK have weakened since we reported our preliminary results (March 6), with first-time buyers and investors facing particular difficulties as a result of the increasingly restricted availability of mortgages.” As a result of the market conditions both here in the UK and in the US the results for the year are expected to be lower than expected.
"Sales rates remain significantly below those of the equivalent period of 2007 on a pro-forma basis, with higher levels of cancellations being experienced."