All Council of Mortgage Lenders articles
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CommentGlimpses of improvement in housing market, but economic woes continue to dog prospects
House price indicators suggest average prices may be rising slightly, but in real terms prices remain in decline
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Comment
Stamp duty - a tax rise that looks set to win votes
There is obvious glee within the housing market about the prospects of a two-year period free of stamp duty for those first-time buyers who purchase properties worth less than £250,000.The £250,000 threshold captures practically all of them, with significantly less than 10% of exceptions that will be mainly resident in ...
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Comment
We are on a perilous road to the new normal – but at least it’s exciting
Yesterday I went to an excellent conference organised by the Council of Mortgage Lenders. I know it was good because I came away with a headache and a slightly befuddled mind, but invigorated nevertheless.What made it more interesting was that on the train into London I read Martin Wolf’s column ...
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Comment
Was it just the cold or is it a relapse?
There are plenty of people, “experts” indeed, who fully expect a double-dip recession for both the economy and, for that matter, house prices.For them the data emerging for January’s performance appears to be, albeit gently, vindicating their position. They will no doubt seize with alacrity the retail figures from the ...
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Comment
The cruelty of breeding force-fed first-time buyers
Here's a question that goes right to the heart of current housing policy: Should we be using incentives as readily as we are to encourage first-time buyers onto the property ladder?However iconoclastic or contrary this question may seem, it needs to be asked. There is so much at stake.Promoting first-time ...
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The stagnant housing market: More a problem of first-time movers than first-time buyers
First-time buyers are increasingly becoming trapped in their first-time homes and unable to move on to homes that better suit their needs.That at least is the implication of some figures that caught my eye recently when I was looking though some data produced by the Council of Mortgage Lenders.Consider this: ...
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Comment
House building figures show huge jump in starts and completions
There were two big boosts in the numbers released today for house builders.First, the latest Government data on homes built in England are by far the best for more than a year with a massive leap in the quarter to June.Second, gross mortgage lending in July was up 26% on ...
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Comment
CML provides further evidence of the housing market becoming more buoyant
The Council of Mortgage Lenders today adds yet more weight to the view that the housing market is in a period of stability if not growth.Its June figures show a 23% increase in the number of home loans over the past month taking the total to a level not seen ...
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Comment
Homes sales continued to perk up in April, but it's too early to call it a recovery
The official figures for property transactions will make comforting reading in April for those selling homes.They seem consistent with the prevailing view that the housing market, in terms of sales and not prices, is showing some signs of bouncing back up from the floor reached at the turn of the ...
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Comment
If 2008 was bad for the housing market, 2009 looks much worse
There are plenty of scary figures in the latest forecast from the Council of Mortgage Lenders not least the expectation that half a million homeowners will fall into arrears.The expectation that 75,000 homes will be repossessed by mortgage lenders is pretty scary too, especially as this in practice would mean ...
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Comment
Thousands of homebuyers in negative equity
Figures provided to the BBC by the Council of Mortgage Lenders show that 23,000 homebuyers took out 100% mortgages in the 12 months to March this year.With house prices as measured by HBOS (Halifax) back to the level of January last year, this means that many if not most of ...