» Click here for the original article

It is cheaper to get a mortgage now than at any other point over the last five years according to mortgage lenders – but are you experiencing a cheap mortgage?

Home buyers in November needed to use less of their income to cover their mortgage interest than at any time for more than five years, according to new data released today by the Council of Mortgage Lenders.

In particular it has found that home movers are experiencing a low debt burden by historical standards – they typically needed only 10.6% of their income in November 2009 to cover mortgage interest payments, down from 11.1% in October. The CML says this is the lowest debt burden on home movers since the CML started recording this data in 1974.

The debt burden on first time buyers also reduced, with only 14.4% of their income needed to stay on the housing in November, down from 15.1% in October – the lowest it has been since May 2004.

Michael Coogan, director general of the CML says: "It is encouraging to see that mortgage interest payments are so affordable for home movers and first-time buyers. But with substantial deposits still needed to secure a mortgage, the market will continue to be relatively restrained for some time to come."

If you are not experiencing the same from your mortgage and are struggling to cover your mortgage repayments each month, it might be time to talk to a financial adviser. They will help you search the UK market for a cheaper mortgage deal, will help you rearrange your finances and will do all they can to make sure you are spending less of your income on your debts.

SOURCE: CML, 14/01/10

To Keep up with news and comments on the current adverse credit market please visit the Adverse Mortgage Blog.

» Read the full story

If you are struggling to stay out of your overdraft in the New Year it might be time to reassess your adverse debts and talk to a financial professional about turning over a new leaf.

If you are struggling with your mortgage repayments, your debt repayments and your bills you might find that you are into your overdraft more often than not. This is not good news – not only will overdraft abuse wreck your credit score but you will also have to add overdraft fines to the growing list of outgoings you have to manage each month.

Dipping into your overdraft is the first sign that things are not right with your finances. An overdraft should be a last resort, a buffer to allow you to get through particularly tough times – if you are using your overdraft every month then you are not handling your money as well as you could.

So talk to a financial professional about taking out new loans or about a debt management scheme. If you want to be ableto be the boss of your money  once again and to be able to save then you need to get a grip of your outgoings. That means consolidating debt, it means budgeting and it means making long-term plans, not short-term fixes.

To Keep up with news and comments on the current adverse credit market please visit the Adverse Mortgage Blog.

» Click here for the original article

More than one million householders have used credit cards to pay their mortgage or rent in the last 12 months, a new survey by Shelter reveals.

Many could find themselves facing homelessness this year because of their huge debts, especially as defaulting on credit card payments could trigger repossession in the worst case scenario. Paying secured debt with unsecured debt is simply one of the most dangerous things you can do and is a sure sign that you need mortgage advice, fast.

The survey by the charity found that 6% of those who were liable for the rent or mortgage said they used their plastic to cover monthly repayments – suggesting a national figure of more than a million people.

The charity is issuing a stark warning to people about the dangers of using credit cards which could result in the loss of their home. Credit card companies have to recover their debts and are not subject to the same rules as mortgage lenders so if you pay your mortgage and not your credit you are just as likely to possibly lose your home.

Kay Boycott, director of policy and campaigns at Shelter says: "This is a shocking discovery, that over a million households in Britain are in such desperate circumstances that they need to borrow money on credit cards to pay for basic housing costs. If people are already struggling to the extent that they fear losing their home, increasing credit card debt cannot be the answer."

Martin Lewis of MoneySavingExpert.com, says: "Mortgages are a debt, credit cards are a debt. For all but the seriously financially savvy, using credit cards to pay rent or mortgages is a mistake that can store up mammoth financial problems for the future. If you can't afford to pay your housing costs lumping up the borrowing is never the answer – far better is to seek help as soon as possible and start managing the problem."

SOURCE: Shelter, 11/01/10

To Keep up with news and comments on the current adverse credit market please visit the Adverse Mortgage Blog.

» Read the full story

If you want to make a change in 2010 you could start by looking at ways in which you could cut down your debt's dependency – talk to a specialist adverse mortgage adviser about reducing your debt's interest demands.

Debt can feel like a monster on your shoulder, taking your money every month, and taking more when it doesn't get enough – it can sometimes feel like your adverse debt is in charge of your bank account rather than yourself.

It's no surprise to find then that Britain's interest repayments on personal debt were £66.1bn in the last 12 months, according to debt charity CreditAction. It found that the average interest paid by each household on their total debt is approximately £2,621 each year – and according to PricewaterhouseCooper, the average household will need to spend approximately 15% of net income purely to service the interest payments arising from this debt.

That means the average Brit is working 3 or 4 days a week to just service their debts – and that number is going to rise as CreditAction says the average consumer borrowing via credit cards, motor and retail finance deals, overdrafts and unsecured personal loans has risen to £4,708 per average UK adult at the end of November 2009.

Talk to a mortgage adviser about ways in which you can reduce your debt outgoings. It might be through a debt rescheduling plan, consolidation or simply moving your finances to a new lender.

The time to act is now – CreditAction says that a whopping £181m is spent every day on debt. If debt grows, so does the levels of repayments demanded by the monster. And if those demands become too much, your home could be at risk. It is a reality – the debt charity says a person is being repossessed every 11.2 minutes in the UK now.

So get on the phone with a professional as soon as you can to make your debt monsters go away.

SOURCE: CreditAction, PwC, 06/01/10

To Keep up with news and comments on the current adverse credit market please visit the Adverse Mortgage Blog.

» Read the full story

A New Year means resolutions – and yours should be to get rid of your adverse mortgage debt by shopping around for the best deal.

Research from Moneysupermarket.com has found that people could save more than £4,000 over the next year by making a New Year's resolution to move to more competitive financial deals – and the key to finding the most competitive deals is by going through a financial professional who can source the whole UK market.

Your financial shopping around must begin with your home loan. Your mortgage forms the corner stone of your personal finances, as your home is likely to be the most expensive purchase you ever make. So a mortgage that is making your life harder or is dragging you further into debts needs to be changed. The best way to do that is to carefully shop around and use a mortgage expert to help hunt out the best mortgage from the whole of the UK market.

But it is not just your mortgage that can drag you down – a savings account with a paltry rate, an expensive personal loan, over-exerted credit cards – the New Year is a great time to solve all your financial problems, not just your adverse mortgage issues.

Clare Francis, site editor at moneysupermarket.com, says: "People should review their finances on a regular basis and the turn of year is a great trigger to do just that. We're all feeling the pinch at the moment and for those suffering an extra financial hangover from the festive period, recovery will be all the quicker in 2010 if significant savings are made.

"A New Year's resolution to look for more competitive deals and products could save a household thousands by this time next year. The great thing about these savings is they can be made without changing your lifestyle at all."      

SOURCE: Moneysupermarket.com, 05/01/10

To Keep up with news and comments on the current adverse credit market please visit the Adverse Mortgage Blog.

» Read the complete article

It seems that home affordability for potential first-time buyers has improved significantly over the year as Halifax reveals that first-time buyers are able to afford homes in two out of five areas in the UK.

The bank has found that in 2009, the average price paid by an first-time buyer was affordable for someone on average earnings in nearly four in ten of local authority districts. This is compared to a poor 2007, when only 6% of areas were affordable. In fact, nearly a quarter of local authority areas became affordable between 2008 and 2009.

This is all because the proportion of earnings devoted to mortgage payments by a potential new first-time buyer on national average earnings has almost halved from a peak of 50% in June 2007 to 27% in November 2009 – the current level is below the average over the past 25 years of 34%.

On top of all this, there are signs that mortgage lending criteria has stopped tightening – according to industry-wide figures, the average deposit put down by a first-time buyer has been unchanged as a percentage of the purchase price since early in 2009 following a significant increase in 2008. Also, the number of live mortgage products for first-time buyers has risen by 33% since April, to 1,610 in December 2009.

Martin Ellis, housing economist at Halifax, says: "Housing affordability for potential first-time buyers has improved substantially over the past two years due to the combination of lower house prices and reduced mortgage rates."

Talk to a mortgage expert to find out whether you are eligible for one of the 1,610 first-time buyer loans on the UK mortgage market. You might be surprised to find that you are not only able to find a first-time buyer loan, but able to find a loan that's reasonable and flexible.

SOURCE: Halifax, 03/01/10

To Keep up with news and comments on the current adverse credit market please visit the Adverse Mortgage Blog.

» Read the full story

Debt problems are still continuing, regardless of the perceived improvement in the economy, and may of those problems are only going to get worse in 2010 unless people act now.

Debt and benefit problems are currently growing at an annual rate of 21% with employment problems up also 17% in the last year, according to Citizen's Advice. They have had to deal with 10 million debt problems over the last year and unless those debt problems are addressed, they could be seeing a lot more problems in 2010.

Worryingly, latest quarterly numbers show that there are continuing significant rises in the numbers of people seeking advice on mortgage and secured loan arrears, up by 28% on 2008 figures.

In light of this continued demand, Citizens Advice is urging people to avoid starting 2010 with a debt hangover and to budget carefully for the festive season.

David Harker chief executive of Citizens Advice says: "Citizens Advice Bureaux across the country are seeing increasing numbers of people seeking help, with benefits and debt enquiries alone up over a fifth in the last year. Extra funding has meant bureaux have seen more clients, but for many the impact of the recession will be felt for a long time to come.

"Every community is experiencing a change in circumstances. These new statistics show how many people are struggling as a result of losing their job or a reduction in pay or hours, leading to difficulties managing loan repayments."

This is sensible advice from Citizen's Advice. If you have been dealing with debt through 2009 without any help, it might be time to seek a change and get the advice of a professional. That might come from a good mortgage broker – they are experts in dealing with debts and managing finances. Talk to one today about making your debts work for you in 2010, rather than the other way round.

SOURCE: CAB, 03/12/09

To Keep up with news and comments on the current adverse credit market please visit the Adverse Mortgage Blog.

» Read the complete article

There are still a lot of people out there with sub-prime mortgages and they still need financial advice, even if they can't get hold of a mortgage during this downturn.

New figures from Unbiased.co.uk reveal that the number of people searching for whole of market advice on sub-prime mortgages have leaped, increasing from 3% in September to 7% in October. This is an all time high of enquiries since Unbiased.co.uk, a broker search engine, launched at the end of August 2008.

You might be a sub-prime borrower and may have resigned yourself to a long period of stagnation on your current mortgage. But it is foolish if you do not talk to a mortgage adviser – you may find that you are in a better position than you think and you may find that there is some hope out there for people who have been castigated by society for being supposedly 'risky borrowers'.

In fact many sub-prime borrowers are not really sub-prime cases at all – they may have just been put onto a sub-prime loan when times were good because it was either the best loan out there for them. All borrowers including sub-prime borrowers need a voice – and a good mortgage adviser can be that voice.

Karen Barrett, chief executive of Unbiased.co.uk , says: "The increase in those searching for advice from whole of market mortgage advisers on sub-prime mortgages points towards a squeezed market for those borrowers.  While an increasing number of mainstream mortgage deals are slowly appearing back onto the market, the sub-prime market remains slow, and these borrowers are therefore scoping out options through which they can access new deals. 

"Only through seeking whole of market mortgage advice can they be sure to get access to deals across the whole of the market, and ensure they arrange a deal which is affordable to them for both the short and long term."

SOURCE: Unbiased.co.uk, 30/11/09

To Keep up with news and comments on the current adverse credit market please visit the Adverse Mortgage Blog.

» Read the complete article

Almost three quarters of Brits will pay for Christmas on the ‘right now' this year, despite the effect of recession on household budgets, a warning to those who are still spending beyond their means.

According to a study commissioned by money.co.uk, 30m British adults are set to start 2010 staring at an £8bn hole in their collective household finances.

The research found that, whilst 31% of adults are worried about paying for Christmas, just 15% have made an effort to spread the cost over the course of the year. The rest will fund their share of the nation's £11bn Christmas splurge using a combination of credit cards, savings and ‘money available at the time'.  Meanwhile 4.7 million adults admit that they are still paying off debts from last Christmas.

The reliance on paying at the last minute could see many families stretched to the limit financially. If current trends continue, each household will spend close to £500 on food and presents, even though average disposable income per family per week stands at just £164.

As a result, it is likely that many households will feel the January pinch even more keenly than usual, with the Christmas spending hangover combining with winter fuel costs and the long wait for payday adding up to a grim start to 2010.

Chris Morling, managing director, money.co.uk says: "There is no reason at all why families across Britain should not have a wonderful Christmas this year, but you have to worry about the effect all this last minute spending will have in January. Lots of people are likely to be very short of cash going into the New Year, which would not make for a great start to 2010."

The last thing you want to do is start 2010 as most adverse borrowers began 2009. Try and spend within your means this holiday season, making sure you are that much closer to the black next year.

SOURCE: Money.co.uk, 30/11/09

To Keep up with news and comments on the current adverse credit market please visit the Adverse Mortgage Blog.

» Click here for the original article

At the end of the year stamp duty will go back to applying to all properties above £125,000 not the current temporary £175,000 – but many borrowers are trying to get hold of a mortgage before the break runs out.

In fact, homeowners looking to take advantage of stamp duty holiday and buy homes under £175,000 increased nearly 10% in last three months, according to moneysupermarket.com.

The website thinks the end of the stamp duty holiday will have a severe impact to the market, with most of these likely to be first-time buyers. Once the regular tax returns, all those buying a home worth more than £125,000 will have to pay a 1% stamp duty tax. While it doesn't sound like a lot, for a first-time buyer that could be a few thousand pounds less for their deposit.

Hannah-Mercedes Skenfield, mortgages channel manager at moneysupermarket.com, said: "Thousands of house buyers are trying to take advantage of the stamp duty holiday before it is due to end. It is encouraging to see an increase in homeowners looking for this band of property.

"Most buyers looking at this end of the housing market are likely to be first-time purchasers; when the stamp duty benchmark is pushed back to £125,000, and factoring in the huge cash deposit required by the banks, stepping on to the housing ladder is going to be an impossible leap for many. The average house price in all regions is over £125,000, so this benchmark is exceedingly low."

If you want to get in before the break ends, talk to a mortgage professional immediately. It will be tough, but there is still time to take advantage of the stamp duty break. So talk to someone who can find you a great deal, fast – a professional mortgage adviser.

SOURCE: Moneysupermarket.com, 25/11/09

To Keep up with news and comments on the current adverse credit market please visit the Adverse Mortgage Blog.