House Buying Guide

The Bank of England has just announced that its interest rate will stay at 0.5% – bringing us to a full 12months of the lowest interest rate of all time.

Since the UK economy is still in a fragile state, the move was widely expected. Any increase in the rate could have been a hammer blow to the UK’s recovery.

Although the Bank of England rate is still at 0.5%, mortgage rates are still significantly higher than this – the average standard variable rate is at 4.7%. and the average two-year fixed-rate mortgage is now at 3.9%.

Recent data from Halifax suggests that house prices dropped by 1.5% in February – likely to be due to the drop in demand following the recent return of the lowest stamp duty band to £125,000 from the £175,000 figure it had temporarily been increased to.

Hannah-Mercedes Skenfield, mortgage expert at moneysupermarket.com said: “Undoubtedly the biggest winners from the fall in interest rates have been those consumers who have been sat on standard variable rates (SVRs). Traditionally lenders’ SVRs have usually been higher than the deal that was ending so consumers would have to remortgage as a result. Now we have a situation where many consumers are sitting on extremely low rates and have no incentive to move. We have started to see SVRs starting to increase again, and rates for remortgaging starting to fall so for some consumers, now is the time to consider looking for an alternative deal.

“The losers have been those consumers who have little equity in their property or those who have been looking to get a foot on the housing ladder, particularly first time buyers. There have been some positive signs in the mortgage market over the last 12 months; we saw the number of available mortgage products fall below the 2000 mark in 2009 but we have seen a steady increase since with numbers in excess of 2,700 which shows that the recovery in the market is in place, although it is a way short the height of 2007 when there was over 30,000 products. In addition, those who are even able to access a deal with an LTV of 90 per cent will have found themselves paying a hefty premium for the privilege, often as much as 6.05 per cent.”

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Nationwide’s figures for January 2010 show that house prices rose by 1.2% in month, and bring the year on year rate of increase to 8.6%. This brings the cost of the average UK home to £163,481. Following 9 consecutive months of property price increases, then unless there is a sudden change in February, annual rate of price increase will move to double figures for the first time since May ‘07.

News that the UK economy finally emerged from recession in the fourth quarter of 2009 has strengthened confidence in the property market, even though the emergence was very weak (i.e. 0.1%!).

Unfortunately though, house price increases are not being matched by average earnings increases, with many workers facing pay freezes or even cuts. This could ultimately at least slow the house price recovery or even bring it to a halt, if demand for houses drops.