Saffron back, House Prices up, Consumer confidence on the rise!

We’re delighted that the Saffron Building Society has relaunched in to the mortgage market after a few weeks rest.  The new suite of products include a 95% First Time Buyer product along with a range of other niche products such as an Expat Buy to Let, a mortgage aimed at Professionals and Contractors, a Self Build mortgage with 100% of build costs and a Buy to Let that allows light refurbishment before renting out!  All of these have no redemption penalties at any time.  Although not a house hold name, this is a really positive move from the lender and well worth a review if their products are of interest.   

The Help to Buy mortgage schemes have certainly bought back some confidence to the consumer market.  We’re also seeing some positive moves from lenders across the country as they look to help out with small deposit loans.   In addition to the Saffron previously mentioned, two other examples come from the Hanley Building Society and Cambridge Building Society.   The Hanley have reduced their 95% loan to value product interest rate by a huge 1%.  The Cambridge has now widened their product access to mortgage brokers across the whole of England allowing more people to access their 95% products. Both a welcome boost to market product offerings.

Finally, House Prices are up!  Over the year to July 2013, according to the Office of National Statistics, UK House prices had increased by 3.3%.  In London alone, there was a 9.7% increase.   Halifax said that house prices increased in August 2013 by 0.4% and Nationwide suggest in September there was an increase of 0.9%.  The average house price in England is reported to stand at £255,000 (as at July 2013).  For First Time Buyers, this is £183,000.  For sellers, Hometrack say that the average time for a property to be on the market has fallen to 7.9 weeks, the lowest for six years!