All Council of Mortgage Lenders articles

  • Brian Green
    Comment

    Glimpses of improvement in housing market, but economic woes continue to dog prospects

    2011-12-13T12:59:00Z

    House price indicators suggest average prices may be rising slightly, but in real terms prices remain in decline

  • Comment

    Stamp duty - a tax rise that looks set to win votes

    2010-03-24T17:14:00Z

    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 拢250,000.The 拢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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    We are on a perilous road to the new normal 鈥 but at least it鈥檚 exciting

    2010-02-25T11:23:00Z

    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鈥檚 column ...

  • Comment

    Was it just the cold or is it a relapse?

    2010-02-09T10:36:00Z

    There are plenty of people, 鈥渆xperts鈥 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鈥檚 performance appears to be, albeit gently, vindicating their position. They will no doubt seize with alacrity the retail figures from the ...

  • Comment

    The cruelty of breeding force-fed first-time buyers

    2009-12-08T15:47:00Z

    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 ...

  • Comment

    The stagnant housing market: More a problem of first-time movers than first-time buyers

    2009-11-10T20:41:00Z

    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: ...

  • Comment

    House building figures show huge jump in starts and completions

    2009-08-20T12:45:00Z

    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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    CML provides further evidence of the housing market becoming more buoyant

    2009-08-11T11:03:00Z

    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 ...

  • Comment

    Homes sales continued to perk up in April, but it's too early to call it a recovery

    2009-05-22T10:47:00Z

    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 ...

  • Comment

    If 2008 was bad for the housing market, 2009 looks much worse

    2008-12-18T17:52:00Z

    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 ...

  • Comment

    Thousands of homebuyers in negative equity

    2008-06-10T13:51:00Z

    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 ...