Monday, Jun 29, 2009
State banks no longer playing on a level playing field with other lenders.
BBC News: Mortgage approvals still rising
The property market continued to pick up in May, according to figures from the Bank of England.
The number of mortgages approved for house buying rose to 43,414, up from the figure of 43,191 the month before.
Posted by flintster1994 @ 02:02 PM (1905 views) Add Comment
22 Comments
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1. george monsoon said...
so up 0.48% on the previous month.
Its amazing what spring, good weather and positive VI spin can do to encourage the reckless and foolhardy people who are lucky enough to have money for a deposit.
2. need-a-crash said...
Unbelievable headline from the BBC. Surely it should be "Mortgage Approvals Remain Static", given the increase was so tiny.
If anyone ever wanted confirmation of the BBC's bias this is it!
3. titaniccaptain said...
A month on month increase of 223 approvals in the spring which is traditionally a major pick up for the property market is laughable...............
If I were an Estate Agent I would be very worried.
We NEED a return to high volume turnover of property for all involved ...i.e. buyers, sellers and estate agents but that is not going to happen until prices are affordable.....and the "affordable" criteria has changed.......the banks wont be returning to 2007 levels...accept it and make provision accordingly.
As I have said before time is running out for Estate Agents and a coordinated crash procured by Estate Agents seems to be the only option for an immediate solution....Prices need to fall at least 50% prom present for there to be any hope of returning to a high volume turnover.
4. Europeanbear said...
April is a shorter month, so approvals are bound to rise even in a static market
5. wdbeast said...
titaniccaptain@3
I totally agree that price falls of this magnitude are on the way, but once they happen, will most people not be so heavily in negative equity that they will not be able to move anyway.
I do believe EAs are sh4gged either way....what a shame!
6. titaniccaptain said...
@ wdbeast 4
I do have quite a controversial idea for negative equity and that is to write it off...not the whole mortgage .....I have no idea how....if coordinated between the EAs (nationally refusing to market properties that do not reduce by say 50%) and then the lenders writing off the negative equity of that 50% drop then there could be a way out......as I said I have no idea where the money for these write downs would come from....also this could incorporate my other idea of having group purchasing consortiums to move in and bring some liquidity into the market by taking houses of the banks at very very low prices....its not perfect but its food for though....the one Idea we had for the purchasing of land banks mentioned in the second Economic Voice link has actually come to light.
http://www.express.co.uk/money/view/110624/Landbank-floats-to-snap-up-cheap-housing-sites
Relevant Economic Voice Links :-
http://www.economicvoice.com/blorumpost.php?blorum=3&post=1238
http://www.economicvoice.com/blorumpost.php?blorum=3&post=755
7. peter_2008 said...
Since BBC is a public company, may I suggest that all its employees disclose whether they have a second home or BTL and thus have a VI to talk up the market, which I reckon will be a bigger scandale than the MP expense.
At least, Peston done the decent thing to sell his stocks/shares before becoming the BBC business news editor!
8. Gruppenfuhrer said...
Reading this article it is as though there are two stories here.
The top three paragraphs are a reasonably positive tale.
However when the basis - the meat of the piece - are reached this does appear to be very much doom and gloom.
I am normally very dismissive of allegations of bias within the BBC but I have to say this does look a little fishy. If I were being kind I would say it was an example of either extremely naive or poor journalism. If I were feeling less kind I don’t know what I’d think. Troubling.
For my own part though I think it sounds like a dead cat bouncing.
9. wdbeast said...
titaniccaptain@5
Indeed, many things that may seem unlikely now, can suddenly become possible.
I certainly never foresaw the massive deleveraging that was about to take place, I just thought we were in for a cyclical recession and a property price correction!
10. charlie brooker said...
If mortgage approvals continue to improve at that rate every month going forward it would take until autumn 2017 to return to 'normal'
(assuming a 'normal' figure of 70,000 per month).
11. enuii said...
30 days hath September, April, June and November, all the rest have 31 (except February).
Therefore as 43414/31x30=42013 the number of mortgage approvals actually fell down to 1400 per day from 1440 per day in April.
Which is a bigger percentage drop than the BBC's reported rise.
12. contrails are not a conspiracy (formerly npnh) said...
5. titaniccaptain said...
"I do have quite a controversial idea for negative equity and that is to write it off...not the whole mortgage .....I have no idea how...."
Essential goods inflation + asset price deflation = your controversial idea!
13. p. doff said...
Spoke to some estate agents the other day. The first (small one man band) admitted he sold sweet FA in March, 8 houses in April, 10 in May, and thinks will be slightly more in June. The other agents reported similar improvements, and no, they are not making it up ( I make it my business to know which ones I can trust).
Surveyor acquaintances are also reporting getting a bit busier as well.
So cancelled HPC, Spring bounce, dead cat, green shoots or whatever. Maybe it won't be sustained, but the facts do support the various bullish meeja articles.
14. last_days_of_disco said...
I think we are about to go over the edge again. There is no way this can be sustained. I think its a mood thing. Once the weather gets colder and the redundancy money starts running out, people will get grumpier and prices will collapse. But enjoy this lovely weather while you can because its one of the few nice things we will experience for a while.
15. Pyracantha said...
p.doff: sorry but your argument is appallingly weak. What you say about sales would have more impact if you asked those same few EAs what their sales had been for the same period in previous years. A rise from March to June is hardly surprising. Try harder little bull.
16. george monsoon said...
P-doff
I agree,
I too have spoken to a friend of my wife, who has an estate agents. March and April were extremely quiet. May picked up a little and June has seen them double their target sales.
Whats happening? surely this must be the "if it looks like a duck, it must be" mentality that has come about with all the VI spin in recent months.
17. bellwether said...
Need a Crash @2 - you make a good point. The article talks up property without basis and for no obvious reason.
"It was the fourth month in a row that approvals have risen, suggesting that the recent increase in sales is likely to continue."
I don't see why a declining increase suggests increases are likely to continue particularly when you factor in seasonality. This is sheer misrepresentation by BBC.
Recent evidence from lenders has also suggested that the slump in house prices is slowing down"
What evidence?
18. Onlooker said...
The house prices have increased by 300% over the past 10 years. So a decline/correction of 20% to 40% is not a big problem. Infact , correction is necessary. Unfortunately, the govt and BOE are trying to artificially inflate asset prices by printing money and keeping interest rates low. This is not fair considering they will punish prudent investors.
19. gone-to-colombia said...
Going back to the article, this suggests that new property lending is remaining stable and a very low level.
This means that the input into the market from this source is largely absent.
What remains must be cash purchases, this is no basis for a return to rising prices, there cannot be enough cash around to reinflate the bubble.
20. it_is_going_with_a_bang said...
There are still alot of people around who can't quite think of anything to invest in to get some return on their money - I have met quite a few in the last 6 months. They are buying just to get some return on their money through rental.
The fact that property may go down in value either they dont believe or just don't care. They want an income every month - which they were happy getting from savings accounts until the interest rate was destroyed.
21. mander said...
Comon people house prices going up would only make us lazy. We can not get rich by simply buying a house and wait to increase in value. The negative equity is a lesson for all of us now. Who is to blame? I think those who trasformed normal working people into home owners by making them think they invest. So with so many in negative equity somebody had given bad financial advice.
22. Imported Labour said...
I think property prices in this country will never go down, cause the govt allows more and more people to come and live here, so there is a greater demand on housing even if the quality of life goes down in general as few houses for more people, I can say that having worked here for 5 year have seen the number of people who have moved here in the last 8 to 10 years. There is no hope for people as there is always some stupid or desperate enough to buy at high prices.