UK Finance News

Nationwide Building Society reports that house prices fell again in April, this time by 1.1%.
This adds up to a 1% fall on average prices from April 2007 - the average price for a house in England is now £178,555 down by £1,759.
The Building Society blamed a weakening market impacted by affordability issues - hundreds of [...]

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So noted Shakespeare when he wrote Hamlet back in 1603. So why then 405 years later all the fuss and why the second credit collapse in 25 years?
Much press has been given to irresponsible lending, lax regulation and the role of central banks at home and abroad, yet little comment has focused on the activity of [...]

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So far Northern Rock has not managed to pass on the Bank of England’s quarter
per cent base rate cut to variable rate customers - those on 7.59%.
Whilst the emperor’s clothes of interest rates have become apparent to the wider public - that banks base their borrowing on LIBOR, not the BoE base rate - and [...]

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Proving that lenders who rely on the markets for funding don’t actually react to Bank of England interest rate cuts, the Nationwide was last night set to raise it fees and fixed rates.
As well as capping mortgages at £1m, fees for their 5-year product will rise by up to £200 to nearly £700 with a rate [...]

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First Direct have become the latest bank to close it’s doors to new mortgage customers. The bank will no longer offer mortgages to anyone other than existing customers, following an increase in applications for its home loans as other lenders raise their rates.
Several other lenders including Nat West and Scottish Widows raised their rates  yesterday [...]

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