The Sub-Prime Mortgage Market is broken - Mortgage Advice

Mortgage resuscitation required urgently!

The UK housing market will not recover until the mortgage market is fixed and expert advice at the Bank of England says, print more money in the hope of saving our economy from a long and drawn out recession is the answer. The Council of Mortgage Lenders says the number of UK households with mortgages is 11.7 million and has a value of over £1.2 trillion of these approximately 51% are fixed rate mortgages; 40% are on tracker, discounted or variable rate mortgages and less than 8% are on their lenders standard variable interest rate scheme. The mortgage market needs urgent resuscitation and repair to restore the banks lending confidence. We may have green shoots appearing across our economy but they don't seem to have any roots yet.

A recent poll of 539 professional mortgage brokers by Exact Mortgage Expert suggested that house prices were likely to continue falling for the next six to twelve months and the housing market had not bottomed out yet. Many housing commentators feel that the market still has a further 6% to 7% to fall before we reach this illusive bottom is found. Lloyds Banking Group say that the decline in property prices this year is around17.7% with the average home now valued at £154,716. In the last year the average property value has plummeted by £33,264.

Sub-Prime borrower in Limbo

According to the latest Mintel, one third of the UK mortgage borrowers are facing financial difficulties and 1.5 million have fallen behind with their monthly mortgage payments. Those borrowers that have fallen behind with their repayments are considered by future lenders as sub-prime borrowers and they are offered less than favourable interest rates when they come to remortgage. There are now only two lenders remaining that will consider sub-prime or non-standard mortgages compared with the non-standard or sub-prime industry prior to August 2007 when the 'Credit Crunch' started. Whilst the lenders have disappeared the sub-prime borrowers have remained in limbo not knowing where to go or what to do and the number new recruits has swelled.

Since the rescue of the banking system by the Government last year and the sharp drop in the base rate by the Bank of England it seems that all the lenders have lost their appetite to lend money to homeowners and potential new borrowers. Lenders are nervous about incurring further losses and have drastically tightened their lending criteria. This means that borrowers are unable to refinance their homes easily and first-time borrowers now require a deposit of around 25% just to get on the property ladder. As a result of this large deposit being required many have turned to the bank of mum and dad for help in raising a deposit. The lenders have now become very choosy who they lend money to.