Summer Positivity in the UK Housing Market

As unsurprising reports surface of the Bank of England announcing that the Base Rate will stay at 0.5 percent for the foreseeable future (and, no doubt, into 2010), there has been more data released about the general state of the UK housing market over the summer - and the news is fairly positive.

Although not entirely unpredictable, the latest data from the Land Registry is that all regions of England and Wales have seen an increase in the price of property. In July house prices were seen to rise by 1.7 percent - a significant increase when one considers the move of just 0.9 percent reported by Nationwide in the preceding month. The increase in July was the biggest seen since 2004.

Additionally, London also saw an increase in house prices where they moved up by 1.6 percent - that's two increases for the capital in as many months.

This will be fairly positive news for landlords considering buy to let mortgages. With the market clearly on the upturn, those who have just recently invested in new property will be glad they have done when prices were at their lowest, and those in the position to buy now will be sure that it is a sensible time to do so. This increased activity among landlords will be set to stimulate lenders into a period of increased competition.

In fact, evidence of this period may already be visible. The latest figures from the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) seems, according to them, to be showing ‘the first signs of stabilising' in the second quarter of 2009 - correlating nicely with the time frame of the house price increase above.

Buy to let arrears data was particularly positive, with 29,400 mortgages in arrears (for three months or more), 17 percent less than the previous quarter - which boasted 35,600. Additionally, the number of buy to let loans advanced stood at 21,600 during the second quarter of 2009, which was just a 4 percent decline from the first. Although not as positive as an increase, the overall picture of the market is showing a positive slowdown in the decline as the year progresses.

For more information and resources around commercial and buy to let mortgages, visit http://www.mortgagesforbusiness.co.uk