As I sat watching the Chancellor yesterday on TV, headphones on listening to the radio coverage to drown out the howls of derision hurled at the screen by some of my colleagues, something interesting happened.
It wasn’t the fact that the Labour front bench had made a fashion statement in purple rather than traditional red, nor was it that I started to nod off during a speech that was long on politicism and short on content. Actually it was the sudden realisation that maybe I have finally fallen out of love with politics, something I have always been passionate about.
In January, mortgage borrowing and housing transactions generally fell off a cliff given the sub-zero weather conditions and the end of the stamp duty holiday in December, so February’s slight uptick isn’t too much of a surprise.
Looking forward, we’re not expecting borrowing levels to accelerate significantly in the run-up to the General Election, and they may even fall back slightly post-Election.
Come the second half of the year we’ll know far more about how the mortgage and residential property markets are likely to fare in the short term.
We are now entering a particularly interesting phase in both the mortgage and property markets, as the economy teeters on the brink of either recovery or a double–dip recession. Whilst economists argue over the immediate future and politicians hit the campaign trail in earnest, the general public may be forgiven for feeling a little left out as in all honesty it is their every day experience that really matters.
January has never been a particularly strong month for mortgage data and this year the drop has been exacerbated by the stamp duty holiday that ended in December and last month’s dire weather.
However, activity picked up towards the end of January and into February so we expect to see stronger figures from February on until they begin to tail off again in the second half of the year.
January’s figures shouldn’t dampen the spirits as the mortgage market has got off to a flyer compared to this time last year, with hundreds of new products hitting the market and enquiry levels rising dramatically.
Apparently, according to some sources, remortgaging is now back in vogue and enjoying somewhat of a renaissance as it is officially now the case that remortgage products are cheaper than most lenders Standard Variable Rates.
Some of us have already been talking about this since the start of the year, and it is nice to be backed up by some weighty reports. Moneysupermarket.com, for example, have stated that even when taking the new mortgage product arrangement fees into account the “best” fixed rate and the “best” tracker product over 2 years will beat the majority of lenders SVR’s.
Andrew Montlake, Communications Director at Coreco and ‘Mortgage Personality of the Year 2008’, gives his views — honest and no holds barred — on the latest developments within the mortgage and property markets.
