Repossessions - 6 months period of grace

It has been announced today that the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), who also own the Natwest bank, will be allowing mortgage payers who default on repayments, a 6 month period of grace before legal action is started.

Under current legislation, legal action and repossession proceedings can be taken after 2 months if mortgage payments are in arrears.

RBS is now 60% owned by the government, and will have been under extreme pressure to show a more lenient approach to repossessions. It is expected that other banks will follow this move.

Although the current legal limit at which repossession action may be started is 2 months, most banks already give a longer period of grace than this, os in practical terms it is unclear how this will affect the rate of repossessions which has been rising rapidly in recent months.

Find a property to buy or rent

Right Move has dominated the market for people looking for property to buy or rent, but they only cover up to around 50% of the property available at any one time.

What if your ideal property to buy or rent is in the other 50%?? Until recently your only course of action was to trawl through other property sites such as those produced by Team, or members of Prime Location, and the individual sites of Estate Agents.

Now, with the launch of a brand new search engine, you can find all properties for sale or rent easily. The search engine is Globrix.com. It is highly specialised and aims to gather all the property for sale or rent, whether on RightMove, Primelocation or on local Estate Agents' websites, all in one place.

The searches can be very loose or highly focused around specific requirements, such as location, type of house, number of bedrooms and outside space. A formidable number of properties can be sometimes be returned, but this can be very quickly narrowed down to meet your specific requirements.

Globrix.com has the potential to be THE search engine of choice for property in the UK.

House Swap - Lion Television Series

Lion Television are working on a pilot for a new BBC1 property daytime pilot/show House Swap. House Swap aims to locate people and properties desperate to move and find their perfect match/home.

This will be a very positive show, raising awareness in a new trend of moving on, without losing out and hopefully generating a quicker sale/swap for the home owner. The main objective is to get home owners moving, to make this an enjoyable experience for all those involved.

The company is looking for couples, families or individuals desperate to move and looking to find their perfect match / home or are considering a move, possibly from one part of the country to another, although they are keen to talk to anyone thinking of moving, at this stage. They are in production at the moment with a pilot episode so will need to source the main participants as soon as possible. They are searching for great contributors; couples, families or individuals to feature, who are in the process or considering a move, possibly from city to country/seaside or vice versa with a bit of background why; new job, growing family, marriage.

With the help of their presenter and an expert negotiator they will guide the contributors through the process; finding their dream property, and helping them to negotiate a deal. They will meet, greet and road test potential home swappers.

If you would like to know more and at this stage without obligation to swap or be filmed, please contact Lucy Welch on 020 8846 2081 Or Lisa Kirk on 020 8846 2190.

What does the shock one and a half per cent interest rate cut mean for the Uk property market

Concerns over the deepening recession in the UK economy has led to the Bank of England cutting interest rates by a massive 1.5%. This move was totally unexpected and has caught economists and the markets by surprise.

So what does this mean for the UK housing market.

Well if you have a tracker mortgage then you will benefit immediately from this 1.5% interest rate cut. Savings could be as much as £90 per month on a £100,000 mortgage. Interestingly a number of tracker rate mortgages have been withdrawn from the market as banks and building societies take stock of a rapidly changing financial environment.  If your have a fixed rate mortgage then you will see no immediate benefit.  If interest rates stay at a lower level then you may be able to get a lower fixed rate when your mortgage comes up for renewal. For those with a Standard Rate Variable mortgage then it is very much a case of "wait and see" as many economists do not expect the full benefit of the interest rate reduction to be passed on.

Will this 1.5% interest rate cut help the slide in house prices?Somehow I doubt it. There is still a strong sentiment that property is overvalued and the cut in interest rates is unlikely to free up the mortgage market for first time buyers.  The affordability level is simply way too high, and banks are not going to go back to the reckless days when they would lend 5 times salary any day soon.

While the interest rate cut was made to help stave off a deepening recession, it may not succeed. Most things we buy these days comes from abroad and you may have noticed that sterling has been falling against both the US dollar and the Euro over recent weeks.  This is pushing the price of imports up.  As reported by NEXT, you are more likely to see an increase in prices in the near future than a fall.

So what does this 1.5% interest rate cute mean for the housing market.  Well I expect it will have very little immediate effect, either on prices or the volume of sales. The winners this time are those with tracker mortgages who will have a few more pounds to spend this Christmas if the fuel bills don't take all the money.