The Halifax House Price Index for April showed a large fall of 1.3 percent, a significant fall in the period of just one month.
Predicting the state of the housing market for the rest of the year the Halifax anticipate an overall fall that will be less than 10 percent, though there will be large differences in this depending on where in the country they are. They expect prices to actually go up in Scotland for example, though houses in the West Midlands and Wales are forecast to see heavier than average price falls.
A Halifax spokesman suggested that the falling prices should be seen against their recent history of strong price rises for several years. In this context house prices can still be seen to be very strong compared with the long term trends.
The Abbey National has today announced mortgage rate cuts on several of its home loan products, specifically the fixed rate and flexible mortgages.
All of the Abbey National flexible offset mortgages have had a rate cut of 0.2 percent, as have the five year fixed rate offers, while three year tracker mortgages have received a reduction of 0.1 percent. They have also stated that more reductions will follow, these being on the two year and three year fixed rate mortgages, where rates could come down by a quarter of 1 percent.
A spokesman for the Abbey National stated that they wanted to do the best they could for the customer, delivering the best possible deal whenever possible. It is also hoped that the cutting of rates across the market will stimulate activity in the housing market.
The largest lender in the UK, the Halifax, is cutting some of its mortgage interest rates for new customers as of today. This is the third mortgage rate cut the Halifax has announced this month.
Sixteen different mortgage deals will see cuts to their rates, with some being reduced by up to 0.3 percent, helping new mortgage customers get into a property by reducing their monthly repayments. A Halifax spokesman explained that they were keeping up with recent changes in interest rates by other lenders, ensuring they are competitive. 2 year fixed rate mortgage rates for example were unchanged since they had been reduced only a week ago.
In a market where property sales are down by about half compared with last year and mortgage approvals are down by over two thirds it remains to be seen whether these changes will significantly impact on the housing market, though the Halifax will surely be hoping it does.
