HBOS, owner of the Halifax amongst others, is to streamline its operation with the cutting of around 420 jobs and the deletion of one of its mortgage businesses.
The Halifax brand is well known for mortgages, being one of the biggest providers of home loans in the UK. This status means it will not see any changes to its operation, the cuts instead coming from other parts of the HBOS group. It appears that part of the problem was a duplication of efforts in relation to mortgage business, the streamlining aiming to reduce this and give each brand its area of expertise.
The job cuts by HBOS, which as already stated will not impact on the Halifax, will see most employees redeployed to other parts of the group, meaning that in real terms job losses should only be slight.
Liverpool Victoria has just introduced a new Flexible Lifetime Mortgage, accessible to financial advisors through their existing systems.
The Liverpool Victoria mortgage allows customers aged between 60 and 95 to use equity in their property as a cash resource, drawing a minimum of GBP10,000 initially, then in increments of GBP2,000 up to the maximum loan to value amount. Financial advisors will be able to provide quotes for interested parties from their existing Assureweb systems, making it a quick and easy exercise.
Targeting the older end of the market this style of mortgage offered by Liverpool Victoria enables customers to access the value of their home when they may need it most and still retain ownership of the property.
According the the Alliance and Leicester mortgage department there are around 3.25 million homeowners who would like to move house in the coming year.
This appears also to drive the move to home improvements, although that is also being pushed on by those who feel that they will be unable to move and so are improving their homes to make them better suited to their current requirements. The Alliance and Leicester found that around 20 percent of homeowners are making home improvements in order to make their property more attractive to buyers whilst half of them are doing it to avoid the issues associated with selling.
One the key areas people want to improve, said the Alliance and Leicester, is the number of bedrooms, always a key issue, especially with families. This is one of the biggest reasons for moving, especially as it can be very costly or totally impractical to add a bedroom to many properties.