Well known high street building society the Alliance and Leicester has just announced some new mortgage offers offering a variety of options for housebuyers.
Fixed rate mortgages are very popular right now as people look to get some stability with their repayments. To this end the Alliance and Leicester mortgage offers include two new fixed rate options. Their five year fixed rate deal will cover up to 90 percent of the property price and stands at 7.14 percent interest. There is also a shorter two year rate, quoting just 6.14 percent interest but restricted to those able to put down a deposit of 25 percent or more.
Catering for the variable rate market the Alliance and Leicester have also introduced a tracker mortgage that follows the Bank of England base rate. Of course this does not ensure a fixed repayment amount but the interest rates are currently lower than the fixed rate alternatives so can prove enticing.
The Nationwide Building Society has been looking at the state of the property market with specific regard to flats, which make up around 16 percent of the total UK housing stock.
It found that the average size of a flat is 750 square feet, which is around half the size of the average detached house. They are also much cheaper than a detached house, with the UK average price for a flat standing at approximately GBP136,600. This is, says the Nationwide Building Society, around 25 percent less than the average for all properties combined and so makes it a little easier for first time buyers to get a mortgage for.
Although new build properties are often seen as being smaller than their older counterparts this is not the case with flats. Those built during the 40’s and 50’s tend to be the smallest according to the Nationwide Building Society figures, with new build flats being nearly 10 percent bigger.
,p>Get a great first time buyers Nationwide Building Society mortgage quote and get on the property ladder with a flat.
The fact that Northern Rock is making repayments back to the Bank of England for the bail out loan it received seems, on the face of it, to be good news, though it could prove to be detrimental to the mortgage market as a whole.
It has been suggested that Northern Rock is only able to have overpaid on what it owes to date because it has effectively withdrawn from the mortgage market and has received significant sums of money by calling in the home loans. In the very short term it allows Northern Rock to get ahead on their payments, but in the future this means there is less money available in the mortgage market.
If there is less money available to borrow for mortgage customers then the cost of borrowing can rise further, fuelled by demand outstripping supply. Northern Rock mortgages may well come back into the market in the future but at the moment these are worrying times.
