Abbey National mortgage customers facing difficulties on the back of the credit crunch are being asked to consider taking in lodgers to make ends meet.
Across the country there are currently over 18 million households with an unused bedroom that could be offered out for rent. The average rental price paid for a bedroom in a house is just under GBP290 per month according the Abbey National figures and represents extra money that the homeowner could find very useful.
Anyone considering this option should ensure the terms of the mortgage are not being breached in any way and also that any insurance cover is still valid for the homeowners property. Abbey National expect there to be few problems but ask homeowners to check before going ahead.
The Nationwide Building Society has just announced cuts to its range of fixed rate and tracker mortgage products.
Applicable from 9 July the Nationwide Building Society 2 year tracker mortgages will have an interest rate of just 5.78 percent, with a fee of GBP1,499 payable. The 2 year fixed rate mortgages will have their rates confirmed shortly, since they were unavailable at the time of writing.
A spokesman from the Nationwide Building Society declared these cuts as indicating how committed they are to supporting the housing market, and their customers. The Nationwide is open for business he said.
The Nationwide Building Society house price survey recorded the biggest year on year fall since they began collating data in 1991.
June saw house prices drop by over 8 percent compared with the same time last year, also down 1.7 percent compared with the previous month. In monetary terms the average property now costs GBP15,000 less than it did a year ago according to the Nationwide Building Society, something that can be seen as both good and bad. For first time buyers there is the chance to afford a house that was previously out of reach, but existing homeowners may not want to sell if they bought recently since they would lose money.
This latest drop makes nine consecutive months of price drops in the housing market, putting them at their lowest since the summer of 2006. The Nationwide Building Society are one of the key players in the mortgage market and are hopeful that things will turn around.
