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As an Estate Agent, you have to get used to a different way of working. With most jobs and professions, the work you do and the customers you have, pay for your services. Spend time helping someone, give advice, send information etc and you get paid for it. Not necessarily so in Estate Agency.
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Rate Rises come rolling in Print E-mail

Following a spectacularly bad week in the financial markets, lenders have been hiking up their mortgage rates accordingly…the following article is from findaproperty.com..

It was bound to happen, and happen it has, as lenders have responded to the increase in the interbank lending rate – LIBOR – either by passing on the rate rises to their mortgage deals, or even pulling some deals altogether.

According to price comparison site, moneysupermarket.com, high LTVs have now been withdrawn by Abbey, with both their 85 per cent LTV two-year fixed rate and tracker mortgages no longer on offer.

HSBC has upped its rates on two, three and five-year fixed-rate mortgages by 0.3 per cent although it has simultaneously cut its arrangement fees by £300. The average rate for an HSBC fixed mortgage now stands at 6.27 per cent.

First Direct, the internet branch of HSBC, has also increased its rates on two year fixes by 0.25 per cent.

As from today, the Woolwich will be offering three, five and ten-year fixed-rate mortgages with rates 0.25 per cent higher than their previous level.

But the largest increase so far has been seen by the Yorkshire Building Society which bumped up all its fixed-rate and two-year tracker deals by 0.5 per cent.

Safe Borrowers Wanted

The only lender to buck the trend of rate rises has been Scottish Widows, cutting its two, three and five-year deals by -0.24 per cent.

But this certainly seems to be the exception rather than the rule as Louise Cuming, head of mortgages at moneysupermarket.com, comments:

"Last week's unprecedented worldwide financial crisis led to an immediate jump in LIBOR as liquidity reduced and banks became increasingly reluctant to lend to each other.

"It has taken only a matter of days for the impact of this to feed through to new borrowers - with a double whammy of higher interest rates and tighter lending requirements.

"The UK mortgage market isn't completely closed - but it isn't stretching the point too far to say it is only open to people with impeccable credit records and a deposit of 25 per cent or more."

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