Mortgages advances made to house purchasers has reached a two year high, with 55,300 loans taken out in October according to the Council of Mortgage Lenders; 43% more than the same month last year.

October also saw a steady amount of first time buyers in the mortgage market with 19,700 house purchases, though tougher mortgage criteria has meant that the average deposit they have required has been as much as 25% of the purchase price.

While mortgage advances increased for house purchases, the amount of people refinancing the mortgage on their existing home was relatively low with only 33,000 people changing over to a new mortgage. Michael Coogan, director-general of the CML, commented that “We are still in a two-speed mortgage market.”

Christine Farrell, head of the Residential property department at Wilson Nesbitt solicitors in Belfast, Northern Ireland recently expressed concern about the property market in early 2010, pointing to the end of the stamp duty holiday and increasing property prices from confidence gaining sellers. Time will tell if the ‘two-speed mortgage market’ grinds to a very slow ‘one speed’ in the first quarter of 2010 as some economists have recently predicted.

First published on Wilson Nesbitt website

Source: http://www.propertynews.com//blog/883/

UK Real Estate Residential Sales Commercial Property UK Estate Agents Selling Houses Online