Govt policies 'will improve housing market'
28th Jun 2012
New policies being introduced by the government will help improve the UK housing market, particularly when it comes to mortgages, it has been claimed.
Ray Boulger, senior technical manager at John Charcol, said it looks "quite likely" that the coming months will see gross lending at a similar level to last year, when it was just under £141 billion.
The specific reason for that is that the comments from the Mansion House speech on June 14th 2011 from the chancellor and the governor setting out the details of the new lending scheme for the banks should give the banks more money to lend, he noted.
Mr Boulger said that this is key to getting the housing market more active, and is clearly in the government's interest because it will lead to more economic activity.
In addition, it would make it easier for some people who are "at the margin" to get mortgages that otherwise might not have done, the expert said.
He added: "This is not about allowing people who are not creditworthy to get mortgages; at the moment we are in a situation where quite a lot of people who are creditworthy are not able to get a mortgage simply because there is not enough money available."
As things stand at the moment, all the signs are that we are going to see gross lending in 2012 "holding up well" and being at a similar level to last year, Mr Boulger stated.
"This is opposed to the expectation which most people in the industry had that we would see gross lending fall back to about £130 billion and some people were forecasting even less than that," he concluded.
Posted by Staff Writer: Ewan Robertson
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