Ray Boulger's Blog
Ray Boulger is widely renowned as the guru of the mortgage industry and expert on the housing market. Ray is constantly called upon by the media to provide informed comment on all areas of the market, and is a regular on the BBC, Sky and ITV.
Last year, Ray was voted guru of the year at the Headlinemoney awards by all of the nation’s money and property journalists. As such, we thought it was high time that you had direct access to him. Ray’s blog will be updated most days so the knowledge just keeps on coming.
22/06/2010 by
One of the opening comments in George Osborne’s Budget speech was that he was “not going to hide hard choices from the British people or bury them in the small print of the Budget documents.” He added “You’re going to hear them...
Categories: Property market, Bank of England, Buy to let, Mortgages, Interest rates
04/06/2010 by
Nationwide announced its May house price index yesterday, followed by Halifax today, and there are major divergences, which is worrying, as broadly the two indices are designed to measure the same thing over the same area (the...
Categories: Property market, Bank of England
15/04/2010 by
On its mainstream introducer range last weekend Halifax extended to fixed rates the policy it introduced a month ago on trackers of charging borrowers an extra 0.2% if they choose an interest only mortgage rather than repayment....
Categories: Property market, Mortgages, Personal finance, Regulation
14/01/2010 by
Rasmussen (One of the top USA polling companies) yesterday released its latest findings on what US consumers think about their housing market and it is not positive news. ...
Categories: Property market, Bank of England, House and home, Interest rates
31/12/2009 by
December is usually the month when Nationwide’s widely reported seasonally adjusted House Price Index shows the largest upward adjustment from the real figure and this year was no different. Thus a real fall of 0.4% in December is...
Categories: Property market
10/12/2009 by
The main impact of the Pre Budget Report on the housing market will be at the top end, primarily in London & the South East. The 50% bank payroll tax on discretionary bonuses over £25,000 will surely have some impact either on...
Categories: Property market, Personal finance, Regulation, House and home
07/12/2009 by
I watched the repeat of Question Time on BBC Parliament yesterday and two points in relation to the housing market in general and the Lib Dems’ revised proposals for a Mansion tax in particular struck me as being worth commenting...
Categories: Property market, House and home
30/10/2009 by
Nationwide’s “Real” House price Index increased by 0.1% in October, compared to the more widely reported 0.4% seasonally adjusted rise. This is the smallest monthly rise since the market bottomed out in February but nevertheless...
Categories: Property market, Bank of England, Mortgages
19/10/2009 by
The FSA’s Mortgage Market Review (MMR) was published today and although you are not at risk of getting autism from this MMR there will be a significant amount of consumer detriment if the report’s proposals to ban self...
Categories: Property market, Mortgages, Regulation, House and home
09/10/2009 by
Nationwide’s “Real” House price Index increased by 0.9% in September, almost the same as August’s 1.0% rise. The seasonally adjusted figure for September was very similar at + 0.9%, leaving the cumulative difference between these...
Categories: Property market, Bank of England, Mortgages, Interest rates
The blog postings on this site solely reflect the personal views of the authors and do not neccessarily represent the views, positions, strategies or opinions of Charcol Limited. All comments are made in good faith, and neither Charcol Limited nor Ray Boulger will accept liability for them.