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.
28/05/2010 by
Santander has announced that following today's Court approval for the legal transfer of Alliance & Leicester plc to Santander UK plc all new A&L mortgages will now revert to Bank Rate + 3.74% (current pay rate 4.24%) instead of...
Categories: Bank of England, Mortgages, Interest rates
27/05/2010 by
Lloyds Banking Group has just announced that from 1 June Lloyds TSB, Lloyds TSB Scotland and Cheltenham & Gloucester will abandon their current SVR structure, i.e. a guaranteed lifetime cap at Bank Rate + 2%, and instead all new...
Categories: Bank of England, Mortgages, Interest rates
21/04/2010 by
Following yesterday's publication of the disappointing March inflation figures, with year on year CPI up from 3% to 3.4%, and RPI up to 4.4%, today the MPC April meeting minutes and the latest unemployment figures were published....
Categories: Bank of England, Mortgages, Interest rates
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
19/02/2010 by
The 2 Labour Ministers (Mandelson and Bradshaw ) who were due to attend this weekend's BAFTA ceremony have pulled out this afternoon (Hat Tip: Iain Dale).
The most logical reason for such a mass withdrawal (OK, I know it is only...
Categories: Miscellaneous
16/02/2010 by
It was clear from the Mortgage Market Review that the FSA had a very limited understanding of the value of a self cert mortgage for many, primarily self employed, people. Before finalising any new policy, even though the actual...
Categories: Regulation, Miscellaneous
25/01/2010 by
Bank of China (UK) has an advert on p.9 of Metro today promoting its Bank Rate + 2.3% lifetime tracker, available up to 75% LTV. If one assesses competitiveness purely on rate and ignores the criteria this rate is market leading...
Categories: Bank of England, Mortgages, Regulation, Interest rates
22/01/2010 by
To promote lower rates from today on a third of its 2 year fixes (those with a maximum LTV of 80%) Santander has put out a press release headlined “Demand for tracker deals plummets as homeowners look to make fixed rate hay while...
Categories: Mortgages, House and home, Interest rates
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
11/01/2010 by
Santander Group this morning sent an email to brokers confirming the re-brand of Abbey and Bradford & Bingley branches to Santander, and indeed the branch in Holborn near my office has already been rebranded. ...
Categories: Mortgages, Personal finance, Miscellaneous
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.