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.
14/09/2009 by
A report today from the Ernst & Young ITEM Club calls the current increase in house prices, which it refers to as “stabilisation,” a false dawn and forecasts that property values will not return to their 2007 peak for at least...
Categories: Property market, Bank of England, Mortgages, House and home, Interest rates
06/08/2009 by
The Monetary Policy Committee’s announcement that it was leaving Bank Rate unchanged this month at 0.5% was a foregone conclusion but it surprised the markets by increasing the Quantitative Easing (QE) programme by £50bn, taking...
Categories: Property market, Bank of England, Mortgages, Interest rates
30/07/2009 by
Nationwide’s “Real” House price Index recorded an increase of 1.6% in July, the same as June, compared to the seasonally adjusted figure of + 1.3% for July and an upwards revised + 1.0% for June. This is the sixth consecutive...
Categories: Property market, Bank of England, Mortgages, House and home, Interest rates
21/07/2009 by
As I commented on 15 July economists were expecting Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke to show how the Fed will exit the biggest monetary expansion in history in his half yearly report to the House Financial Services Committee...
Categories: Bank of England, Interest rates
20/07/2009 by
On Wednesday Nationwide are launching a 1 year fixed rate at 3.59% available ONLY to existing customers, i.e. those on its low 2.5% SVR and those about to come to the end of a deal. This is clever marketing but any temptation to...
Categories: Bank of England, Mortgages, Interest rates
14/07/2009 by
The Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) has today put out a press release expressing its concern that some recent coverage of fixed rate mortgage pricing fails to reflect the complex array of influences on lenders' pricing...
Categories: Bank of England, Mortgages, Interest rates
10/06/2009 by
Following my blog a couple of days ago warning of imminent fixed rate mortgage increases Yorkshire Building Society yesterday announced increases of between 0.2% and 0.5% and today Nationwide has announced some massive increases...
Categories: Bank of England, Mortgages, Interest rates
08/06/2009 by
Today saw another sharp rise in gilt yields at the short end of the market, although there was a marginal fall in yields at the long end. The yield on 2 – 4 year gilts rose by around 0.15%, with the obvious knock on effect on swap...
Categories: Property market, Bank of England, Mortgages, Interest rates
04/06/2009 by
Today’s decision by the MPC to leave Bank Rate and the Quantitative Easing programme unchanged was widely expected but next month the committee will have to consider whether to utilise the final £25bn The Chancellor has authorised...
Categories: Property market, Bank of England, Mortgages, Interest rates
22/05/2009 by
Today’s Metro has an article (p.4) about the number of births and deaths in England &...
Categories: Bank of England, Mortgages, 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.