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.
05/10/2009 by
Woolwich's decision to cut, from tomorrow, its lifetime tracker rate for LTVs up to 70% by 0.45% to Bank Rate + 2.29% and also reduce the ERC, which is 1%, period from 3 years to 2 is excellent news for the tracker market and...
Categories: Mortgages, Interest rates
25/09/2009 by
2 years ago few people had heard of Libor, the London Interbank Offered Rate, let alone knew what it was. Most people still won’t be able to define Libor but as a result of the credit crunch many people will at least be familiar...
Categories: Property market, Bank of England, Mortgages, Regulation, Interest rates
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
28/08/2009 by
Nationwide’s “Real” House price Index increased by 0.9% in August, down from the 1.6% recorded in each of the previous two months, but still well into positive territory. The seasonally adjusted figure for August was + 1.6%,...
Categories: Property market, Mortgages, House and home, Interest rates
27/08/2009 by
After their complete failure prior to the credit crunch to properly do the job they are paid to do (by the issuers of those same mortgage backed securities they were rating) and spot where the risks were in these securities, a...
Categories: Property market, Mortgages, 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
21/07/2009 by
I wouldn’t normally comment on each of the new products in a lender’s range but as my previous blogs on Nationwide’s new 1 and 4 year fixes have generated significant interest today, now that I have full details of its new 3 year...
Categories: Mortgages, Interest rates
21/07/2009 by
Following yesterday’s post a senior executive from Nationwide has called me to point out that the reason for offering the 1 year fix as an additional product transfer option to existing customers who are not moving is to give...
Categories: Mortgages, Regulation, 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.