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.
08/05/2009 by
Several major lenders are increasing some fixed rates next week, mainly longer term rates except for RBS Group, which is increasing rates across the board. ...
Categories: Bank of England, Mortgages, Interest rates
07/05/2009 by
Today’s decision by the MPC to leave Bank Rate unchanged for the second month running is likely to be the precursor for several more months of the same, with the committee’s focus now on how aggressively to implement the...
Categories: Bank of England, Mortgages, Interest rates
20/04/2009 by
On 25 March I wrote that it was time to fix and swap rates have subsequently bobbed up and down without moving very far. Since then 4 and 5 year swap rates are up a net 0.10%, based on today’s closing rates, with longer term rates...
Categories: Property market, Bank of England, Mortgages, Regulation, Interest rates
08/04/2009 by
HSBC has today announced that from next Tuesday it will be offering a couple of 2 year fixed rates and a lifetime tracker up to 90% LTV for purchasers only. The 2 year fixed rate options are 4.99% with a £1,499 booking fee or...
Categories: Property market, Bank of England, Mortgages, House and home, Interest rates
06/04/2009 by
Nationwide’s House Price Index has traditionally been less volatile than Halifax’s and so it was particularly encouraging when Nationwide reported a 0.9% increase in house prices in March. However, the real figures are even better...
Categories: Property market, Bank of England, Buy to let, Mortgages
03/04/2009 by
International media reaction to the G-20 summit in London ranged from wary to upbeat but looking at the front page headlines in even Tory papers today Gordon Brown's spin machine can claim some brownie points in the short term....
Categories: Bank of England, Regulation, Miscellaneous
25/03/2009 by
Woolwich are reducing the rates on some of their mortgages tomorrow, with their best fixed rate being a 4 year fix for LTVs up to 60% at 3.99%. This is the market leading 4 year fixed rate, although it is only available for...
Categories: Bank of England, Mortgages, Interest rates
24/03/2009 by
On an annual basis the February CPI index, announced this morning, increased from 3% to 3.2% and the RPI fell by just 0.1% to zero. These figures came as a big shock to the market as UK economists had all forecast CPI would fall...
Categories: Bank of England, Mortgages, Interest rates
11/02/2009 by
We have seen mixed movements on fixed rate mortgages this month with some lenders, e.g. Cheltenham & Gloucester (on 5-10 year fixes), Coventry and Halifax, increasing some rates and others, including Chelsea, Cheltenham &...
Categories: Bank of England, Mortgages, Interest rates
10/02/2009 by
In its “News & Views” publication today the CML rightly makes the point that the sharp percentage increase in net mortgage lending in December (up from November’s £0.8bn to £1.9bn) shown by The Bank of England data should not be...
Categories: Bank of England, Mortgages
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.