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.
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
15/07/2009 by
June saw the cost of fixed rate mortgages rocket, with many lenders increasing their 5 year fixes by around 1%, despite swap rates peaking as long ago as 11 June. The Council of Mortgage Lenders yesterday defended lenders’...
Categories: 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
04/07/2009 by
The Bank of England announced yesterday that Housing Equity Withdrawal in the first quarter of 2009 was -£8.1bn. This figure has now been negative for 4 quarters, rising each quarter, although the figure for the first quarter of...
Categories: Property market, Mortgages, Personal finance, Interest rates
03/07/2009 by
The Nationwide House Price Index – The Real Figures v the Seasonally Adjusted Ones | |||||
Month | Average price (£) | Real Change | Seasonally Adjusted Change | Difference | |
2008 | Jan | 180,473 | - 0.9% | - 0.6% | + 0.3% |
| Feb | 179,358 | - 0.6% | - 0.9% | - 0.3% |
| Mar | 179,110 | - 0.1% | -... | |
Categories: Property market, 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
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
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.