The continued growth in house prices is good news as it shows confidence has not only returned but remains in the housing market (7 months of steadily rising prices can surely no longer be described as an aberration). However reading some of the commentaries that have accompanied the latest January figures I am left with [...]

Stephen Knight, Chief Executive
 
As we have not posted a blog since 25 November 2009 I would like to take this belated opportunity to wish everybody a Happy New Year.  Let’s hope that major positive changes occur in our market during the course of 2010.
 
We are working very hard to bring this about.  Our investors [...]

 
Whilst the focus of most UK commentators seems to be firmly on the recovery in UK property prices, a far more important trend (from a global perspective) has been occurring in the US. Having fallen for three years, US prices have risen now for 5 consecutive months, rising by 0.8% in the month of September [...]

Stephen Knight, CEO

Yesterday, the FSA published its long-awaited review into the mortgage market.  There is too little space here to analyse the paper in full.  But set out below are what we believe to be the 12 main points affecting our market, and yours, with our commentary alongside. 
 
1. Lenders will be required to hold [...]

By Peter Stimson - Commercial Director
I came across an interesting fact the other day. Since 1998 global temperatures haven’t risen. I am not of course suggesting that global warming isn’t a fact or won’t occur, simply that data from the last 10 years does not appear to support the hypothesis. How is this relevant to house prices? [...]

By Stephen Knight, CEO

The Lloyds HBOS Permanent (Perma) deal marks a turning point in the UK RMBS market.  Don’t believe the commentators that say it isn’t, because many of them were still predicting as recently as last month a freeze in the securitisation market until 2011. 
 
The Perma deal was 2x over-subscribed, and upsized as [...]

by Stephen Knight, Executive Chairman
 
Last week’s press featured two mortgage themes: previous fraudulent over-valuation by valuers causing lenders substantial losses, and current under-valuation by valuers causing economic detriment by reducing mortgage availability.
 
The handful of you who have read my books know that I favour AVMs, for objective risk management reasons. I’ve never met a computer [...]

 
 
 
There is common agreement that the likely gross lending figure this year of circa £145bn is insufficient to allow the housing market to function effectively. With only those people with a large deposit, strong income and squeaky clean credit having any realistic chance of obtaining a mortgage at present, clearly a ‘normal’ functioning market would [...]

Stephen Knight, Executive Chairman
The Treasury Select Committee recently reported on lenders’ practices when it comes to mortgage arrears.  They expressed concern that some lenders were not being sympathetic enough to borrowers in areas such as securitisation and high LTV lending.
There was certainly some substance to the Committee’s findings, and we don’t deny that securitising lenders [...]

One of the biggest issues that still seems to be prevalent in much of the reporting we see is the tendency to draw comparisons with the past and from this to try and extrapolate the future. Whilst it is a natural human trait to look to past experiences to try and determine outcomes, the word [...]