Mortgage approvals reach 2-year low say National Homebuyers

The Bank of England has revealed that there were fewer people willing to buy your property in September as market conditions deteriorated.

[UKPRwire, Tue Oct 30 2007] According to the Bank, mortgage approvals slumped to an incredible 27-month low of just 102,000.

It is a huge blow for anyone looking to make a quick property sale and things look set to get worse.

The Bank's figures show that quarterly mortgage approvals reached just 324,000 in the three months to September - the lowest level since the third quarter of 2005.

"Evidence is now coming pretty thick and fast that housing market activity is being squeezed by a combination of tightening lending standards resulting from the credit crunch and the increasing affordability pressure on house buyers," said Howard Archer from Global Insight.

"Increased affordability pressures are making it increasingly difficult both for first-time buyers to get into the housing market and for existing house owners to trade up.

"Meanwhile, rising concerns about the overall state of the economy may well make people more unwilling to risk stretching themselves to buy a house," he added.

Julian King of National Homebuyers adds, "Fewer buyers means that it will be very difficult to sell your house.

"The idea that you can sell your property for its marketed value within an acceptable timeframe is out-of-date.

"It will take longer and longer to sell a property in a market where prices are coming down and down.

"The homeowner must rid themselves of their own misguided concept of how the property market works in order to have a clear, rational understand of the problems sell a property will cause them".

Mr King is a director of National Homebuyers, the Sussex-based company guarantees a quick purchase for vendors who need a fast property sale.