Essentially Home Loans Weblog

I am so excited to pronounce that I am going on a Caribbean cruise and going to stay in a suite. In a few days my wife and I are going to wake up in the morning and step out on to our private balcony to enjoy the view on the blue ocean. I must say we are not amongst the richest people and I’m quite the penny pincher so how can we afford a suite made for the rich and why do I agree to pay for it? It’s simple, our rewards credit card is making it all possible.

You may have heard of these and asked, “why are they called credit cards if you receive no credit?” To answer that question and many others, let’s look at them in detail.

Sub-prime lenders are using heavy handed approaches in order to manage borrowers who are falling into arrears. This, coupled with bad advice from brokers as well as irresponsible lending decisions, is making things a lot harder for some borrowers. Many of the regulatory safety nets set up by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) are failing [...]

The Chancellor Alistair Darling has proposed making it easier for lenders to fund 10-year fixed rate home loans. The changes proposed could mean that borrowers would then be tied for longer periods to their fixed rate deal thus helping to stabilise the market. So far borrowers have only been able to take out these type [...]

One of the UK’s leading charities has stated that sale-and-rent-back property schemes are a disaster waiting to happen and something needs to be done sooner rather than later. The claims come from the Citizens Advice Bureau who have called for more official regulation of firms involved in the scheme. Currently firms are simply buying the [...]

New restrictions have been introduced by lenders meaning that high-risk lenders will find it increasingly difficult to secure a mortgage. Because of the changes by lenders to their lending criteria it is expected that the number of rejections for home loans are going to soar. An independent broker has released new research showing that a [...]

The decision by the Bank of England to hold rates at 5.5%, shows clearly that it is still not fully convinced that the slowdown in the housing market has gone far enough. Analysts are more doubtful however warning that continuing instability in the credit markets is going to force the Bank to cut the base [...]

According to a survey by Nationwide Building Society only 29% of credit card customers are aware of the fact that many credit card providers always pay off debts charged at the lowest interest rate before paying off the debts with the higher rate of interest, making themselves an additional £500 million each year from this [...]