Remortgage offerings presented to homeowners are dependent on many lending criteria and one of those that can heavily affect the interest rate level offered is built equity in the property.  Without adequate equity not only are the best remortgages off the table but many homeowners are not able to close a deal.  As house prices have fallen in most areas in the UK homeowners have had to watch their equity decline.  For the thousands of homeowners that have fallen into negative equity the issue that house prices will continue to decline in the coming year is unfortunate.

Remortgages offering low interest rates for homeowners needing a new deal will remain another month according to forecasts on the decisions of the Bank’s interest rate regulators.  The standard base interest rate will remain at 0.5 per cent for another month if the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) moves as expected and does not change the interest rate.  However even if the February meeting of the MPC closes out without them touching the standard base interest rate it does not mean that homeowners will see the same offerings at the end of the month as they will at the first of the month.

Remortgages are being used to fund retirements for many people who have seen their payoffs through investments and savings are failing to hold up to the needed levels of return.  Remortgages are being used to get homeowners into the buy to let market by funding the purchase of a rental property.  The buy to let market is booming and producing high level rental fees that can look very attractive to homeowners reaching retirement.

Housing market news this week is exposing further decline in the demand from buyers.  The Land Registry revealed that the average house price in the UK fell 1.3 per cent in December when compared to the previous year.  With the average house price at £160,384 there was no change from November.  There was also a fall in the number of houses sold in the higher million pound level by 10 per cent.

Remortgages may soon see an increase in demand as optimism leaks through the bad news of a possible second recession.  Despite the large possibility of a double dip recession economists believe it will be short lived.  A rebound in the second quarter is the expected outcome.  Meanwhile optimism seems to be rebounding much earlier with consumers.  Despite warnings of the recession on the horizon consumer confidence rose to the highest level in seven months in January.  Much of the increase is credited to the decline in inflation.

Remortgaging advice was highly sought after last year according to data released from unbiased.co.uk which also showed peak levels of advice sought by first time buyers.  The data showed that consumers doing research online searched for information on first time buying advice more than any other area of mortgage advice from January through to October last year.  In August first time buyer advice peaked over all other mortgage searches at 41 per cent.