The stamp duty holiday was put into place last year in the hopes to keep the housing market in play. It is essential to the UK economy and if the pandemic had shut it down the impact could have been dramatically negative. With the tax discount it was hoped it would help motivate hopeful home buyers to stay interested in the housing market. As everyone knows, the housing market flourished last year and continues even now as not only first time buyers seek to climb onto the property ladder but homeowners chose to move home as well.

The demand on the housing market has been strong for the last year despite a global pandemic hitting consumers and the economy hard. Many experts have sought to discover exactly why the demand was high and why it remained so throughout lockdowns and growing concerns for the economy. Many factors emerged from a hard look at why people were seeking to buy and those same factors might well be causing the market to slow down this summer.

When homeowners go shopping for a remortgage they are usually centered on finding the lowest interest rate possible. The interest rate determines the cost of borrowing. Finding a lower interest rate will make borrowing cheaper. In turn, a cheaper cost to borrow can equate to lower monthly repayments or the ability to pay off the debt sooner by keeping the repayments close to their usual amount. Overall, the interest rate is important because it determines how much it will cost the borrower to borrow from the lender.

The housing market has outperformed likely all expectations of experts during the pandemic. It was thought that the inability to leisurely inspect a possible home to buy during the lockdowns would slow down buyers. However, technology allowed hopeful buyers to take a look at their favorite choices through live streaming video with agents. Special precautions were taken when shopping a property in person. It was far from a normal way to shop around for a new place to live, but buyers made it work and kept the market busy.

The level of remortgaging has been expected to surge with the low interest rates being offered and the need to save money during the pandemic. However, something interesting happened during lockdowns. The amount of time spent in the home, and the new lifestyle required by lockdowns pushed a desire to live somewhere new. The result was a large number of homeowners became home movers.

It has been awhile since we have heard about the trend of parents assisting their children onto the property ladder. It happens, of course, but there has been less talk about it than in years past. That has all changed recently as there is another growing trend of the Bank of Mum and Dad becoming the route to home ownership for many and it is happening through the help of remortgaging.