House sales fall surveyors warn
Surveyors warn of home sales fall
For Sale signs
Sales may be a much rarer sight this coming year
Property sales may fall by 40% this year because of the credit crunch, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (Rics) has warned.
In its updated forecast for the housing market in 2008, Rics also predicted that prices would fall by 5%.
Such a sales drop would represent the biggest shrinkage in the housing market since modern records began and could cut consumer spending by 8%, Rics said.
Home loans available at First Direct again
First Direct, part of the HSBC banking group, has started selling mortgages again to new customers, six weeks after it called a temporary halt.
It stopped offering them on 1 April after being deluged by new applicants as the mortgage drought took hold.
Meanwhile the Halifax has become the latest big lender to cut the interest rates on some of its mortgage deals.
From Wednesday it will reduce some offers by 0.15%, but only for existing borrowers seeking to re-mortgage.
Last week, two of the UK’s biggest mortgage lenders, the Abbey and the Nationwide, made slight cuts to the interest rates on some of their home loans.