Posts with tag: building societies association

BSA calls for supply to meet demand in Wales

Published On: June 11, 2015 at 4:43 pm

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Categories: Landlord News

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With demand for property in Wales rising, the Building Societies Association (BSA) has made a plea to the Welsh housing market to work as a unit to ensure significant supply.

The BSA represents all 44 building societies within the United Kingdom and made the call to the Welsh market during its Housing for All conference in Cardiff. Invitees to the conference included local authority members, developers, estate agents, housing associations and building societies.

Sufficient supply

Opening the conference, Paul Broadhead, head of mortgage policy at the BSA, said that he wanted the various parts of the market to look at the issues and find opportunities to supply sufficient housing for future generations.

Broadhead said, ‘in Wales, there are encouraging signs but the ultimate goal has to be a significant increase in the number of new homes completed each year. As mortgage lenders, building societies play their part in fulfilling borrowers’ housing aspirations and as the Help to Buy Wales scheme shows can have a positive effect. But we need action to be taken now to ensure we have sufficient homes for the population of tomorrow.’[1]

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On track

Lesley Griffiths, Minister for Communities and Tackling Poverty, made the headline speech at the conference. Griffiths used this platform to ensure that the Government is fully committed to backing the supply of homes across Wales.

‘We are on track to meet our target of providing 10,000 additional affordable homes, while good progress is also being made on our ambition of supporting the construction and sale of 5,000 homes through Help to Buy Wales,’ Griffiths stated. ‘The sector plays a key role in helping us fulfill our vision for housing in Wales. Through continued partnership working between private, public and third sectors organisations, I am confident we can meet the challenges we face and deliver the additional,’ she added.[1]

[1] http://www.propertywire.com/news/europe/wales-new-homes-demand-2015061110618.html

 

 

 

Building societies give largest share of new mortgages

Published On: June 1, 2015 at 10:27 am

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Categories: Landlord News

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A new report has shown that British building societies were responsible for the largest share in new mortgage lending in the first quarter of 2015.

Lending 

An investigation from the Building Societies Association has found that building societies lent £12.7bn of gross new mortgages during this period. This represented 29% of total lending across the market.[1]

Additionally, the data shows that societies gave their approval to in excess of 91,000 mortgages in the first three months of this year, while net lending from all lenders topped £3bn.[2]

Paul Broadhead, head of mortgage policy at the Building Societies Association, pointed that lending had been strong and that without this contribution, total stock of mortgage loans would have dropped in the first period of the year. Broadhead said that, ‘societies hold a 20% share of mortgage balances but have had a much greater share of the flow of new lending for some time. In the first quarter they delivered 29% of all new mortgages.’[3]

Mr Broadhead believes that this is, ‘partly because of competitive products and partly due to the more personal approach they take to underwriting.’ He feels that, ‘the trend looks set to continue in the second quarter as around a third of mortgage approvals in the first quarter were from building societies.’[4]

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Landlord demand

The report from the Building Societies Association ties in with another report from Paragon Mortgages. Results from their Financial Advisor Confidence Tracking survey suggests that 91% of intermediaries see landlord demand as either stable or growing.[5]

John Heron, director of Paragon Mortgages, feels that, ‘There were no great movements in this quarter’s survey findings, what is evident though, is intermediaries are feeling optimistic about the buy to let market. Following the results of the general election, it will be interesting to see whether we see an increase in intermediaries’ case load as confidence increases in the wider housing market.[6]

 

[1] http://www.propertywire.com/news/europe/uk-mortgages-new-lending-2015060110571.html