The Bank of England confirmed the expectations of many when it decided to hold the base rate down to 0.5% again for the fifth straight month in a row.

Analysts are predicting that this base rate isn’t going to change anytime soon as long as unemployment is high and the recession still looms.

The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) has decided to pump another 50-billion pounds into the system to help get banks on their feet again.

The low base rate is a boon for tracker mortgages as they are based off of the base rate with an added percentage of interest added to the number. There is approximately 3-million homeowners with tracker mortgages who have made out on this deal.

Fixed rate mortgage owners aren’t seeing much in the benefit of a low base rate as many homeowners had their rate locked down before the base rate began to fall. Companies, such as Nationwide, cut their rates this past week for future borrowers but that doesn’t do much for those who have already locked in their rate for some time to come.

According to Moneysupermarket, “The cheapest two-year fixed rate deal on the market is currently from First Direct, priced at 3.34% and with a 1,498-pounds arrangement fee. However, the deal is reserved for homeowners who only need to borrow 60% of the property value.”

According to the company, 90% deals are becoming increasingly difficult to ascertain. To receive a deal like that you’ll need to have an excellent credit rating and employment that is quite secure to gain that type of mortgage.

According to the Building Cost Information Service of RICS (Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors), tenders prices remain depressed. The main reason behind this is that the construction workloads continue to fall basically because of the current recession.

According to their figures, new construction fell by some 4.9% in the first quarter of the year when you compare it with figures in 2008. BCIS also predicts that the tender prices could see a total fall of some 14.9% by 2011 and that is when they figure that they will recover somewhat.

On a good note, costs don’t seem to be climbing at the same rate. According to their figures, we’ve only seen a 4% incline in pricing, compared to the 7.7% seen in the previous quarter.

According to the survey, construction should continue to fall for the remainder of this year, doing slightly better in 2010. This year expect another fall of some 6.1% according to the data. Growth is expected again in 2011 and should rise by approximately 0.5%.

Joe Martin, the Executive Director of BCIS commented, “Despite some more positive news coming from the construction industry recently, it is clear that we are a long way from being out of the woods. Workloads are still significantly down on previous levels, with the private sector still set to bear the brunt of the decline. As a result it is likely that the price of construction work is going to continue falling for some time. However some of the pressure is easing on the costs side, which will be welcome news to those contractors who had perhaps priced too competitively.”

Although it hasn’t been seen often, there is always a chance that a landlord could be involved in racial discrimination when letting out a home or apartment. There are laws against this type of action but there is always the opportunity that this could happen.

Recently, the NAEA (National Association of Estate Agents) made a statement about this practice when it concerns its members.

Peter Bolton King, the Chief Executive of the organization made a statement about this practice, “NAEA is committed to setting the highest standards for lettings professionals, for the benefit of both the general public and the wider industry.”

He continued, “NAEA members must comply with our Rules of Conduct. Our Code of Practice for Lettings Agents makes it very clear that any form of discrimination is unacceptable and will not be tolerated: Rule 1e states ‘You must offer equality of professional service to any person, regardless of their race, religious belief, gender, sexuality, disability or nationality. You must not be involved in any plan or arrangement to discriminate against a person or people because of their race, religious belief, gender, sexuality, disability or nationality.’”

He ended by saying, “Racial discrimination is appalling behavior, which may be illegal. A letting agent simply cannot assist a landlord with refusing a tenant due to racial motivations. NAEA has asked the BBC to share any information it has that indicates misconduct by NAEA members. NAEA may take disciplinary action, which could lead to membership being withdrawn.”

The NAEA seems pretty stern in its belief and action that discrimination should not take place within its membership.

Northern Rock has declared an underlying loss to the tune of 269.6 million pounds for the period ending June 30, 2009. This compares with a lost of 443.3 million that they had lost for the first half of 2008. The company doesn’t think that number will change much when it rolls around to the end of the year if much change at all.

Part of the loss was the rebate of charges incurred for State funding, albeit the help that they received from the federal government.

Their record for lending for mortgage lending and other loans was quite substantial, where their record for gross residential lending as 1.3-billion pounds to the general public through June of 2009. The overall expected lending for the year is forecast to be near 4-billion pounds rather than the 5-billion that they had projected.

Deposits were quite respectable, with the amount of 18.4-billion pounds at the end of the half year however this is somewhat lower than the 19.6-billion pounds that it had during the beginning of the new year.

Gary Hoffman, Chief Executive Officer said this about the company, "The current environment continues to be challenging, however, against this backdrop Northern Rock is making progress against its revised plan and has delivered results in line with expectations. We anticipate receiving State aid approval in the autumn and the legal and capital restructuring of the Company to be completed by the end of the year. This ultimately prepares for a return to the private sector."

The company is splitting itself up into two companies. One handling deposits and new loans and the other will handle existing loans as well as paying back the money that it owes to the government for loans that it received.

Landlords let their apartments and houses rent for a certain monthly fee so that they can continue to pay for the property, pay expenses and garner some income for themselves.

They depend on the tenants to keep up to day with the rental fees that they charge.

According to research company BDRC there is a certain amount of the population that have fallen behind in their rent payments causing duress for the landlords.

According to the research, the 18% arrears figure that was reported in the first quarter of 2008 has grown to approximately 30% some fifteen months later. 32% of those that were in arrears resulted in direct action by their landlords and this included the eviction process.

The eviction process can be a long drawn out process that includes giving proper notices and then taking the tenant through court to have them removed, if they don’t do that by themselves.

On the other hand, 19% of those landlords survey felt that the prospect was good that they would have a good rental record for their properties in the upcoming quarter.

One of the reasons that landlords are experiencing this type of environment is due to the recession and the amount of unemployment that is currently being felt throughout the country.

BDRC also said that landlords are experiencing arrears like they never have had happened since they started tracking that market in 2006.

The price of a typical house rose for the third consecutive month in July, according to Nationwide, increasing by 1.3% on a seasonally adjusted basis. The 3 month on 3 month rate of change – generally indicated a smoother indicator of the near term trend which rose from 1.0% in June to 2.6% in July, the highest level since February 2007.

House prices are still 6.2% lower than 12 months ago, but this represents another sharp improvement from the 9.3% year-on-year decline in June.

Even if prices were to remain unchanged for the rest of 2009, the year-on-year rate would continue to improve since prices were falling very sharply in the second half of last year. For the first seven months of 2009 as a whole, prices have risen by a cumulative 1.3%, suggesting there is now a reasonable chance that prices could end the year slightly higher than where they started.

Although this outcome has come as a surprise, it is not inconsistent with other economic indicators and asset prices, which have also bounced back somewhat after very severe declines around the turn of the year.

During turbulent economic times, it is not unusual for economic indicators and asset prices to overshoot in one direction and then experience a correction in the other.

In the specific case of the housing market, the very sharp decline in transactions over the course of 2008 produced a fairly large pool of prospective purchasers who were ready and able to buy in principle, but did not want to do so in the very uncertain conditions prevailing when the banking crisis was at its peak last autumn.

The improvement in housing market conditions, however, does not mean that the positive price trends of recent months can be extrapolated into the future in a straight line. If prices continue to increase at the rate of the last three months, they would soon rise to levels that would be noticeably out of line with earnings, rents and other fundamental determinants of housing valuations.

One should also not underestimate the impact over time of high unemployment, which has implications both for buyer confidence and the financial pressure on existing owners to sell.

It is unlikely, therefore, that price increases can be sustained for long at the very strong rate observed over the last few months.

Markit and YouGov have announced the launch of the Markit/YouGov Household Finance Index(HFI), a new survey designed to provide the earliest and most accurate indication of actual changes inhousehold finances each month. The HFI is intended to anticipate changes in consumer behaviour accurately.

The survey tracks objective “hard data” on actual month-on-month changes, focusing on household spending, saving and debt levels, but also includes several forward-looking opinion questions to help anticipate future trends.

The Markit/YouGov HFI is the first in a series of polls and indices which will combine Markit’s and YouGov’s respective experience in business and consumer sector surveys.

The survey signalled a further deterioration in finances on a month ago in June, continuing the trend that has been seen since the survey data were first collected in February. Some 32% of  respondents noted a worsening of their financial situation compared to a month ago while just 6% reported an improvement.

However, the resulting “net” deterioration in finances indicated by the June survey was less than recorded in any of the previous four months, wth the HFI for the current month rising for the third successive month to 37.5, up from 36.5 in May.

The deterioration in the outlook for finances was attributable to an increase in job insecurity, which rose compared to May but remained less widespread than in the spring.

Concern over jobs reflected a further fall in business activity at respondents’ workplaces and a corresponding drop in income from employment, which have both fallen over the five months since the survey started. However, in both cases, rates of decline were less steep than in early spring.

Building societies play an important role in the strength of an economy to show any new trends when it comes to the mortgage industry.

The Building Society Association showed, in their latest statistics, showed that gross mortgage lending by their members was roughly 2-billion pounds in June 2009. This compares to 3.2-billion pounds over the same period in 2008. This is roughly a 37-percent drop than the previous year.

Brian Morris, Head of Savings Policy at the BSA made the following comments, “Gross mortgage lending by building societies was just under £2 billion in June 2009, the highest level seen this year, and up 30% on May. Despite this, lending remains at historically low levels, and is 40% lower than in June 2008. Mortgage approvals show signs of stabilizing as they reached a year high of £1.8 billion, but are more than 30% down on this time last year.”

Their figures also showed that members withdrew some 2.239-billion pounds in June compared to an increase of 419-million last year.

He had comments about the savings issue as well, “The withdrawal experienced by the building society sector is not unexpected given the very challenging economic backdrop. With rising unemployment, subdued income growth and the official Bank Rate at an historic low, it is very difficult to attract retail savings. In addition, there is evidence households are looking to take advantage of the low interest rates to pay off debt rather than save.”

The online letting portlet, Citylets, recently announced that rents in Scotland are beginning to fall and there could be many reasons behind that figure.

The recession is likely one of the factors that is behind that drop and not to exclude the unemployment rate in the area.

The latest figures from the organization shows that rents fell for the second consecutive quarter and for the period of April though June of 2009, dropped by approximately 3.3%.

High stock levels have also had a point to play in this drop as landlords are forced to secure leases at lower values. Cheaper mortgages may assist some landlords who are purchasing new properties to let in turn helping them with their bottom line.

There are certain areas that are being hit harder than others with the one most notable, being the student sector. There is also a high availability of apartments and houses that are rentable making the choice much more advantageous for the renter to select what they want. Another factor that is notable is that the average to to let a property is about 14 days longer than what it has been at its peak time.

Thomas Ashdown, spokesman for the Citylets Network, said “that while rental levels are falling, which will be pleasing to tenants, it is not all bad news for landlords.”

He continued by saying, “Although the continued decline may be of concern, the fact that rents have fallen by only 3.3% year-on-year during the sharpest recession in living memory and with other business sectors experiencing catastrophic collapses, I’d say this is by no means a disaster for the vast majority of landlords."

He finalized with , “That said, the full impact of fast-rising unemployment may yet to be felt, but there are positives to be taken out of this report for both landlords and tenants.”

Over a third (35%) of finance professionals would have the temptation to invest a redundancy payout in a buy to let property, this according to new research from PropertyEarth.net, the chain free property portal.

According to the research, around 30% of finance professionals would use a redundancy payout to cover everyday living costs. Property is the preferred outlet for those looking to invest their lump sum of the money that they have. This would be followed by a savings account (14.6%), gold (10.7%), FTSE 100 stock market shares (7.8%) and oil (1.5%).

The average severance package received by banking, finance and insurance professionals on redundancy is £21,300. This would be enough to cover the cost of a 25% deposit on a chain free one-bedroom flat listed on PropertyEarth.net. The cost of the flat would be on average £84,208.

The average PropertyEarth.net net rental yield at 6.59%. With that in mind, an investor could generate a rental return of £14,037 over ten years after costs. This would not take into account potential capital growth. In comparison, the 14.6% who would prefer to invest their lump sum in a savings account won’t account for the same payout.

The research also revealed that prospective investors are generally in it for the long haul. Almost 72% considering property as a long term investment. This is quite a bit difference in thinking from the pre-recession ‘get rich quick’ property investment mentality.

Dominic Toller, Managing Director, commented: “This research shows that property is still viewed as a strong long term investment, despite the recent volatility. Savvy finance professionals are taking a long term view and are attracted by the returns currently offered by the buy to let market, due to the low prices and high yields of chain-free property in particular.”