Aldermore Commercial Mortgages, a major banking provider for commercial and development mortgages, has announced the launch of a new online portal that will allow commercial mortgage advisors to make inquiries about loans 24/7.  Managing director for Aldermore, Rob Lankey stated that the new portal titled the Acumen portal was designed to let brokers look up information or start a formal inquiry at any time of the day or week.  The website will also allow them to upload documentation for contractual purpose and obtain a decision immediately that can be in turn given to clients.

In order to use the new commercial mortgage portal, brokers or intermediaries need to be approved members of the Aldermore broker panel.  Lankey explained that the new system allows a broker to place an inquiry using the online database at which point the Acumen system will then begin a credit search, check the age and ID of the applicant, and then perform industry and service checks.  If the system finds that everything is correctly entered and in order it will offer a price for the loan to customers and create a terms document that can be downloaded.

At this point applicants will have the actual terms of the agreement in their hands to review and the mortgage rate offer to peruse.  This allows applicants to choose if they want to continue to the final application stage and actually take out the loan under the current guidelines and conditions.  Lankey went on to explain that Acumen is primarily aimed at brokers that handle commercial mortgage inquires on a daily basis to help expedite the process.  He added that brokers should be able to identify if it will be a simple or complicated mortgage application and choose to make an in house application appointment if the situation calls for it.

In the case that an application may be complicated it will be handled in-house in the same fashion that Aldermore has always met with brokers with the aid of a lending manager from the bank.  Of course, the overall appeal of the Acumen online portal is that for the many less complicate applications brokers can expedite the entire mortgage process making it easier for them to complete their job for clients and allowing more clients to be satisfied with both their brokerage and banking services.

According to research on property returns, the South East and London is expected to see the highest returns over the next decade for landlords that take advantage of the current market conditions and the high amount of buy to let mortgage rates and deals that are out there on the market today.  The research was compiled by Rental Britain and was collected by looking at the total annual returns of London boroughs.  The highest returns according to the research are expected to be seen in Newham, Greenwich, and Tower Hamlets.  Returns in these areas are expected to be over nine percent.

In addition, seven more boroughs in London are forecasted to have high returns of at least 8.5% if not more including City of London, Greenwich, Islington, Newham, Hackney, Tower Hamlets, and Southwark.  The calculations are based on the current average house prices in the area and assuming that landlord costs only add up to about 30% of the gross rental income.  The calculations are also based on a reasonably set mortgage rate inflation chart as it is expected that landlords will have to pay out more to banks over the next few years.

This of course should not hurt most landlords too much because as their buy to let mortgage rates increase so will the cost of living and the demand for rental properties allowing them to charge higher letting prices.  Therefore, landlords are potentially the only group of borrowers that will not be affected by the rising costs of owning property since they can simply charge more in rent and cover any loss in potential profit.  As landlords continue to chock and dominate the property market it will also become harder for banks to fund normal mortgages forcing more potential home owners into rental situations increasing the demand for these units as well.

Other areas outside of London proper that are expected to see high net returns of investors include Reading, Milton Keynes, Elmbridge, Woking, and Surrey where the returns could shoot up to above eight percent.  Buy to let properties in Oxford, Brighton & Hove, Southampton, Medway, and Portsmouth are also predicted to increase in value by about 7.5%.  Despite these high growth rates, experts still advise potential landlords looking to increase their portfolios to consider their exit plans, preference for growth, and invested sums versus risk factors before choosing an area to purchase new property.

Some Londoners are also looking to invest abroad in countries like Turkey to diversify their portfolio. Property In Turkey has always been attractive to UK investors. The propery prices are well within reach and returns are good. Turkey is also considered to be a good tourist resort, something that is a big plus for UK residents.

According to the Managing Director for Just US Mortgages, Dominic Hennessy, the best mortgage rates in today’s market are found at the bank, instead of at intermediaries.  According to Hennessy, the 2012 mortgage market is beginning to look like the spring mortgage marked from spring of 2008 when the financial markets first started to collapse.   This is largely due to the return of ‘dual pricing,’ which is when mortgage lenders offer better mortgage deals through their online networks and branch offices instead of via the intermediary market.

Hennessy explained that the same exact thing is happening this month with most people able to save at least .25% if not more by choosing to head to a lender directly to look over available mortgage rates. On the other hand, the intermediary market is made up of some of the largest lenders in the UK.  During spring of 2008 the rates kept rising as lenders hiked up their offices on the intermediary market even though the Bank of England did not change their base rate.  The exact same thing is happening now even thought the base rate is holding at the historical low of .5%.

Many of the leading UK banks have chosen to increase their rates this month resulting in higher cost SVRs and fixed mortgages for customers.  Over the last few weeks some of the largest lending agents including RSB, Barclay’s, and Halifax have all announced higher mortgage rates and more banks are soon expected to follow suit.  The beginning of 2012 was a positive start for the lending market, and now that the mortgage market is kicked off banks are introducing dual pricing again in an effort to help meet the increase in lending demand and make enough funds available.

Hennessy stated that most of the lenders in the UK are caught off guard by the lending requsts and they have to find a way to continue to offer funding to customers.  Therefore, they have decided to return to dual pricing, hike SVRs, and create mortgage products that are higher in price.  Of course, the ironic twist to this scenario is that while they are addressing how to fund more mortgage loans, the result of these actions is going to be less mortgage applications as people decide that taking out a mortgage is no longer an affordable venture.

As funding issues are becoming a major problem for many lenders, banks are increasing their rates in order to address the lack of funds.  One of the reasons that lenders are feeling overwhelmed by funding requests are the low buy to let mortgage rates that are out there on the market.  Buy to let lenders are taking out a great deal of the lending funds that are available for the banks to utilize because leaving very little for other forms of lending.  In fact the increase in lending to landlords is at one of the highest peaks of the last decade.

The result of the lending crunch is that now landlords are finding it hard to find great deals on their buy to let mortgage rates because lenders are increasing their rates in order to cope with the sudden demand for a limited amount of cash.  This is also having a negative effect on those seeking a normal home mortgage, because landlords are quickly snatching up the available lending funds.  The increase in renters has only made the market more desirable for landlords and it does not seem like there will be a shift anytime soon as mortgage rates continue to increase and lock out many new homebuyers.

One of the major problems is that building society lenders and larger banks have taken their best mortgage rates off the market because there is not enough money in the wholesale markets to fund the deals.  New regulations put in place also restrict the amount of money that banks can place in hold therefore compounding the issue even more.  This forced borrowers to head to other alternative lenders such as the Skipton Building Society and Accord as they were able to offer better LTVs and rates.

This created a problem as they also did not have enough funding and the amount of applications they received was too much for Skipton’s underwriters, forcing the managers to close the banking business until they could catch up with the backlog.  Of course, anxious landlords then turned to smaller lenders with the same results forcing affordable lending deals off the table as companies are unable to catch up with the sudden influx in demand.  Although some of these building societies will return, it is highly unlikely that they will do so with reasonable rates making it even harder to get a standard mortgage at a good price.

Although Turkey is just next door to Greece, but the two economies could not be more different. Many investors from all over the world have invested in the Turkish property market. The boom in Villas for Sale In Turkey  is attributed to this trend. The villas can be used for both residential purposes or as a holiday home. Though, most people use it as a second home when they are visiting Turkey.

Santander is the latest in a series of high street banks to announce that they will increase the SVRs they charge for mortgage products that are sold via an intermediary. The RBS (Royal Bank of Scotland) and Halifax also announced last week that they would be increasing their mortgage rates. Santander, however, will only be increasing their SVR rate by 0.1%, which is less than the rate that the other two banks announced. Thus, homeowners with deals from Santander can release their breath for a moment.

Last week, many mortgage experts started talking about the disappearance of the best mortgage rates as the high street banks started to increase their rates. The fear is of course that once one or two banks increase their rates everyone is soon going to follow suit. Therefore, experts believe that homeowners that are signed into a standard variable deal should look at what other options they have on the table because as the SVR caps continue to rise above the Bank of England base rate it is hard to tell how high they will go.

The only assurance in the housing market used to be that as long as the Bank of England kept the base rate down, mortgage rates would stay reasonable as well. On 1^st May, the largest mortgage lender in the UK, Halifax, will increase their SVR cap from 3.5% up to 3.99%. Halifax stated that it was forced to increase its interest rate because of the higher costs of getting funds for mortgages from the current financial and savings markets.

While it may just seem to be a small percentage rate, the slight jump for those that do not have fixed mortgages means about £300 per year for an average £100,000. Those with higher mortgages will see their overall mortgage costs increase even higher.

The RBS is also increasing its SVR rates, although they are making a slightly smaller change going up to 4% from 3.75%. Millions of people are expected to be affected by the mortgage rate increase, and if other lenders follow suit then millions of more homeowners could be severely affected.

This will also likely cause many homeowners to look around the market for better deals than what their SVRs are offering them since they are used to paying less, but the market may not have much to offer them.

Although the general concern in the property market is that mortgage rates are increasing, for those who are still looking to invest in property a new set of deals from Legal & General Mortgage Club, that are sponsored via Platform, may be the solution. The new deals are designed for those looking for a variety of buy to let products and start as low as 3.69% with an LTV of 60%-75% attached. As the mortgage rates attached to most loans are expected to continue to increase now may be the time to take a look at the offerings.

One unique thing about the buy to let deals from Legal & General Mortgage Club is that they are all fixed mortgages which can be a nice way to fix expenses over the next two years.  The lowest rate available as mentioned is 3.69% for those that can afford a 60% LTV.  From there they slowly creep upwards for those who may need a loan that comes with a small upfront investment ending at 4.69% for a 75% LTV.

In the middle for those who may be able to afford a smaller LTV there is a 65% LTV that comes at the rate of 4.09% and a 70% LTV that comes with a 4.29% rate. All of the buy to let mortgage rates come with the added administration fee set at £89 that is not refundable, an arrangement fee of £2450, and are set for two years.

In addition, free standard legal service and valuation is offered to customers that are considering remortgaging their properties. The head of mortgage products for L&G stated that the products all come with a flat fee with aggressive pricing in place to encourage the growing buy to let market, and Platform and L&G are working together to help satisfy the demand.

Product marketing manager for Platform, Nick Allen stated that the aim of the company is to increase lending for those that want to invest in the buy to let sector. By the end of the year they hope to have increased their lending by about a third to help match the demand that a great deal of brokers are seeing. Allen added that they will continue to offer products that they believe will be popular for use with other intermediaries.

A new set of figures released by the Bank of England suggests that as a result of the bank rate staying at 0.5%, most banks offered the best mortgage rates over the last year, allowing consumers to save as as much as £500bn collectively.

It is estimated that each borrower has saved about £50,000; which ironically is considered the amount that each saver has lost as a result of the low interest rates that have kept their savings account from building up. This is based on the low bank rate that has been in place over the last three years.

Homeowners are estimated to have paid about £1,320 in interest in the last three years that led up to December of 2011, but in the three years previous to this amount of time before the bank rate was dropped down to 0.5%, homeowners are estimated to have paid about £1,900bn in interest on their mortgages.

Therefore, the low mortgage rates saved consumers a bit under £600bn or about £50,000 each when you consider the fact that Britain has about 11.2m mortgages spread out among the banks. Savers, on the other hand, were able to gather about £974bn over the three years leading up to December of 2009 before the bank rate went down, but over the last three year period with the bank rate depressed were only able to garnish a much meeker estimated £5bn.

The bank rate was sliced as a result of the credit crisis and fell initially in small increments until March of 2009 when it dropped down to the 0.5% it has sat at ever since. Although savers have missed out, the large fall of the bank rate has helped boost the mortgage market by creating the best mortgage rates since in decades.

In fact, some of the rates were astounding as the average lifetime tracker did sit at about 6.2% before the bank rate fell, and over the last three years has been down as low as 1.2%. Fixed mortgages have also fallen to new lows with some sitting as low as 2%. Although the housing market is starting to pick up pace with interest rates rising now, homeowners should still feel blessed that they received such low rates, if only for a brief period of time.

In news that shocked many that have Halifax mortgages, the high street lender announced that they will raise their standard variable rates up by 0.75% by the end of March. This means that those who previously had their mortgage rate capped at 3% could see it increase up to 3.75%, increasing their monthly mortgage payment by a sizable amount from April onwards.

Although many banks have slowly been inching their mortgage rates up over the last few months, this will be the largest jump on the books as of yet as the mortgage market hints at instability again. Halifax is a part of Lloyds Banking Group, but it is only Halifax at the moment that has announced they will change their standard variables.

Of course, those that hold fixed mortgages with the banking agent will not be affected by the rate change. The bank has taken proactive action and written letters to its 40,000 borrowers that will be affected by the rate change to warn them that the rates will be increased.  While the bank claims that customers will continue to pay their current rate of 3.5%, it also said this the last time the cap was raised and then three months later the SVR was altered.

The letters were written to customers to prevent problems down the road with the Financial Services Authority due to an incident in 2011.  In February of last year, the bank was forced to repay half of its customers after it did not notify applicable customers that it was changing the cap on its SVR up to 3% from the previous rate of 2%. For many households the new change in mortgage rates may put too much pressure on their finances, placing them in a very risky situation.

Coreco Group adviser Andrew Montlake stated that the news is very concerning for many homeowners that already have tight budgets and explained that for many low rates are necessary in order to keep making their mortgage payments.

He added that if Halifax were to increase their rates soon it will be too much for these households to keep up with. Chief executive for SPF Private Clients, Mark Harris, stated that customers that thought they would be locked into a low rate as a result of the cap are likely going to be angry to hear that it is increasing, which could cause a negative backlash against the banking agent.

Despite claims that mortgage rates are increasing and that first time home buyers are going to have a harder time getting their foot onto the property ladder, it seems that the mortgage market is actually catering to them for the moment.

In fact, as the free stamp duty Government plan comes closer to the end it seems that banks are offering more mortgage deals in order to encourage first time home buyers to take advantage of the great deals. The fact is that there are so many great deals on the market right now that the competition is actually intense among those attempting to offer the best lending deals.

First time home buyers have until the 25^th March to purchase a home that is valued at less than £250,000 without worrying about paying the stamp duty, and banks seem to know this as they are rushing to cash in on those taking advantage of the scheme.

In fact, despite dismal housing market predictions, a 7% increase in the amount of first time home buyers was seen in December 2011 as savvy home shoppers took advantage of the best mortgage rates out there on the market, according to data compiled by the Council of Mortgage Lenders.

Over the next month, the increase is alleged to be slightly higher as new bank lending options are going to likely fuel the fire. In fact, some banks are offering fixed mortgages that start with LTVs as low as 95%.

For those that want to get out of the ever increasing rental prices, and start actually placing their money in an investment, these deals that come with a low deposit may be all that is needed to actually start to get a leg up on the  property market.

The Post Office is one of the lending agents that have attacked the first time home buyer market by offering lower mortgage rates that only come with a 90% LTV, making them more affordable.

Experts still warn that the lending criteria for these loans are strict, so only those with good credit are going to be able to actually take advantage of the loans. However, the new offers from Lloyds, Nationwide, First Direct, Chelsea Building Society, and other lenders are still going to open the market up to those whose only problem has been affording a high deposit upfront.

The Council of Mortgage Lenders stated that while the buy to let mortgage rates may not be as great as they once were, the market as a whole is recovering from its depression in 2009 thanks to the high demand for rental housing.

Figures from the CML from last year reveal that there were 123,000 mortgages completed, which is substantially higher than the amount completed in 2010 (about 94,000).  This is due to the fact that with the housing market becoming more unaffordable for the first time home buyer, landlords are stepping up to take advantage of the new rental demand.

The CML went on to offer an actual monetary value on the market stating that  about 25% of all buy to let mortgage rates were valued at around £4bn, allowing them to make up a total 1of 1% of all of the mortgage lending that was offered by banks in 2011.

Director of the CML, Paul Smee, stated that buy to let mortgage lending is one of the best performing areas of the mortgage market. Due to the demand for rented property continuing to increase there are more landlords taking advantage of the deals.

Smee continued to say that so long as the demand stays high the expectation for the buy to let market is going to stay high as well. He added that the figures from last year do not reveal that buy to let is actually taking away properties from first time buyers, but instead is offering a unique option that needs to be available in the modern housing market.

Smee also explained that there are some benefits to renting a home that should not be passed by, especially as the average mortgage rates and LTVs are keeping many home owners off the market.

The rental market, in addition, offers flexibility to renters which is one area that mortgages cannot, especially at this point in time. Chief executive of Dragonfly Property Finance, Jonathon Samuels, said that while the buy to let market is not quite up to its previous high of 2007, it is clear from the figures released by the CML that the market is starting to recover and will reach new heights in a few more years if it continues its recovery at this pace.