Today the latest statistics in the house price index from the Department for Communities and Local Government were released.  This index compiles data from mortgage completions that occurred within the month of August 2011.  Overall the data showed a decrease of 1.3 per cent over the year comparison and an increase of 0.6 per cent from the month to month comparison.

Mortgage completions have shown that demand has remained for remortgages as well as buy to let products.  The remortgage lending area has remained steady despite the lack of warnings of an impending interest rate increase.  Homeowners have been keen to grab the cheap remortgages being offered by competitive lenders looking for borrowers.  Meanwhile, the lack of buyers in the housing market has pushed up demand for rental properties.  To meet that demand landlords have been seeking buy to let remortgages to add properties to their portfolio.  There have also been more investors coming into the buy to let market pushing buy to let new purchases into a higher demand area with lenders.

Landlords have also been met with lower interest rates on buy to let products as have homeowners seeking remortgages.  Loan to value levels have increased and house prices have fallen into more affordable arenas keeping lending active.  Still the housing market remains weak with house prices expected to fall further through the end of the year and little bounce expected in 2012.  There is hope that with efforts to strengthen the economy of the eurozone and the latest quantitative easing that more confident consumers may be apt to begin taking advantage of the low house prices, low borrowing costs, and great lender deals bringing buyers back to the housing market in the months ahead.