Property market 'requires 95% mortgages'

Posted: 17 Oct 2008 12:57:28 GMT

In these harsh economic times, many property buyers need access to 90 and 95 per cent loan-to-value mortgages if they are to have any chance of buying a home.

That is according to estate agency network Your Move, which predicted that the current situation in the housing market will fail to improve until more people are able to secure financing for property.

Gareth Samples, sales director at the organisation, said that the market is very unstable at present, and requires an injection of "freely available mortgages at decent rates" to regain its balance.

"We are in a unique case at the moment," he said. "For first-time buyers, building societies don't want to take the majority of the risk so it's making it increasingly difficult to get a mortgage."

Mr Samples also said that many homeowners are struggling to sell their properties because new build developers are slashing housing prices by up to 40 per cent.

Meanwhile, building society Nationwide recently reported that the average price of a UK house stood at £161,797 in September 2008, down 12.4 per cent from the same month last year.

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