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Some banks have had to cap mortgages at £500,000 due to surveyors being unable to make physical appraisals during the COVID-19 lockdown. Sources at lenders said that professional indemnity insurance does not cover big loans for expensive homes they have not been to in person. Only simple online assessments of properties can be done at the moment and this has led banks to impose strict price limits during the lockdown. Virgin Money and Clydesdale have a property price ceiling of £500,000 while Precise Mortgages and Kent Reliance capped mortgage lending at £600,000. Aldermore's limit is £750,000 outside the M25 motorway and up to £1m within it. NatWest has a more generous ceiling of £3m.
The Sunday Times (26/04/2020)
A joint venture between EcoWorld London and Poplar HARCA has secured a £36m development facility with Lloyds Bank to deliver a further 223 residential units at the Aberfeldy Village development in Poplar. Comprising 1,176 homes across six phases, Aberfeldy Village is being developed as a joint venture between the property specialist and housing association, with the three-year financing set to support the build-out of Phase 3B of the development. Lloyds Bank has to date funded 445 homes for open market sale already delivered across previous phases. The development will also deliver a new GP surgery, a community centre, and retail units.
Property Week (20/04/2020)
CBRE warns private development in London could fall by over 50% if the coronavirus pandemic keeps building sites closed until July, meaning just 10,000 home delivered this year by the private sector.
Financial Times (20/04/2020)
Residential property sales edged down only slightly in March compared with February, despite the lockdown imposed towards the end of last month, new figures suggest. Across the UK, 99,440 home sales took place last month, 0.2% down on February, according to provisional estimates from HMRC. The March total was also 0.3% higher than the same month a year earlier, despite stricter measures introduced from March 23 to limit the spread of coronavirus.
Daily Express (21/04/2020)
Some big lenders have begun reopening their doors to British borrowers, making it easier to get a home loan. At the start of the coronavirus lockdown, several scrapped deals or only offered loans to those with large deposits. But this week Nationwide resumed loans at 85% loan-to-value (LTV), while Halifax raised its LTV level from 80% to 85%. Meanwhile, Virgin Money began offering purchase mortgages again, as Santander increased its maximum loan size - from £300,000 to £500,000 - and cut fees on its residential mortgages. Additionally, several lenders will allow applications where a "remote valuation" has been carried out. Lenders such as Precise and Kent Reliance have returned to the market using remote valuations.
BBC News (22/04/2020) The Daily Telegraph (22/04/2020)
House prices could fall by an average of as much as £30,000 by the end of this year as incomes fall as a result of the COVID-19 crisis, according to a new report. The Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) said a squeeze on incomes "has a tremendous potential to disrupt the UK's housing markets". Although the scale of the crisis means it will affect the entire country, the impending loss of jobs and incomes won't be evenly spread, the CEBR warned. Yorkshire and East Anglia are expected to be the hardest hit with house prices dropping 16.5% this year. Next come the North-West and West Midlands with 16% falls. The CEBR forecast that a lack of transactions, high uncertainty and falling incomes will lead to a sharp fall in prices. The CEBR said owners of rental properties are more exposed to the economic downturn as the larger proportion of younger tenants have a higher likelihood of losing their jobs. “Even a temporary reduction in incomes could lead to tenants becoming unable to pay their rent, making the private rented sector the catalyst of the impending housing crash,” it said.
Daily Mail (13/04/2020) The Scotsman (13/04/2020) The Daily Telegraph (13/04/2020)