It’s two and a half years since the credit crunch broke, yet only recently has there been whisperings of mortgage lenders beginning to relax criteria. This has mainly revolved around edging down certain loan-to-value thresholds – in other words, giving those with smaller deposits access to the best deals.
Large lenders have opposed plans by the financial regulator to scrap so-called “liar loans” for homebuyers, warning the watchdog a blanket ban would hurt the self-employed and prompt a rise in false paperwork. The Financial Services Authority (FSA) had said in October it planned to force mortgage lenders to check the income of all borrowers, effectively banning self-certified mortgages.
These five tips could easily save you £50,000… I’m going to summarise articles we’ve written that’ll save you the most money. These are the greatest money-saving tips. I’m going to begin by telling you something you shouldn’t buy to save yourself thousands. I’m talking about insurance that protects your mortgage, loan or credit card repayments.
You want to buy a house, a car, apply for a loan; pretty much anything these days require good credit. While some people may be in denial that the credit system should have this much influence on your life – the fact of the matter is that good credit goes a long way. So why not improve it? Even if you have good credit, excellent credit will get you better mortgage rates on your home loan, potentially saving you thousands of pounds. Here are 101 tips to help you do just that – everything you ever wanted to know to be financially successful.
If you have a squeaky clean credit record and need to borrow a relatively small amount of money, a 0% purchase credit card may be your cheapest and best borrowing option. This sort of card offers you 0% interest on all new spending for a set period of time. At the moment, the market leader is the Tesco Clubcard credit card, which offers 0% on purchases for a full 12 months. After that, the typical APR reverts to 16.9%.
The government announced new rights for credit card users on Monday that it says will save consumers millions of pounds and give them more control over their finances. The new rights were secured in an agreement between the government and the credit and store card companies.
If you’ve not switched supplier in the past two years, then you’re probably paying well over the odds for your gas and electricity. For the record, the average saving made by lovemoney.com readers using our clever energy price-comparison tool is a tidy £215 a year. That adds up to more than two grand over ten years.
The Government has announced a shake-up of the credit card industry. Our Q&A explains how the changes will affect cardholders. Can my card company still raise the interest rate on existing debts? Yes – the Government has shied away from banning this practice, which many consumers see as an unfair rewriting of an existing agreement. But it is giving cardholders more chance to avoid paying higher rates of interest.
Interest rates are predicted to start rising next month and rates on fixed-rate mortgage deals are tumbling as lenders embark on a new price war. Now could be the best time in history to get a fixed rate mortgage!
Wonga stresses that credit and identity checks are strict but if the application can be checked and decided upon so quickly, as promised, can that really be the case? The company also says that if borrowers use the facility for short term emergencies, say £150 borrowed for a week, then repayments are very competitive at just £10.50 or 7%.