This week, it’s 2015.
• Average house price: (October) £196,807
• Base rate at year-end: 0.5%
• House price inflation (to October):3.9%
• General inflation: -0.1%
• Oscar Best Picture winner: Birdman
• Best-selling album: Ed Sheeran, X
• Must-have Christmas toy: Battle Action Millenium Falcon
Mortgage/housing market highlights
So, far, 2015 has been a standout year for both mortgage intermediaries and new buy-to-let lenders with Fleet Mortgages, Pepper Homeloans, Foundation Home Loans and State Bank of India among the new brands.
In January, Barclays became the first lender to introduce blanket Loan to income caps across its range, which opened the flood gates to a flurry of lenders following suit after the Financial Policy Committee recommended 4.5 x income caps in October the previous year. This year has also been marked with constant speculation about rate rises and endless disappointment for brokers keen to see the remortgage market spurred on as rates stayed firmly at 0.5% The ailing global economic backdrop and some deliberately mixed messages from Bank of England governor Mark Carney have kept rates in the headlines.
In July, Chancellor George Osborne shocked many by announcing plans to cut taper relief for property investments in this booming sector in a complex move still being unravelled and due to begin in 2017.
Mortgage advisers have tightened their grip on the UK mortgage market’s distribution taking 70% market share and growing. The resurgence of the specialist lending market has been long anticipated and we’ve seen some niche lending shoots this year with a raft of lenders still waiting in the wings set to bring more competition.
However, despite so many new lender entrants, the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) slashed its lending forecast to £209bn from £222bn in July expecting activity levels to remain narrowly constrained this year.
Meanwhile, the regulatory sandwich of the Mortgage Market Review (MMR) last year and preparations for the Mortgage Credit Directive next year has meant a costly, stressful year for lenders, broadly-speaking.
Meanwhile, for Kensington, its move to new ownership and new appetite to lend was reflected in the launch of its self-employed mortgage that considers a directors share of profit as well as salary.
This year’s highlights
• January 3–7 – A series of massacres in Baga, Nigeria and surrounding villages by Boko Haram kills more than 2,000 people.
• February 16 – The Egyptian military begins conducting airstrikes against a branch of the Islamic militant group ISIL in Libyain retaliation for the group’s beheading of over a dozen Egyptian Christians.
• March 6 – NASA’s Dawn probe enters orbit around Ceres, becoming the first spacecraft to visit a dwarf planet.
• April 25 – A magnitude 7.8 earthquake strikes Nepal and causes 8,857 deaths in Nepal, 130 in India, in China and 4 in Bangladesh with a total of 9,018 deaths.
• May 23 – Ireland votes to legalize same-sex marriage, becoming the first country to legalize same-sex marriage by popular vote.
• June 2 – FIFA President Sepp Blatter announces his intention to resign amidst an FBI-led corruption investigation, and calls for an extraordinary congress to elect a new president as soon as possible.
July 1 – Greek government-debt crisis: Greece becomes the first advanced economy to miss a payment to the International Monetary Fund in the 71-year history of the IMF.
• July 14 – NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft performs a close flyby of Pluto, becoming the first spacecraft in history to visit the distant world.
• August 5 – Debris found on Réunion Island is confirmed to be that of Malaysian Airlines Flight 370, missing since March 2014.
• September 10 – Scientists announce the discovery of Homo naledi, a previously unknown species of early human in South Africa.
• September 18 – Automaker Volkswagen is alleged to have been involved in worldwide rigging of diesel emissions tests, affecting an estimated 11 million vehicles globally.
• October 23 – Hurricane Patricia becomes the most intense hurricane ever recorded in the Western Hemisphere, with winds of 200mph and a pressure of 879 mbar.
• October 31 – Flight KGL9268, an Airbus A321 airliner en route to Saint Petersburg from Sharm el-Sheikh, crashes near Al-Hasana in Sinai, killing all 217 passengers.
And that was the year that was 2015..so far.
