Essentially Mortgages – Quarter Two 2021

The recent Stamp Duty holiday extension, combined with continued high demand for property, has led to the strongest sellers’ market in a decade, Rightmove has revealed.

With ‘virtual’ becoming the norm, it’s important to make your home stand out from the crowd of online listings.

Confidence appears to be returning to the mortgage market, with data showing that product choice has expanded for the fifth month in a row.

Do you need more living space? Could extending your existing property be a realistic option? Well, there are several questions you need to ask yourself to understand whether a home extension is a viable option for your circumstances.

We often take out protection insurance such as income protection or critical illness cover following a significant life event, such as buying a home or having a child. But what if you’re renting?

On 17 February, Rightmove reported its highest ever number of visits (over 8.5 million), a strong indication that many people were looking to move home irrespective of the Stamp Duty holiday (the extension not having been announced at this point).

Mortgages catering to buyers with small deposits have unfortunately been a casualty of the pandemic, with 95% LTV mortgages all but disappearing from the market over the past year.

The pandemic has had an impact on all areas of life, including relationships. Citizens Advice reported a 25% upswing in visits to its divorce page in the first weekend of September 2020 compared with 2019.

The FCA’s recently published ‘Financial Lives survey’, conducted in February 2020, with a follow-up ‘COVID panel survey’ conducted in October 2020, revealed that 20% (10.7 million) of UK adults had low financial resilience even before the pandemic struck.

With experts warning that thousands of buyers would fall off the ‘cliff edge’ as the Stamp Duty holiday deadline loomed, the Chancellor’s announcement of an extension in his Spring Budget was met with relief.

Spring to early summer has historically been the best time of year to put your house on the market.