Hero
Lenders – that might otherwise be in the zero category – being up front with intermediaries about their progress on regulation, even if it means being the bearer of not-so-good news. (Editor: Any reason for this Mary?) Scottish Widows Bank gets the thumbs up for sending a mailing to all of its registered brokers with details of its revised processes from ‘Mortgage Day’ and arrangements for applications in the pipeline. Mortgage Express e-mailed its brokers to let them know of the possibility that online KFIs might be temporarily unavailable from ‘Mortgage Day’ due to technical issues. Abbey recently withdrew their flexible product range as it will be unable to produce a compliant KFI. Technical issues are not good news but owning up to brokers is a big plus for giving them the opportunity to plan for any eventuality.
Zero
House price indices that contradict each other and confuse the public and people in the industry. Are prices rising, falling or staying put? The Halifax index says that house prices rose by 1.4 per cent in September following a 0.5 per cent fall in August. But the Nationwide said that house prices rose by 0.2 per cent in September continuing from the 0.1 per cent increase in August. And if that wasn’t confusing enough, estate agents Hometrack reported that house prices fell by 0.3 per cent in September after a 0.1 per cent fall in August. The Rightmove survey said something different again. These discrepancies are caused by many factors including market coverage and regional bias (Nationwide has a Southern bias while Halifax still has a strong presence in the North). It reminds me of the old adage: if you laid all the economists end to end, they wouldn’t reach a conclusion.
