| Rate rises affecting UK homeowners
New research has confirmed recent opinions that a series of interest rate hikes have led more UK homeowners to turn to fixed-rate mortgage offers, it has been revealed.A Fool.co.uk study also found that borrowers expected further rises in the coming months, with first-time buyers and those choosing to remortgage their properties among the most cautious.Currently almost eight out of ten borrowers are looking to fixed-rate products, according to Fool – double the number that were doing so in August of last year.Three rate rises since the beginning of that month have contributed to a doubling in the popularity of fixed-rate products among remortgagers, up from 40 per cent to 80 per cent since August. Nine out of ten first-time buyers are also now rejecting the option of variable rates."Currently, interest rates are expected to rise 0.25 per cent within the next two months and a further 0.25 per cent six months after that.
Countdown to Budget Day
GORDON Brown is tipped to announce a major shake-up of student loans in this week's Budget, which would involve packaging them up and selling them off to private loan companies. A small amount of loan money has already been parcelled off, according to the National Union of Students (NUS), but the Chancellor is expected to announce the sell-off of the entire £16bn student loan book when he delivers his 11th Budget speech on Wednesday, promising to use the money to boost education programmes. .
Starter homes, sad endings 8:19 AM
A wave of loan defaults in starter-home developments is pushing the foreclosure count in Mecklenburg County to record heights, an Observer analysis shows. Lenders foreclosed last year on more than 900 Mecklenburg starter homes, up more than 150 percent since 2003. Foreclosures of older or more expensive homes rose by only 18 percent during the same period. The failures are Charlotte's piece of a national problem. Millions of lower-income families used easy-money loans to buy first homes over the past decade. Many put nothing down, paid no closing costs and received low introductory payments. When the payments start climbing, many families can't keep up. Experts predict more than 1.5 million families who bought homes in recent years will lose those homes during the current wave.
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