"“We have lent a huge amount of money to the U.S. Of course we are concerned about the safety of our assets. To be honest, I am definitely a little worried.” "


Chinese premier Wen Jiabao 12th March 2009


""We have a financial system that is run by private shareholders, managed by private institutions, and we'd like to do our best to preserve that system."


Timothy Geithner US Secretary of the Treasury, previously President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.1/3/2009

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

House loans UP, Cost of Living UP, Interest Rates UP

The Fed OMC meets now - Lord Patel predicted a rate rise of 1/4% a month ago, and expected the UK to follow suit - in the UK the CPI jumped 0.7% on the month and 4.6% (it was 2.8% a year ago today) on the year, a 15 year record, as mortgage interest payments, energy bills, soared. In the markets British government bonds and interest rate futures fell in expectation that the bank will raise interest rates to at least 5.5%.

Despite this, more money was handed out in home loans last month (£24.6Bn.) than in any February since records began, according to the Council of Mortgage Lenders.

CML Director General Michael Coogan says that we still expect gross lending to reach around £360 billion this year. (2006 £345 Bn. 2005 £ 288 Bn. )

Minutes from the Bank of England's March policy meeting will be released tommorrow at 0930 GMT so the tea leave soothsayers can drool over them - save the trouble , read Lord Patel.

4 comments:

Stef said...

The BBC tells me that the average London house price is now £366,302 - but that was this morning so it's probably topping £380,000 by now

Apparently this is all due to...

""Wealthy City financiers, foreign buyers and big income earners are driving the demand in London and with quality stock at an all- time low, there is an exacerbated effect on prices."

and not bankers flooding the market with debt.

No worries then...

Stef said...

The former Governor of the BoE 'fesses up here...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=443540

Stef said...

mi scusi, shorter link...

http://tinyurl.com/yta2j7

Anonymous said...

Ah, the cycle of birth and rebirth. Not only a triple post from stef but a ref to the Daily Mail.
Perchance they read here already. F'rinstance, the topic of this post was to be found in the Daily Mail just two dayslater.

Slightly off topic but nevertheless fun is this from aref-adib. (Google it, I'm a guest here :)

(C) Very Seriously Disorganised Criminals 2002/3/4/5/6/7/8/9 - copy anything you wish