Housing Statistics Can Be Misleading Home owners says Lawrenson of LettingFocus

A good example is the Council of Mortgage lenders stats.
These are dutifully quoted from as if they are the Word of God by many property journalists. Take the often quoted stat about the percentage of a house buyers’ income that goes on mortgage interest. This stat rightly gets quoted every month it comes out.
Trouble is its not entirely comparing like with like because it does not take account of the ubiquitous mortgage “application” or “arrangement” fee - a misnomer if ever there was one.
As these fees are now often well over 2% for a typical two or three year discounted mortgage, and seeing as they hardly existed at all 10 odd years ago, comparing this on a time series is meaningless. It’s also a bit daft to not take account of them either.
It’s not the fault of the CML -they haven’t got time to adjust their stats for all the different fees the lenders charge and it would be very hard to do so anyway.
But really, the journalists who quote this stuff ought to ask some more questions and go beyond the confines of the press release to delve into the figures a bit more.
For the rest of us, just don’t believe all you read.
If you need more advice on buy to let mortgages or buy to let investment in general please ask me. I’m David Lawrenson from property investment advisors http://www.lettingfocus.com/
I’m the author of the buy to let book “Successful Property Letting - How to Make Money in Buy to Let” the UK’s top selling property title.
I’m an expert on property investing for profit and a well known property freelance writer and I contribute to newspapers and a host of property websites, write a property investment blog and run a landlords advice service.
I also work as a consultant helping banks, building societies, housing associations and web portals with their buy to let and property products and services.You can read more of my property investment blog and details of my networking, advice, property networking programme at my website http://www.lettingfocus.com/
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Copyright: David Lawrenson 2008.
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House prices could be seven times average incomes by 2026

Last week, the National Housing and Planning Advice Unit, was launched to try to help make homes more affordable. They predicted that unless more houses are built, prices by 2026 could be 10 times the average buyer’s salary, up from current multiples of around seven.
I said last year that by 2026 one third of the housing stock would be second homes or privately rented. (At the moment its about 8-10% depending on how you cut the figures.) I stick by that prediction.
We may be entering a new period in home ownership – one in which unless you are young or come from a family that has property or wealth (or you end up in very well paying job) it could become very hard to get on the housing ladder.
That said, research from Abbey last year showed that there are lots of people (including many families) that could buy but would rather rent as it gives them the flexibility that they need in the flexible hire and fire culture we now have.
I’m David Lawrenson from property investment consultancy Letting Focus. I’m the author of “Successful Property Letting – How to Make Money in Buy to Let” the UK’s top selling buy to let book and Amazon.co.uk’s top selling property title.
I contribute to newspapers and a host of property websites, write a property investment blog and am a media commentator on the residential property market. You can read more of my property investment insights and details of my networking, advice, telephone - consultancy and property investment seminar programme on my website www.lettingfocus.com.What’s different about us is that we are unbiased, because unlike most people in the buy to let and property advice business we are not linked to a developer, agent or finance company. We just tell you all about buy to let and property investment - the good and the bad.Copyright of this article: David Lawrenson 2007. If you wish to reproduce this piece please contact me first. Back to main site: www.lettingfocus.com