Exact’s recent survey on house prices showed that whilst some housing commentators are predicting that spring is just around the corner, mortgage brokers and IFAs have a more cautious and balanced view. Exact received 539 responses to its survey which is a statistically significant sample. ...

The media and markets have seized on every crumb of good news released in past weeks, but the odd positive announcement – Barclay’s Q1 results were unexpectedly good – shouldn’t confuse our understanding of this recession. It will not right as quickly as it went wrong. March house prices ...

Why hasn’t the government given any of its bank bailout cash to local authorities? With the help and expertise of specialist lenders who are currently twiddling their thumbs, councils could get cash back in the hands of people who would spend it. The government witters on about boosting ...

The average UK broker believes house prices have 9.2% further to fall, according to Exact’s latest white paper. Exact polled 539 mortgage intermediaries as part of their research into the future performance of UK house prices. 22% of brokers were less positive, believing we will see further ...

Last November I found myself envious of my friends in America. They were going to the polls to elect a new President and with that they had the opportunity to vote for a leader without a legacy of economic failure to defend and who could address financial regulation and recession with a ...

Alan Cleary – Managing Director – Blames the ratings agencies Building societies have been under the spotlight in recent weeks after Moody’s downgraded nine, some to just one notch above junk status. But why? This was a massive overreaction from Moody’s because they screwed up ...

Exact CEO Ian Lonergan – Economic outlook.
The media and markets have seized on every crumb of good news released in past weeks, but the odd positive announcement – Barclay’s Q1 results were unexpectedly good – shouldn’t confuse our understanding of this recession. It will not right as quickly as it went wrong. March house prices …

• Building Societies continue to count the cost of the crunch.
• John Murray – Lenders in limbo.
• Credit Director Chris Preston Breaking the fraud taboo.
• Exacts Latest White Paper.
Read the full articles here.

No one likes admitting they’ve made a blunder and it’s no different for lenders and mortgage fraud. Fraud is wildly under-reported in official statistics – millions of pounds of fraudulent loans are written off as credit losses every month because they slip through the net unidentified. ...

The news that only one household has been saved from repossession by the government’s interventionist tactics may have surprised a few people, but the reality is that the schemes launched in December 2008 were little more than spin. In my opinion the 2 year ...

The furore over Moody’s mass downgrade of building societies continues and the more I look into this the more I believe that the rating agency has over reacted. At the very least they have not gone deep enough into the asset quality of the building societies mortgage books. The view from ...