Home Sales Down 10% Year On Year At Countrywide

Countrywide says that its 650 mortgage consultants dealt with a 12.84% increase in mortgage applications during May, compared with April. What proportion of the applications was successful was not revealed and it stressed that mortgage affordability remains a critical issue despite many lenders relaxing lending levels. It described sales as 'hesitant'.

Applications for fixed rate mortgages dominated Countrywide's Top 10 Most Popular Mortgages, with all ten being fixed rate products requiring an average deposit of 12% at an average rate of 5.46%.

Overall, remortgage applications fell for the third consecutive month, making up 23% of all mortgage applications in May.

Countrywide has also reported that sales activities are muted, the number of sales agreed in May was up 2.3% in May compared with April, a very quiet month, and a decrease of 10% compared with May last year. The number of sellers on the other hand seems to be outshone by the number of buyers thus making the activity in the markets come to seize.

Grenville Turner, chief executive, said: "Rather than seeing the traditional uplift in sales activity we tend to see in the summer months, we appear to be in the middle of a stand-off between buyers and sellers. The sellers were advised to put forward reasonable prices of houses for a successful sale. Activity picked up pace only in London while the rest of the UK market remained stagnant. 'Those sellers with realistic house price expectations that want to sell are selling. Those with a more speculative view of the market are not. Buyer interest in purchasing property remains robust across much of the country, with London and pockets of the South-East being the strongest with demand remaining high' he added.

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