Or harder at least from tomorrow when new rules introduced by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) will demand that lenders are required to find out the expenditure of applicants rather than just basing a decision on income and credit history.
Strange/crazy/stupid as it may seem but lenders have never asked those rather obvious questions before and it must surely make an impact on the number of mortgages granted.
The rules – known as the Mortgage Market Review (MMR) – are designed to protect consumers from the kind of reckless mortgage lending/borrowing that would leave them unable to make repayments. Many are still in negative equity or defaulting on a daily basis after the “chuckaway Charlie” approach by both sides in the years before the 2007-8 collapse.
If the UK economy is driven by rising house prices, which indeed it is, then this could put a serious dent in the recovery ( as Chris2 also points out in the comments section) although some research/forecasting suggest only 2.5% of mortgage applicants will be affected rising to 11% in overheated markets
Time will tell but it’s worth keeping in mind.
The BBC has more here
