The Council of Mortgage Lenders is alarmed at the government’s proposals to alter the way SIM operates.

A new report from homeless charity Shelter has revealed the towns and cities where contractor mortgage holders are at the most risk of having their property repossessed.

Mortgage Brain’s latest product analysis shows there are now 87% more available mortgage products than there were this time last year.

Earlier this month the RICS reported that the housing market improved in November. In fact, it was really more that the decline had slowed rather than the market picking up, but the news was greeted as more positive than any thing else to do with the current economy.

Now that Christmas Day is over for another year, people’s thoughts may be turning back to the distressed state of the housing market in the UK.

Prospective residential landlords might be interested to learn that a new lender entered the buy to let market last week.

Recent data from the Bank of England shows that homeowners repaid £9.15 billion more than was taken out in mortgages in the quarter ending June. That’s the most that has been repaid in a quarter since the BoE starting collating the figures.

Experian recently reported that instances of contractor mortgage fraud increased dramatically in the third quarter of 2011. 49 out of every 10,000 mortgage applications were discovered to be fraudulent, a rise of 77% on the comparable period last year and an increase of 53% on the second quarter of this year.

The Halifax has reported that UK house prices dropped last month as weaker than expected economic growth impacted the housing market recovery.

The Financial Services Authority is believed to be thinking about loosening mortgage lending restrictions to help free contractor mortgage prisoners.

Recent research from InvestorBee shows just how dire the situation is for first time buyers in London who want to get a contractor mortgage.

A lot of contractor mortgage experts are questioning why the Chancellor did not extend the stamp duty exemption when he delivered his Autumn Statement at the end of November.