The number of home-movers fell by 4% last year making it the first time in 7 years that 1st time buyers accounted for more sales than home-movers (51% against 49%). Lloyds bank believe this is to do with the high costs of moving deterring owners. However, the help available to 1st time buyers with the reduction in stamp duty and the Help-to-Buy scheme has given the 1st time buyers a lift onto the property ladder. An average deposit is now just under £100,000.00
A survey by P2P and business finance lender MarketInvoice (and reported in P2P Finance News), finds that while most accountants will recommend a bank as the first port of call for finance, a third would suggest an invoice finance provider and another third would suggest a business loan provider. Among those who do not make these suggestions, the most common reasons were (36%) that they didn’t really understand it enough and (18%) they were worried about the administrative burden of managing the lender/client relationship.
Total lending supplied by P2P Finance Association members surpassed £10 billion in the last quarter of 2018 with most lending going to small businesses. This clearly demonstrates the importance of P2P in developing and nurturing existing businesses in a difficult economy. The part played by thousands of individual lenders play in the UK economy is considerable and should be loudly applauded.
Just under 2 million TSB customers were unable to access their accounts again as maintenance work overran this morning. This is the 3rd time this year that customers have suffered in this way (April, September and now December) and as a result, over 16,000 have voted with their feet and left. This from a total of around 5 million, so perhaps a fairly small percentage but at least they can’t blame Brexit.