Helping you keep your finances healthy!

With reports published within days of each other giving seemingly contradictory accounts of house price movements, can anybody actually claim to be sure of what’s going on? Of course they can’t. The picture’s way too muddy, even for the experts. If you didn’t realise that already, here are three reasons why you just shouldn’t listen to any more reports on 2011 house prices…

How many of us could do with a ‘helping hand’ to get on the housing ladder?

The old way—save a deposit and find an affordable house—is tougher than ever. The housing market is still flat as a flounder. Mortgages are still scarce. Savings interest is miserable. Incomes are falling and inflation rising.

So if you’re a first time buyer, or want to be, can you afford much more waiting around?

We’ve covered the scandal of mortgage misselling before – and how thousands of UK householders have been getting their money back. with an average settlement of £40,000.

But we didn’t cover all the reasons in detail that could help you figure out of you’re one of the affected householders.

As you’ll see, there’s quite a few of them!

Basically, if you arranged your mortgage through an intermediary (a broker, financial adviser or call centre) and the cost of repaying it has become a struggle, ask yourself these five questions and you’ll soon know if you have a claim.

The demise of buy to let has been much reported. Now, to para-phrase Mark Twain, it seems that reports of its death have been greatly exaggerated.

If you think the tricky lending climate has shifted in borrowers’ favour, think again. As these three tales show, sometimes even the most reasonable request for a mortgage can be doomed to rejection…

Only a year or two ago, we were tolling the knell for Britain’s building societies.