Monday, September 5, 2011
“You may have seen our property program on the home channel and have heard about the Property Leader program, but not know what it is? Well at FNB we realised that we have so much property expertise that we needed to share, and Property Leader is how we are going to do it. See some [...]
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Are aspiring home buyers scared to buy property currently? The demand/supply balance still shows heavy oversupplies. Potential buyers are constrained by significant increases in their cost of living, while high levels of indebtedness leave them vulnerable to any future interest rate increases. However, reduced confidence levels are exactly what is needed to fuel the recovery.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
The April 2011 FNB House Price Index showed further mild acceleration in year-on-year growth on March’s revised rate of 1.2%, to 2.2%. This is the 2nd successive month of mild acceleration in year-on-year house price growth, an event which we believe is the lagged result of a further brief flurry of interest rate cutting by the Reserve Bank (SARB) late in 2010. Those rate cuts caused a mild uptick in residential demand which may have been more than just the usual summer seasonal factors.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Stringent lending criteria by home loan banks have been a hot topic for quite some time now. At a stage of the property downturn, estate agents surveyed by FNB were quoting this as a major reason for weak activity levels in the property market. Around that time, banks had started restricting loan-to-value policies for new loans granted, implying an increased number of loans for which significant deposits were required.
