Mortgages: UK mortgage market looking stronger than the USA

Richard Catlin
18 February 2008

The sub-prime mortgage crisis in the US continues to rumble on, with their own 'credit crunch' dramatically affecting the entire economy.

However, whilst the old adage goes that when America sneezes, we catch a cold, the latest figures on the state of the UK mortgage market have revealed that the exposure to potential 'bad debt' here is much lower, with sub-prime lending accounting for a very low proportion of the entire home loan market.

Reckless lending in the US in recent years has seen sub-prime mortgages account for over 20% of total borrowing. Huge numbers of these loans have defaulted since 2006, resulting in some of the country's biggest financial institutions suffering enormous billion-dollar losses, and making the threat of recession a very real one.

With the US economy being what it is, ripples haven't been restricted to a national level of course, with some blame being attributed to it regarding our own economy, and examples such as the Northern Rock crisis especially.

These latest figures are encouraging however, and indicate that although mortgage lending in the US has been tightened considerably recently, there are still good deals to be had. Lending policies are generally seen as more responsible in the UK, keeping overall portfolios much more under control.

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