Banks Charge Extra For New Mortgages

Britain's mortgage lenders are still to increasing their interest rates for new customers and failing to pass on the cuts in market lending rates, which have been improving for several weeks.

Last week, the Bank of England felled its main interest rate by a third bringing it down to 3 per cent the lowest in more than 50 years.New data showed that inflation is falling more quickly than anticipated so further cuts in interest are expected, maybe as soon as next month.According to the Office for National Statistics inflation, based on the consumer prices index, slumped to an annual rate of 4.5 per cent in October, compared to 5.2 per cent the month before.Economists had been predicting a smaller drop but a slowdown in the rise of food prices, coupled with the effect of falling petrol prices both contributed to bringing the rate down more rapidly than expected.

Although existing homeowners with tracker mortgages are about to see a substantial cut in their monthly payments following this month's 1.5 percentage point drop in the Bank of England interest rate, consumers searching for new tracker deals will probably be paying a higher margin above the Bank rate than they would have done just a couple of weeks ago.The rate at which banks borrow funds to lend to mortgage borrowers and the rate at which banks lend to each other (known as Libor) has also decreased and is now down to just over 4 per cent, from around 5.7 per cent at the end of last month

Yet despite the gap between Libor and the Bank rate narrowing, lenders are continuing to increase their profit on new mortgage products.

Halifax launched a new range of trackers which vary between 1.99 and 2.39 percentage points higher than the Bank rate.

Similarly, Alliance & Leicester, Abbey and Lloyds also released new trackers all costing at least 1.79 percentage points above the Bank rate.
David Hollingworth, of independent broker London & Country mortgages said: "The margins are very wide much wider than they were a month ago." He also claimed that for many consumers, the biggest problem at the moment is that the majority of products are only available to those with a low loan to value [LTV].
Nearly all of the new trackers on the market are only available to borrowers who have more than 25 per cent equity in their property.

For customers who have a mortgage which accounts for 80 per cent or more of their current property value, it is now near impossible to get a tracker mortgage deal.And for homeowners with a 90 per cent loan to value, there is only a tiny selection of products on offer and the interest rates on most of these are more than double the Bank rate.

Mr Hollingworth said more and more of borrowers may have to return to their bank's standard variable rate (SVR).This, however, may not be as unattractive as it once was because lots of banks have reduced their SVRs by 1.5 percentage points after the Chancellor pressurized them to pass the full Bank rate cut on to borrowers.

The banks decision to raise the margin on their trackers was defended by Sue Anderson, of the Council of Mortgage Lenders: "It reflects the mix of business levels that lenders now have," she said."A lot of lenders fully cut their SVRs by 1.5 percentage points, even though their own funding cost would not have been cut by that amount."

About the Author

The Mortgages-Manager is a specialist in Mortgages, offering fantastic deals and truly impressive information surrounding mortgages and remortgages.

Our sister site Brokers Online offers cutting edge articles and information about Mortgages and other financial products.

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Attract and Retain the Best Employees with Employee Recruitment and Staffing Solutions

Attract and retain the most talented employees with employee recruitment and staffing strategies.This article will provide you with information that will save your organization time and resources in your hiring process.Whether youre an executive, a manager or a team leader, the following information will be beneficial to you.

To find talent, smart companies are taking every possible opportunity to interview job seekers.Whether you utilize in house recruitment personnel or outsource to a recruitment agency, the results can be hit and miss.In fact, a recent study showed that the correlation between the ability to deliver well in a job interview and the ability to do well on the job is just 14 percent, or one good employee out of every seven people you hire.

Employee recruitment and staffing strategies have evolved significantly in the last few years as technological advancement becomes a calculated, competitive edge for businesses.Progressive companies use employee recruitment and staffing solutions to interface, or even integrate the multiple solutions they employ, empowering them to recruit, hire, develop, retain, engage and promote top talent seamlessly.

Since the widespread recognition of the importance of human capital in organizations, companies are creating strategies that align people with business objectives to conquer challenges and create a competitive advantage.By investing in new technology and ongoing research, your organization can proactively eliminate hiring, on-boarding, employee development, talent retention and career planning issues before they begin and address challenges that already exist.

There are many employee recruitment and staffing strategies that can help your organization cope with the many employee issues you currently face.Here are some examples:

Applicant Tracking
Businesses employing large numbers of workers face unique hiring challenges.


Taking applications, screening, interviewing, hiring, and on-boarding dozens, hundreds or even thousands of new hires can lead to confusion, missed opportunities, lost time and wasted resources, including money.Application tracking gives managers the ability to review and hire the right applicants quickly and efficiently.Applicant tracking solutions are easy to use, require little training and do not require expensive hardware of software.By automating your hiring process, you can reduce your organizations recruiting costs by 40 or more.

Assessments
Every job or position has requirements that go beyond the customary job description.
When an employees job duties conflict with their natural talent and skills, they suffer from tension and stress that can lead to organizational conflict and employee behavioral problems.Assessments will help you make the right hiring decisions and put the right people in the right positions, which will result in increased productivity, reduced stress, less tension, decreased conflict and a positive impact on your bottom line.

Employee & Career Development
One of the greatest challenges faced in organizations is the strategic personal development of their human capital in order to ensure effective use of their talent.
In order to properly manage this vital resource, companies must identify their challenges and then implement training and employee development curriculum for improvement.Employee & Career Development strategies help manage employees who need improvement, the area in which they need further development and the progress they have made toward improving the necessary skills, retain and empower your employees by allowing them to develop and manage their career paths and align them with organizational strategy, and identify highly talented and productive employees who can become successors to key executives.

Learning Management
Organizations use learning management to have a competitive edge and a measurable impact on employee performance.
The value of learning management solutions enables organizations to demonstrate the return on investment they make in training, and in turn they are able to continue improvement processes that drive higher levels of return through enhanced performance over time.Learning management strategies can help organizations manage the administrative aspects of learning such as registration, class enrollment, attendance and performance tracking, making it easier for managers and employees to create, implement and track personalized programs.
About the Author

Jim Sirbasku is co-founder and CEO of Profiles International, a leading provider of human resource management solutions and employment assessments for businesses worldwide.

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What Office Furniture Can Do For Your Business

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Furniture is often at the bottom of the list for a growing business.The types of desk and chairs that are bought are often the cheapest or most functional of items.Rarely do business managers take the time to research and find furniture.

This is unsurprising when one looks at the range of different furniture that is available on the internet.There is such a vast range of furniture available on the market that often bemused office managers will make a quick choice before considering the implications of buying the first thing that they see.

Furniture can do so much more for a company than simply provide somewhere to sit and work.Good furniture can increase the morale of your team, improve the comfort and productivity of your workers and furthermore improve the image of your company.With this in mind it is surprising that furniture is so frequently treated like an afterthought.

After all it supports the spine of your business.So whether you are looking for office chairs, desks, meeting room furniture, reception desks or partition screens be sure to make a decision based on the following guidelines.

Image

Whatever the company or business a good image is the single most important aspect that will enable continued success.

A good image is developed over time and results from a number of different factors.

One of the factors that may not immediately spring to mind is the furniture that the company uses.A company that values quality furniture will develop an image of a company that values quality in general.A great example of this is a solicitors office.It would reflect badly if you were presented with a cheap ikea chair to sit on or they rummaged through a flimsy filing cabinet.One would feel much more confident with a solicitor that could afford tasteful, solid, antique wooden furniture.

Furniture can also be a key component for companies in the IT industry.These fast paced business places need to provide support and comfort for their employees and at the same time they need present a fresh and vibrant image for their clients.Again, these issues can be addressed with the right choice of furniture.

Comfortable chairs for the workforce is a must and this type of business will often benefit from a less formal and more colourful style of furniture.For example the leading company in the IT industry, Google, invest a great deal of time and money onto their furniture as it helps provide a relaxed atmosphere that is conducive to hard work in what can be a stressful and fast paced type of business.The right furniture must be priority for any business to ensure that it gives out the right image for both its own employees and also its clients.

Function

Once you have chosen furniture that delivers the right image for your company you need to ensure that it is functional and succeeds in fulfilling its expectations.

There is no use purchasing furniture that looks great but is not comfortable or suitable to the work that needs to be completed.

Chairs are the most important type of furniture that needs to be comfortable.This is especially important for companies that work at a computer all day.If your staff sit down for the whole day it is imperative that they are comfortable.In this case function must come above image.Uncomfortable seats will reduce morale and productivity.So be sure to invest time and money into your office furniture.After all furniture is what supports the spine of your business.

About the Author

Shaun Parker is a leading business expert with many years of experience in the office image arena.

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