Amidst the bad news, at last something positive.

Although mortgage interest rates are currently low, there is a real shortage of funds and a lack of desire by banks to lend to one another.

As a result banks have not wished to be overly competitive. They do not have enough money to get all the business they may want, and therefore instead have been very specific with the criteria on which they will lend.

If you have more business being offered to you than you can accept it means that anything which falls outside the criteria even slightly will be rejected.

A chunk of the additional funds being made available to Northern Rock will be to introduce some new 90% loan to value products. At this end of the market there are limited lenders. This has kept rates very high, since no lender wants to reduce their rate through fear of being swamped with business.

Even just one additional lender entering this market could be enough to give a boost.

An additional £14billion has been made available from the government to Northern Rock in order to help revive the housing market. £5b of the fund will be available for spending in 2009. The remaining £9b will be available in 2010.

This has followed a period during which Northern Rock has repaid £18b of its £27b government loan. The repayment has been achieved  by actively seeking mortgage redemptions when rates end.

The old mortgage book will be split from its new business with the worst part being put into a separate vehicle. It is expected this will be managed alongside the book of nationalised Bradford & Bingley,

The bank will now start to focus on new lending & particularly to first time buyers looking for a 90% loan.

The previous posting gave the advice to ensure you price your property realistically to get potential vendors into the property. Your property may be absolutely perfect for a number of people on the agents books but if you cannot get them through the front door they will never get to see that..

But against that advice of not pricing too high you must also ensure you do not price too low either.  We all love a bargain but often if the price is lower than we would have anticipated instead of viewing it as a bargain we are more likely to be concerned that the property has some defect or flaw which hasn’t been highlighted. Again, this may reduce the number of potential buyers you have through the door.

People love to bargain on property. We all know that the price the property is on the market for is not the price the vendor is likely to accept. So if you price your property at the absolutely lowest price you would find acceptable, you may well be deemed to be acting unreasonably if you do not accept an offer.

It’s therefore a difficult balancing act between not too high to deter vendors and not too low to not give you the room to negotiate. This is of course more difficult at the minute because there are often too few properties on the market to get reasonable comparables. It’s in this environment that a good estate agent will really earn their fee. Speak to a number of different estate agents and get their opinions. And do bear in mind that if you’ve already found your dream property yourself, it will be a greater priority to have a quick sale rather than hold out to get a slightly higher offer.

If you look around at the For Sale signs you can often spot properties which just do not appear to be shifting. True, it isn’t the best time to be selling, but despite the fact that the property market is not at its best there will be those who have to move. This may be due to anything from marriage, relocation or divorce. Remember as well, as you are moving up the property ladder, the same percentage fall in value of the house you are buying is greater amount than the percentage fall in your property.  This is why many see the fall in house prices as an opportunity to move up the ladder and buy a property that they may not have been able to afford before now.

If you are looking for an offer reasonably quickly you must price your property realistically. Gone are the days when you could put your property on the market for the highest price possible and have a queue of potential buyers waiting to view it. There are buyers out there but in a supply driven market you have a lot of competition. There’s a lot to be said to having a slightly lower offer price than you first anticipated in order to try to generate a lot of interest in your property. After all, if you can’t get prospective buyers through the door you’re never going to be able to sell, no matter how perfect it may be inside.

Price realistically and you stand a much better chance of getting an acceptable offer.

I reported earlier in the month the Halifax house price survey for January had shown 1.9% increase in house prices over December.

Since then I have read a number of positive comments regarding the housing market.

• Primelocation.com, the property search site, has reported a slight recovery in asking prices in recent weeks
• Propertyfinder.com reports that 11% more consumers contacted estate agents about buying in January this year than December, primarily at the bottom end of the market. .
• The website claims first time buyer interest has increased by 50% in the last 3 months
• A number of estate agents have said they are receiving higher numbers of buyer inquiries.

In my mortgage business I have also seen increased activity and a large number of enquires from first time buyers. First time buyers are the life blood of the property market, since without them the house chain cannot get started.

So, I know it’s only the start of positive news, and we need to look at a much longer term to see a trend. But isn’t it great that at last we have any positive news at all. Even if it is relatively short lived it is the first bit of positive news for some time. So something to feel good about.

A colleague of mine forwarded an e mail she had received advertising a 3 day course which would training you to be an expert buy to let mortgage adviser.

Most people don’t know that buy to let mortgages are not regulated by the FSA, since they are deemed to be commercial mortgages rather than residential. Therefore, it is possible to set yourself up as a buy to let mortgage adviser without having relevant qualifications.

Although not regulated by the FSA, any reputable adviser will attach exactly the same duty of care to a buy to let mortgage as they would to a residential mortgage. Therefore, my advice is to check the qualification of your mortgage adviser, and whether they are regulated by the FSA. If they are it will be stated on their business card.

For mortgage advice you can visit www.marywaringmortgageadvice.co.uk

I attended a seminar yesterday run by Choices Property Acquisitions and Investments, based in Surrey. Always good to check out what the “competition” is doing.

However, having travelled for almost an hour to the event it turned out that because there were only 3 of us they decided not to bother running it. Presumably on the basis that their time was more valuable than ours!

However, interestingly they were willing to do an individual consultation with each of us. Obviously to work out how much cash we had to invest & how easily they could prise it away from us.

Was there a seminar at all, or is this just there way to get potential clients in the door?

My advice to you is doing not have anything to do with Choices. Their business ethics are obviously questionable. If this is how they treat you when you are a potential client, imagine what their disregard when you have actually signed up!

Yes, I know, it seems odd, but the latest survey from Halifax highlights that the average price of UK homes rose by 1.9% in January compared to December’s figures.

Whilst I very keen to inject some optimism into the housing market against all the doom and gloom we need to be aware that this is just one survey and just one set of figures.

For example, last week, a survey by Nationwide suggested house prices fell by 1.3% in January, with the reason being that job worries were putting people off buying homes.

One set of figures on its own can never be enough to say the tide is turning. However, it is great that at last there is some good news available.

Yesterday the Bank of England reduced the base rate to 1%. This marks the fifth interest rate cut since October, bringing base rate to a new all time low.

If you are on a tracker mortgage you will get the benefit. And a number of lenders have reduced their Standard Variable Rate, which is the rate you move onto when your initial rate finishes.

Anyone who is on a fixed rate by definition will not benefit from the recent reductions.

However, it’s the cut in rates is possibly unlikely to have much impact on whether fixed rates are likely to fall further. The majority of lenders are now concentrating on improving their margins rather than improving their market share.

In my article on Monday I noted that Assetz had suggested distressed sales had reached a low and had potentially now bottomed out.

However, one important point to bear in mind is that even if this is correct, house price indices will continue to fall over the coming months. This is because indices are looking at historical data which may be up to 3 months old.

Therefore, for anyone looking at house price indices and deciding to buy once the indices are rising, the chances are you will have already missed the boat, particularly if you are looking at a distressed purchase.

By the time general house price indices have increased you are definitely much too late for a distressed property. since these prices will have been at a low many months earlier.

Property indices are a useful tool in gauging the trend in the market, but they are a not a be all and end all. Make sure you look at all available data- prices being achieved at auctions, how many lots do not reach reserve, how much stock developers have available etc.

The more research you do and the better your information, the more informed you can be in making a decision.