A plan for £1m fund to help first time buyers in Conwy with deposits for a mortgage has won backing.

Conwy Council passed the scheme to invest the money as a bond and help people get onto the property ladder.

The plans are still to be endorsed at a full council meeting will provide a financial guarantee to the lender but will not give money directly to buyers.

The Scheme is also being considered by other councils in Wales.

The turmoil within the financial and banking sectors has had negative effect on the economy and on the local housing market.

There has been a significant impact on first time buyers because of the reduction in the loan to value mortgages from 95% down to 75% necessitating a deposit of 25% of the value of the property.

The Council will put up a guarantee to cover the difference between what banks and building society would normally lend and what the borrower needs to buy.

A Gareth Jones who is 37 years old and a first time buyer from Llansannan and is struggling to buy his first home said it’s quite depressing sometimes.

You need a deposit to the tune of £30,000 depending on where and what you want to buy.

He has got less than £10,000 in savings and just gone back to college to train as a teacher so he is not going to be saving much for a while yet.

Ian Williams from an estate agents said some young people have had help from their families with their house deposit.

Frustrating

On paper it should be the best time ever to buy because interest rates are low house prices have come down but yet they can’t buy because they haven’t got a deposit.

It is frustrating because we see investors coming in buying what should be first time buyer’s homes and leaving local people and young people without any homes.

Plaid Cymru councillor Meirion Hughes said the council would not be paying anyone’s mortgage but would be putting a guarantee to allow banks and building societies to lend more.

Any help we can give to get the housing market moving again and help people move house will also help the economy in Conwy said Mr Hughes.

The problem at the moment is the uncertainty and this scheme will help with buyers and sellers confidence within the property market.

If the buyer defaulted on the mortgage the council would have to pay back the part of the loan it had guaranteed.

The council will be taking steps to reduce the risks to a minimum and maximum value of the property to qualify would be £140,000.

The plans will have to be approved by the full council in October.

This scheme could be up and running by the spring.

Three men were sentenced to a total of 19 years at Southwark Crown Court for boiler room fraud following an investigation by the FSA, City of London Police and Eurojust.

The Crown Prosecution Service conducted the prosecution.

The ringleader Tomas Wilmot has been sentenced to nine years imprisonment while his sons Kevin and Christopher were given five years each. These sentences were passed following the individuals convictions on four offences of conspiracy to defraud which resulted in £14 million of losses.

They controlled a syndicate of boiler rooms that defrauded an estimated 1,700 investors of £27.5 million in total. Many victims were elderly and some suffering serious illnesses.

The court found all three conspired to acquire transfer and sell millions of low value worthless and sometimes non existent shares to victims of the UK.

Judge Leonard QC sentencing said:

You ran a highly successful enterprise. You deprived many individual investors of substantial amounts of money. For some money they could not afford to give up. A staggering £14 million.

“ you have sailed close to the wind of commercial enterprises and not a surprise the FSA investigated you.

Speaking to the sons he said both of you played an important role including the mechanics of sending documents to give false comfort to investors. Thomas said he could not have don’t it alone and he did not”.

As the investigation continued the operation was revealed:

16 different boiler rooms had sold shares to 1,700 different UK victims between 2003 and 2008.

£27.5m was paid into 5 UK bank accounts

Approx £14m was transferred out of 5 UK accounts to offshore banks in Malta, Lithuania and Spain and

The boiler rooms based predominantly in Spain but the back office accounts and companies used in the operation were from Malta, Italy, Slovakia, Lithuania, Austria, Andorra, Brazil, Belize, Dubai and a number of Caribbean Islands.

Boiler Rooms

Shared fraudsters usually contact via telephone to con investors into buying non-tradable, overpriced or non-existent shares.

These fraudsters are unauthorised, normally overseas based companies with fake UK addresses and phone lines routed abroad. In the vast majority of cases, investors lose all their money.

World Of Mortgages specialise in all forms of mortgage Leicestershire.

The number of tenants looking for rental accommodation has grown by 15%  compared to this time last year say countrywide.

Countrywide’s research into the private rental sector found that despite the increases in new rental properties to the market demand outstripped the supply with an average of five tenants after one property.

The high demand has fuelled tenants to snap up properties in record average of 13.3 days even though the number of rental properties have increased.

Countrywide as over 1300 estate agency and lettings offices across the UK, there have been some significant changes within the rental market and a good influx in the availability of larger family homes across the UK.

Three bedroomed properties now account for 41% of all rental properties, compared to less than a third of properties in Q2 last year 32% suggesting the return of buy to let investors and sellers looking to let out their unsold family homes.

The North West and West Midlands as seen the biggest jump in 3 bedroom properties.

These larger properties also make up 45% of rental stock in the West Midlands compared to 21% last year. The type of property is barely changed over the twelve months in the London Region with around a third of properties.

Regional Highlights:-

South West Properties in this region were let within an average of 12.8 days in Q2 2011 with 6.6 tenants for each available  rental property in the area.

South East: there are 5.5 tenants to each available in this quarter compared to 5.3 in the last quarter. The time to let was 12.9 days one day quicker than the same period last year.

North West there was an average 3.9 applicants for each  available property this as unchanged and 31.3% of all property with three bedrooms.

North: there are 2.6 tenants competing each other for each property available on the region 12% were four bedroom.

East Midlands 53% of all rentals in this area are one and two bedroom houses with average property let within 15 days compared 14.6 days.

West Midlands: There were 7.2 tenants for each property in 2011 up from 6 in 2011 properties were snapped up in an around 11.7 days down from 12.1 in the first quarter of the year.

London 40% of all rentals in the capital are two bedroom and these properties are being let within 12 days of going on the market.

Scotland: 75% of properties are one and two bedroom properties 52.4% were successfully rented out were two bedroom flats.

Wales 56% are two bedroom in this region with only 8% of landlords being reluctant landlords and lowest percentage across all regions.

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Barclays have reported pre-tax profits of £2.6bn for the first six months of the year down 33% from last year.

They have also stated that there will be a further 1,400 job cuts in 2011 having already cut 1,400 posts this year.

The fall in profits is related to them having to pay £1bn provision for settling claims for mis-selling of PPI.

The bank reported a big drop in bad debts and is on course to reach predicted targets for UK business lending.

Charges for bad debts fell 41% on last year to £1.8bn  due to better management of the troubled Eurozone economies such as Spain and Portugal.

Most of its profits have come from investment banking division, Barclays Capital which includes parts of the former US Bank Lehman Brothers.

Adjustment profits at this division fell 9% to £2.3bn due to lower returns from investments, in bonds and commodities.

Job Losses

They said they were looking at cuts to boost profits in future.

Barclays currently employ 147,000 staff around the world.

On Monday rival bank HSBC announced it would cut 25,000 jobs by 2013 as part of its own efforts to cut costs, it had already announced 5,000 job cuts

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The gross domestic product grew by only 0.2% in the second quarter of 2011 and is continuing to bear down mortgage borrowing said CML

Gross mortgage lending in June was estimated at 12.6bn was 16% higher than in May but it was 3% lower than in June 2010.

Gross lending in the second quarter of 2011 totalled an estimated £3.5 billion 11% higher than in the first three months of the year but 3% less than the second quarter of 2010.

Lending was £63.7 in the first half of the year lower than the £64.1 billion in the first six months to 2010.

The market this month highlighted the combination of the disappointed growth consumer price pressures and falling disposable income and uncertain jobs was taking its toll on house purchase decisions.

Although there is higher demand for rentals in the recent months and as increased  landlord activity.

Households seem to have reduced levels of debt in the past year but because of restrictions on mortgage Leicestershire lending and income growth. Households have not been repaying mortgage debt more quickly.