Negative equity 'increasingly affecting UK households'

Date:Monday 20th April 2009
Author: Susanna Kavka

An increasing number of UK households are being affected by negative equity, new figures reveal.

The Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) has released research which shows that there are currently around 900,000 homes in this situation.

According to the organisation's senior statistician James Tatch, two-thirds of households in negative equity have modest shortfalls of ten per cent or less.

This represented an average of around £6,000 for first-time home buyers and £8,000 for other property owners.

Commenting on the statistics, head of research at the CML Bob Pannell said: "Although negative equity has resurfaced as house prices have fallen, one big difference from the early 1990s downturn is that it is less concentrated among young FTBs and more evenly spread across wider age groups and those at different points on the housing ladder."

Recently, the Times suggested that over one million homes in the UK will miss at least one mortgage repayment this year.