FTAdviser.com - 'Small' proportion of borrowers with negative equity

FTAdviser.com - 'Small' proportion of borrowers with negative equity

Reports from both the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) and Standard & Poor's (S&P) shows that the proportion of borrowers with negative equity "is small".

However, both reports identified borrowers with equity of less than 10 per cent whose remortgaging options are likely to be limited and who could tip into negative equity if house prices fell.

S&P suggests around 14.5 per cent of mortgages were in this position at the end of the first quarter of the year. CML's research, based on post-2005 mortgages only and therefore not strictly comparable, suggested that about a quarter of these borrowers were in a position of either negative or less than 10 per cent equity.

Both reports identified substantial regional ............