More than one million families are in danger of losing their home over the next 18 months, Britain's financial regulator warned yesterday.It fears that huge mortgages and other debts will prove a lethal cocktail during the global credit crunch

The scourge of all householders - mortgages that lock borrowers into high interest rates after a special deal has come to an end - is making an unwelcome comeback.

The cost of borrowing money is continuing to rise this month, despite a cut in the Bank of England base rate at the start of December and a sharp reduction in Libor, the rate at which banks lend to each other, over the past few weeks.

Last year saw the strongest gross mortgage lending to date, but the market is weakening, the Council for Mortgage Lenders (CML) has said.

Scotland's communities minister is to announce a £24m funding package to help hundreds of first-time buyers get a foot on the property ladder.

The number of households defaulting on their mortgage payments is expected to rise over the next three months, the Bank of England has warned.

The number of new mortgages being approved for home buying fell again in November, says the Bank of England.Its latest figures show that just 83,000 new mortgages were approved for home buyers last month.

Mortgage lending dropped by 8% in November, providing more evidence of a weakening housing market, lenders said.Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) data showed gross lending fell to £30.7bn in November, down from £33.5bn in October and £33.2bn in November 2006.

The number of first-time home buyers in the UK has dropped to its lowest point since 1980 as house prices soar, mortgage lender Halifax says.An estimated 300,000 first-time buyers entered the market in 2007, 15,000 fewer than a year earlier.The average house was out of the reach of a typical first-time buyer in 96% of UK towns, Halifax found.

Before we dive into types of remortgage loans, it's important to understand the basics of what a remortgage is. A remortgage is a type of transaction where the homeowner chooses to switch mortgage lenders, but they will stay in the same property as in the first mortgage. People opt to remortgage when they want to save on repayments or if they want an influx of surplus funds.

The impact of the U.S. mortgage market crisis on the underlying economy could be "dramatic" as leveraged investors may need to scale back lending by up to $2 trillion, according to investment bank Goldman Sachs (GS.N).

As Packagers account for a large part of most non-conforming lenders distribution, you would think there would be a pressing need for lenders to integrate their online systems with those of their packaging partners, whether through front office point of sales systems or back office processing.

Everyone has a neighbor, friend or family member who always seems to find the best deal on just about everything. I have a neighbor and friend who has a knack for finding unbelievably phenomenal deals on mint condition cars at unheard of prices. He's started a great car deal collection and has amazing search and find stories behind each vehicle on display. He even gives some of them away. As if he were catching a fish and throwing the small ones back in the lake.