Future of Scottish Mortgage lenders unclear

Continuously changing mortgage data is leading to unhelpful housing market predictions according to Scottish lenders.
The latest figures came from the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML), who said the total amount of mortgage lending fell back again in April.
A concerned spokesman for the Royal Bank of Scotland, who did not want to be named, said: “The way it stands currently, information on lending says it’s going up one month, and the next it’s going down.”
  CML said the amount lent by its members stood at £10.4bn, down from £11.4bn in March, and was 60% lower than in April 2008.
However, these are UK-wide figures, and are thought by many to be unreflective of the Scottish housing market.
Countrywide has posted agents reports saying that on the whole, West of Scotland housing stock is going up, as more people sell their houses.
A spokesman from Countrywide, who also did not wish to be named, said: “As more and more people are putting their houses on the market, an upward shift should naturally follow, but this has not been      adequately reported.”

Going for Gold

Demands for gold by investors have increased this year, but sales of gold jewellery by ordinary consumers have decreased.

 

Gold is seen as a secure purchase in times of recession, whilst gold jewellery is viewed as an unneccessary luxury.

Fashion trends which have favoured silver and costume jewellery in recent years may have accounted for some of this consumer trend, but careful customer purchases are thought to be the main reason.

Scottish pawnbrokers have been seen advertising for gold jewellery in a bid to take advantage of the increasing demand for solid gold as investment.

Scottish retail figures up from last year

Retail sales figures in Scotland are up significantly from last year.
According to the Scottish Retail Consortium, total sales in April were up by 8.2% from the same time last year.

Comparing shops that were counted last year and this, the rise was 4.3%.
The Consortium attributes this to the warmer weather this year, and the timing of Easter.
As a result of the contribution of these factors Fiona Moriarty, Director of the Retail Consortium, has been cautious in interpreting the long-term meaning of this sales increase – saying that it’s too soon to say a corner has been turned.
This careful statement is supported by the fact that the a large proportion of the sales increase has been attributed to summer  clothing, whilst more expensive items not    determined by season such as furniture are still experiencing poor sales.
Despite Scottish retailer concerns, consumer confidence is higher in Scotland than in Britain as a whole.

Britain’s oldest Mum

Elizabeth Adeney, 66, is to become Britain’s oldest Mum.
Millionaress Adeney has defended her decision to have a child via IVF. She calls it a “personal decision” and that she wanted “someone to leave her money to”.
Even though Adeney is fighting fit at the moment her child will ulimately face the prospect of losing their mother at a young age. No matter how much her child stands to inheret surely no one deserves to be leftt orphaned by the time they hit high school?

Schoolboy Alfie distressed at DNA results

Thirteen year old Alfie Patten is said to be “extremely distressed” after learning that the child he believed he fathered with his 15-year-old girlfriend Chantelle Stedman was, in fact, not his.
DNA results have shown that 15-year-old Tyler Barker is actually the little girls Dad. The sad fact of the matter is that this little girl is now left to be raised by children, and it seems that no one in her life is equipped for the challenge.
Kids this young shouldn’t be having kids and with so many young boys keen to claim Masie as their own it would appear that none of these young boys actually understood what they were laying claim to.
The only good thing that could come out of this whole affair is that, hopefully, sex education in schools will finally be reformed to help stop this happening over and over again.

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