With an election only a few weeks away, very little has actually been sent by any of the major political parties on the  British housing and mortgage markets.This uncanny silence would probably last only till the actual campaigning begins.

The housing market is important not only because it concerns millions of homeowners but also because it is a key sector of the UK economy. Though there has been a welcome recovery in the market, there are fears that the recovery is going to be fragile and temporary. This would be a catastrophe for millions of homeowners not to mention the economy itself. Consider the following:

-only 32,000 loans were approved in January 2010, a drop of 49 percent over December 2009. The Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) reports that mortgages concluded with first-time homebuyers fell 54 percent to 11,300. Both the Halifax and Nationwide have reported drops and housing prices of one percent and 1.5 percent respectively.

-the collapse of the wholesale funding markets for mortgages have left a hole of £300 billion. But the gap has only been temporary filled by government funds which, as it stands, has to be repaid between 2011 and 2014 which no viable alternative in sight. Retail deposits are unlikely to contribute much to because of the historically low savings interest rates. The CML  has warned in a paper presented to the Financial Services Authority that "UK government policy measures," said the paper, "have focused on bank capital and liquidity, and on tightening mortgage market regulation. There has been no focus on identifying or developing a sustainable funding model for the UK mortgage market."

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