Introduction
The UK mortgage market is one of the most innovative and competitive in the world. Most borrowing is funded by either mutual organisations (building societies and credit unions) or proprietary lenders (typically banks). For a number of years the market operated with minimal state intervention, although this changed at least temporarily following the 2008 nationalisation of Northern Rock (one of the country's largest mortgage banks).
Since 1982, when the market was substantially deregulated, there has been substantial innovation and diversification of strategies employed by lenders to attract borrowers. This has led to a wide range of mortgage types:
Read more about this topic: UK Mortgage Terminology
Famous quotes containing the word introduction:
“Such is oftenest the young man’s introduction to the forest, and the most original part of himself. He goes thither at first as a hunter and fisher, until at last, if he has the seeds of a better life in him, he distinguishes his proper objects, as a poet or naturalist it may be, and leaves the gun and fish-pole behind. The mass of men are still and always young in this respect.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“We used chamber-pots a good deal.... My mother ... loved to repeat: “When did the queen reign over China?” This whimsical and harmless scatological pun was my first introduction to the wonderful world of verbal transformations, and also a first perception that a joke need not be funny to give pleasure.”
—Angela Carter (1940–1992)
“Do you suppose I could buy back my introduction to you?”
—S.J. Perelman, U.S. screenwriter, Arthur Sheekman, Will Johnstone, and Norman Z. McLeod. Groucho Marx, Monkey Business, a wisecrack made to his fellow stowaway Chico Marx (1931)