The Bank of England has revealed that a total of 128,000 mortgages were approved in October, the highest number in almost three years, as debt-happy consumers borrowed no less than £9.8 billion for house purchases.

With interest rates now at five per cent – up from the historic low of 3.5 per cent back in 2003 – and worries abounding that there could yet be another quarter-point rise in the near future, many experts had hoped the housing market would witness something of a slowdown.

If this news worried industry experts, a recent missive from Barclays Bank must have seriously perturbed them. The bank revealed that not only had total British debt risen to £1.26 trillion – the equivalent to the entire output of the country in a year – but that the total amount of bad debts at its credit division had risen, bankruptcies were at record levels and house repossessions were on the rise (a rather ironic trait given the trajectory of house prices).

All of this gloomy news though is probably music to the ears of the likes of Debt Free Direct, Debtmatters, Invocas, Accuma and Elephant Loans & Mortgages – a clutch of specialist AIM companies focus on helping consumers who are overwhelmed by the
money they owe!