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With more than one million homeowners in negative equity and another million close to it, together with the prospect of rising unemployment, lenders will inevitably continue to repair their balance sheets and reduce their exposure to risk.

There is bound to be a trend towards stiffer requirements for a mortgage. Banks and building societies will require higher levels of credit worthiness, larger buyer deposits and a preferment of those locations where where house values will be stable, or growing in the medium and long term. This may mean there will be some locations where mortgages will be easier to get than others and some where loans will be difficult and more expensive to obtain.

There may be even more differentiation between categories of income. This may mean that the best mortgage deals will only be available to those with unblemished credit records and large deposits in areas where the demand for property will continue to exceed supply and therefore keep prices up.
Conversely those with a poor credit history and limited capital, wanting to buy in districts where the supply of dwellings can be readily increased, for example where new apartment blocks or estates can be built, will only be offered costlier loans, if one at all.

From the banks' point of view they want loan repayments to be assured and the recovery of all of their capital, if not. This has consequent implications for those wishing to move house from now on.