For many months now, those individuals and organisations working in the housing and home owner loan business, have been holding their breath waiting for the long overdue report from Sir James Crosby into the state of the mortgage and home owner loan industry and his recommendations to try and start some recovery into the ailing markets.

The report was originally due to be released at the end of September this year, but has taken until this week to see the light of day.

The final report was published on Monday this week (24th November) alongside the Chancellor’s pre budget report and the main recommendation was that the Government should intervene in the mortgage loan markets and offer a guarantee of £100 billion in mortgage-backed securities, to be auctioned over the course of 2009 and 2010.

This would remove the risk of lending away from banks and building societies and instead place it with the Government, allowing lenders to be able to offer new secured loans to borrowers at reasonable rates, and restore the home owner loan market.

He also said in his report that due to the current economic situation, lenders were unwilling, or unable to offer loans and without Government intervention on a significant scale, the amount of net lending on home owner loans could fall to zero over the next two years.

Of course, none of this comes as any great surprise, as this was originally suggested in Sir James’ interim report which was published in July this year. We now need the Government to take practical action sooner rather than later, if the current situation in the secured loan market is to improve at any time in the near future and also ensure that these benefits, along with recent and future interest rate cuts, are passed on to those individuals with home owner loans by banks and building societies.