1 in 79 Brits are property millionaires

[mattfx]

Yep I screwed up in 2006 when expecting inflation to hit moved from a tracker loan to a fixed rate loan - in retrospect that wasn't the best move but I didn't think the central banks would be this blooming useless.

My father and step mother did exactly the same thing around that time when they purchased a house. Locked in their interest rate at something like 4.5% over ten years. Pretty sure they regret that....

[BlasterBates]

Yes but it is those agreements that have allowed investors in Life insurance policies to earn a higher rate of return on their investments,

[Hobosapien]

...Pretty sure they regret that....

They wouldn't if the interest rates had gone up.

Similarly now there are 10 year fixed for around 3% (last time I looked) it's the same conundrum, fix or bet against mortgage rate rises (not necessarily BOE base rate rises) over that term by staying on a variable/tracker.

I think the calcs I did some time ago showed it was better to wait for lower purchase price and therefore mortgage required even at the risk of a higher interest rate, than to go in at a high purchase price but with a low interest rate. That's at historically typical rates of around 5% or normal variance over lifetime of a mortgage.

Like all those on housepricecrash I'm tired of waiting for sense to return to the housing market, where normal folk on normal wages can afford a pile of bricks without skinting themselves and their partner. Oh for the days of old when apparently a normal couple could survive on a single wage, with a mortgage and kids. Something's gone wrong somewhere.

[eek]

Pretty sure they regret that....

No just encouraged me to ensure it was paid off - its fully offset so in reality for me it was just a matter of lost opportunities in a couple of places...

[SuperZ]

It is not a bubble when demand simply outstrips supply.

Whether that is the case for all the inflated housing costs I am not sure. I can't comment for London as I don't live there, but where I live it's not a bubble and rental prices are not a million miles away from buy prices. So BTL isn't a cash-cow but more a long term investment.

Depends how you look at it. If generation x y, z millennials or whatever the next gen is called suddenly decides they don't want to spend the next 50 years paying off the mortgage on an overpriced home, that they wouldn't have choosen if they could afford something better, suddenly things change.

We still have an obsession with property over here but will that one day end? Who knows

IMO the press, everyone encourages the bubble. I'm hearing from my soruces property is a hard sale at the moent, it's a weird year, yet apparently property prices hit their record in AUgust. I'm suspicious myself. If turnover is low it's difficult to know real prices (bit like an stock that has poor liquidity). Late last year the market was buoyant but don't seem to be the case at present.
PS I own my own home,no mortgage but I still think we pay way too much and people paying the current prices are just daft......IMO

Also lets not forget the prices have been propped up due to very low interest rates and easing....give us 8% interest rates and people will be on the streets given people cant stop themselves ****** their money away on gadgets and other nonsense. Read around and most brits apparently have less than £1000 in savings....apparently.

Keep on telling people prices are rising, make them believe they'll never lose money on property and on and on it goes....until one day ......

[Elliegirl]

The 3, 4 or 5 feckless families we support with the 6-figure taxes we pay every year as a household might disagree when we decide to pay it somewhere else.
I do hope more high earners (the so-called "elite") fuck off out of the UK, post Brexit, just so people understand how their precious benefits system, NHS, police and army etc. etc.are all paid for.

Because as we all know it's only the rich that pay for public services and only the feckless claim benefits. Do get a grip.