Here’s another pre-election potential headline grabber which would, I’d say, have longer-term unforeseen (or perhaps not-cared-about) consequences. And we really have seen it all before, a scheme to encourage first-time buyers to go in over their heads, with 99% loans which will only need a bit of a housing crash and slight hardening of attitudes, to tip us straight back to another negative equity crisis. For younger readers, that’s what happens when you’re mortgaged to the hilt, have to move and your house ends up being worth less than your mortgage. Then a government has to either leave you to sink or swim, blame the lenders and insist they help out or fork out themselves. Yes, I’m sure they’ll say there will be all sorts of safeguards; but mortgages are a millstone for much longer than governments.
“40-year mortgages now ‘commonplace’”
When I was but a youth, I was often told to enjoy myself before I had the ‘millstone of a mortgage around my neck’. It was then assumed that you’d be dragged down by it for another 25 years, a lifetime when you’re but 25 yourself.
