I did predict a while ago that Waitrose Homes rather than Waitrose Home Deliveries could be the future. John Lewis were probably the most benign big business to decide to go into the housing rental market, a move which could swing things away from the unpredictability of the mass of private landlords who dominate the sector. And it’s a sector which needs to grow, as actually owning a home becomes more and more of a pipe dream for Gen-whatever-the-next-one-is. But maybe I was wrong, as a big loss in the first year or so is not a good start, even with the cost of the build presumably written off somewhere in the balance sheet. This way of doing things is well-established and works in many other countries, however. And I’m not sure we have a lot of choice but to make it work here.
“Should you fix your mortgage forever?”
In the US (and, randomly, Denmark) it’s the norm to fix-rate your mortgage for the life of your mortgage. For us and most others, it’s now usual to fix your mortgage rate, but only for a couple or five years at most.
