We’ve just heard that house prices have suffered their biggest fall since 2009, when the effects of the banking crash resounded and rumbled through to just about everything and it was the end of the financial world as we knew it. And here we are again and with an election looming, our politicians are, I’m sure, very much aware that every Brit feels poorer and thus still less likely to vote for the incumbent when the real or perceived value of their home goes down. So here’s a new conspiracy theory for you. There’s nothing like a tax deadline to push prices up again, and this stealth-tax-rise in stamp duty will doubtless bring many a house-buying decision forward and push up prices, well, just before an election. Remember 1989’s double-MIRAS? (kids etc.) Most, I’d wager, will not have clocked that this change is coming, and it’s likely to make a big difference in the first-time buyer market. Just the one, you would have thought, that should encouraged.
“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.
