PowerSwitch

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-30034432

Continued low interest rates and mortgage market competition has led to another fall in the number of homes repossessed in the UK, figures show.

There were 5,000 homes repossessed in the third quarter of the year, the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) said.

Crumbs of comfort for those families currently struggling to keep their head's above the waterline.

Young people are landing themselves with 30 year mortgages that will only be affordable on their near-breadline incomes if interest rates remain at record low levels. They are doing this because the housing market is terminally broken.

The middle classes are becoming increasingly squeezed, and they are recognising that pensions and financial savings are snake oil sold by the bankers, who are proving time and again to be deeply criminally corrupt and incompetent. As a result they are putting their savings in hard assets, and the hard asset they have most experience of is domestic property. That, and the buy to let market, which is the same but on the never-never.

So, the velocity of money is collapsing. It is being tied up in economically unproductive assets, which at the same time are nearly finite in supply and ever increasing demand.

We are seeing the groundwork being laid for a return to a feudal social model in this country, where a landed gentry gain ever more control over the peasant class and exact taxes (rent) from them with the stick of eviction with very little warning.

So interest rates cannot rise without devastating the housing market, and the housing market is getting ever more insane for as long as interest rates remain near zero, offering no other safe investment for the funny money from QE filtering down into the pockets of the already wealthy.

Says me, who has most of his assets doing exactly that.

PS_RalphW wrote:bankers, who are proving time and again to be deeply criminally corrupt and incompetent.

Seems the problem is that the bankers are deeply corrupt without actually acting criminally. Now, who are the people who determine just what counts as criminal?

PS_RalphW wrote:We are seeing the groundwork being laid for a return to a feudal social model in this country, where a landed gentry gain ever more control over the peasant class and exact taxes (rent) from them with the stick of eviction with very little warning.

Are you reading the current series by the Archdruid? Historically, it's not the current elite who end up as lords of the manor. They end up adorning lamp posts. It's the winning warband leader's descendents and allies who end up with that privilege

Says me, who has most of his assets doing exactly that.

How are the lamp posts in your village, Ralph?


Peter.

Now you mention it, we currently have double the usual quota, as the old sodium lamps are being replaced by new LED ones.

The new posts are up, but the old ones have not been taken down. The village has been a slalom of roadworks for two months, but not a worker in sight. There are two posts outside my front door. About once a week, 3 engineers turn up in a van, stare earnestly at the posts for 10 minutes, then drive off.

All being done under a PFI contract of course. We will be paying for them for 30 years.

Shortfall wrote:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-30034432

Continued low interest rates and mortgage market competition has led to another fall in the number of homes repossessed in the UK, figures show.

There were 5,000 homes repossessed in the third quarter of the year, the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) said.

Crumbs of comfort for those families currently struggling to keep their head's above the waterline.

While it offers crumbs of comfort for people wishing to avoid repossession, it offers utter hopelessness for a growing army of people following behind who are needing to buy a home, but are unable to do so because of an artificially maintained mismatch between prices and purchasing capacity.

House prices need to fall dramatically. They won't, of course, because it's not in the interest of those with the power.

stevecook172001 wrote:

Shortfall wrote:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-30034432

Continued low interest rates and mortgage market competition has led to another fall in the number of homes repossessed in the UK, figures show.

There were 5,000 homes repossessed in the third quarter of the year, the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) said.

Crumbs of comfort for those families currently struggling to keep their head's above the waterline.

While it offers crumbs of comfort for people wishing to avoid repossession, it offers utter hopelessness for a growing army of people following behind who are needing to buy a home, but are unable to do so because of an artificially maintained mismatch between prices and purchasing capacity.

House prices need to fall dramatically. They won't, of course, because it's not in the interest of those with the power.

+1.