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http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/mort ... loans.html

Return of the interest-only mortgage: Fierce competition among lenders is making it easier to take out risky loans

Interest-only mortgages are becoming easier to take out as a result of fierce competition among lenders.

The potentially-risky loans almost disappeared altogether in 2008 after being blamed for inflating the housing market ahead of the financial crisis.

But lenders have begun introducing deals allowing borrowers to take out an interest-only loan with a deposit of 25 per cent and pay it off when they sell the property, the Times reports.

Interest-only deals, where the borrower only pays off the interest each month and not the capital, were immensely popular prior to the financial crisis because they were cheaper in the short-term.

Unbelievable!

Still, I suppose it'll make George Osborne happy - another generation in debt.

The house price can't go down ever, can it?

Haven't we learnt any lessons since 2008?

Is this a rhetorical question?

emordnilap wrote:

Haven't we learnt any lessons since 2008?

Is this a rhetorical question?

Of course but like most folk on this forum, it never ceases to amaze me that TPTB can't see that the financial system is irreparably broken, beyond repair and requires a complete overhaul.

Irresponsible lending, coupled with sheer greed and the lack of regulation, wreaked havoc on the banking world in 2008 and yet here they are again, poised to repeat the same costly mistakes.

For TPTB, it's not broken. They are getting richer and it's all good. It only appears "broken" if you are on the wrong side of the economic equation and, given that all the people that are on the wrong side of that equation do not have any power, they don't matter.

Little John wrote:For TPTB, it's not broken. They are getting richer and it's all good. It only appears "broken" if you are on the wrong side of the economic equation and, given that all the people that are on the wrong side of that equation do not have any power, they don't matter.

Agreed, but you'd think that even the '1%' would realise that this 'house of cards' can't last forever. The current system isn't sustainable whichever way you look at it.

3rdRock wrote:

Little John wrote:For TPTB, it's not broken. They are getting richer and it's all good. It only appears "broken" if you are on the wrong side of the economic equation and, given that all the people that are on the wrong side of that equation do not have any power, they don't matter.

Agreed, but you'd think that even the '1%' would realise that this 'house of cards' can't last forever. The current system isn't sustainable whichever way you look at it.

The 1% aren't the 1% because they are clever. They are the 1% because they are ruthless psychopaths, or because one of their ancestors was. We are given the vague impression they are not stupid because they are at least clever enough to employ bright people to manage their world for them. Quite a few of those bright people, I have no doubt, will be well aware of the long term unsustainability of their policies. But, in the meantime, they have mortgages to pay and so they do what they are paid to do.

I think of it as like a tide rising or a flood: we're for it, but they (further up the hill) are also for it. Just, later.

In the 1920s crash the Kleptocracy fell, or jumped in many cases, first as the financial markets crashed before the effect was felt on the high streets. To use your analogy, Candy, the Kleptocrasy live in the expensive beach front houses, think Sandbanks, and will be inundated before us plebs who have been banished further inland!

kenneal - lagger wrote:In the 1920s crash the Kleptocracy fell, or jumped in many cases, first as the financial markets crashed before the effect was felt on the high streets. To use your analogy, Candy, the Kleptocrasy live in the expensive beach front houses, think Sandbanks, and will be inundated before us plebs who have been banished further inland!

A small number of the elites suffered whilst a mass of ordinary people did. They also engineered a world war (on two occasions), precipitating the deaths of millions of ordinary people, all just so they could keep hold of their slices of the pie. Additionally, I'll wager many of the names that comprised the elites pre-1940 are the same names that you would find amongst them now.

So, a few of them jumped out of some windows cos they lost some of their millions. Well, boo f***ing hoo. Every day, millions of people have more pressing concerns, like how they are going to pay their bills to keep a roof over their families heads and how they are going to fill their bellies

Why is a thread I have just started on this forum not showing its title, thus making it impossible to enter the thread?

I am asking this question here, co I can't start a thread on it...obviously