Think of Britain’s housing market as a delicate ecosystem which is directly impacted by the weather in other parts of the world. Another cold wind from Ukraine created because Russian President Vladimir Putin is causing chaos could worsen inflation and have a knock-on effect on interest rates, for instance.
The proportion of first-time buyers opting for a mortgage term longer than 35 years more than doubled last year,Expert housing market analyst Neal Hudson and I caught up earlier this week. “People are having to spend more on housing for longer,” he explained. Those who can access homeownership by taking out longer mortgages will find that it costs them more money in interest repayments.
Those who have bought are also unlikely to make the kind of money that some very lucky homeowners did in the 1990s or 2000s because house prices can’t really go much higher unless people’s wages increase with them. While These are not only a very safe bet, but also a more lucrative one because interest rates are going up.