Mortgages Uncovered

It may be an old British belief that jumping onto the property ladder is THE Thing To Do, but doubtlessly to the creeping horror of the sorts one might see at a UKIP conference, it seems that more and more British citizens have started to emulate their cousins from the European mainland by embracing rental properties rather than mortgages.

Why are less people wanting to buy properties outright? The number of UK citizens living different sorts of rented accommodation rose from 10% in 2002 to 12% in 2007, and although this might not look like such an earth-shattering shift, it’s pretty impressive when you think just how many people that extra 2% represents.

As house prices have continued to rise and rise and as mortgages have become to harder get for many people, the property experts at Paragon have released figures showing that long term renting has become a much more common and acceptable practice within the UK – and not just for individuals and young professionals. Families are getting in on the act too.

The knock on effect of this has been a marked rise in the houses being purchased in order to be let out, which in turn has pushed property prices even higher. I’m not sure how the UK will be able to break out of this spiral without another huge economic disruption similar to the credit crunch. The higher house prices climb, more people are forced to rent, meaning that property owners and landlords have more money to spend acquiring new houses to rent, pushing prices up even further, and so on and on.

This really is a tricky situation and I will be interested to see what our government does to balance things out, if they CAN do anything

Brits may like to believe that a man’s home is his castle, but if you happen to be renting your castle you’re not going to be the only one holding the keys to the portcullis…