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Having followed whats been going on with Swiss & US banks, thought it might be interesting to look closer to home (for some of us) & keep an eye on whats going on.

Now this is very interesting :

Credit crunch: Emergency scheme to help cash-strapped homeowners

New Labour following socialist policies ?

wonders will never cease

Somehow people don't realise that paying rent through your mortgage is far more effective than paying rent through your taxes.

It's not a new idea per se and would only bring into the public sector what is already marketed in the private sector. The UK private sector sale and rent back sector is totally unregulated at the moment and there is a lot of controversy about the predatory practices of some property companies who buy homes at big discounts and rent back with poor security of tenure and rent protection. Bringing it into the public sector would maybe bring more protection to people who are at their most vulnerable. The other thing is private investors won't hesitate to turf families out into the street if they fail to pay the rent. It would be politically very damaging for public authorities to be seen to be evicting local families. There's also the question of whether it's appropriate to use tax payers' money to fund the bail outs. Maybe better regulation of the private sector would be more appropriate

My UK fixed rate mortgage with Northern Rock comes to the end next month. Unfortunately I haven't been able to find a UK lender who will offer me a new mortgage or fixed rate term, because I am out of the UK and get paid by a Swiss Company. So I will have to go with the variable rate offered by Northern Rock until perhaps this credit crunch settles down a bit, which could be a while yet!

The UK news recently has been excessively using the dreaded 'R' word. recession dam they got me at it.

In the early nineties it took the media years after it was over to stop using that word. Now it's back with just making things worse. Getting everyone into a panic and making things worse all round.

Jobs are going in anticipation of hard times, which ultimately leads to hard times. All a downward spiral.

As for paying rent off you mortgage instead of your taxes, any threads or info on that? I tried looking a while back but was unsuccessful in finding anything.

It certainly seems to be the case that the media take take a bad situation and turn it into a disaster. The fixed-rate period on my mortgage ended in May and I had no problem in getting a new fixed rate period at a reasonable interest rate with my original lender. They also offered to double my mortgage if I wanted.

My Estate Agent, on the other hand suggested that I drop the asking price on my house by around 10 per cent, even though they had only had it on their books for a couple of weeks, at the upper end of their own valuation range. I am not prepared to play their games. They are still asking a similar percentage for a sales fee even though property prices have risen massively in the past few years. A 10 per cent cut in their fee would still leave them with a good return.

We didn't keep out apartment in the UK.

Looks like we did the right thing and sold when we did. It doesn't mean to say that if we ever go back that it will be easy to get back on the housing ladder there.

Still if we do then going back and finding a cheap property won't be so hard in the short term.

This won't cheer you up, but we put our UK house on the market for £220,000 in July 1989 and had quite a bit of interest. In August 1989 the market stopped. It was the ending of double tax relief on a property that was the trigger, but the economic slow down and rising interest rates after a property boom were the reasons.

We rented out house for 6 years and finally sold it for £125,000 in 1995. A bird in the hand is the saying and drop 10% now might be a hell of a lot better than getting half the value in 6 years...

Which implies you have a very low Loan to Value so of course people will happily write new business with you at what are when all said and done, better terms for the lender (a wider credit spread) than last time round. Lenders are being conservative, not stupid.

Unfortunately for others who had a low deposit, an interest only mortgage, or high (sometimes >100%) loan to value refinancing is not going to be as easy.
I still have 6 mortgages left in Germany, the shortest of which was a 5 year fix, the longest a 20 year fix. A big part of the UK/US problem is the propensity of short term fixes put into buyers at times of historically low rates and historically tight credit spreads. Had UK borrowers been taking there loans on a 20 year fix, falling house prices would be far less problematic as there monthly cost would be a constant over this period enabling them to hold out through the tough times. It still amazes and disgusts me to think that people took down loans they could barely afford without calculating what effect a 1% move in the UK base rate, let alone a widening of credit spreads, would have on their repayments.
There will be blood on the streets before this is over, especially if inflation really does start to spiral out of control.

Yep, likely labour party blood, most likely of the 'Brown' variety.

Bank Implode-o-meter

For all your Schadenfreude needs.

Ever since 1999 I've been warning my fellow diners of an imminent crash in the UK housing market.

I feel truly vindicated now..