This may not be the main thing that financial markets are looking at right now, but the Bank of England has announced it is thinking of removing another hurdle from the path or house price inflation.
Continue readingTag Archives: housing crisis
Why the ECB is in no hurry to fight inflation
The euro has lost a lot of ground versus other major currencies as the European Central Bank (ECB) is taking a very dovish stance even compared to the usually dovish Bank of England.
As expected, a German has the difficult task of being a lone hawk amid doves: Isabel Schnabel, member of the ECB’s Governing Board, recently warned that the central bank has consistently been wrong in its inflation forecasts.
Continue readingECB pays lip service to worries about inflating a housing bubble
The European Central Bank (ECB) raised its inflation target last week, at the same time going to great lengths to try to persuade people that it did not.
In the process, the central bank also stated that it will find a way to deal with an issue that is increasingly pressing: that of runaway house price inflation.
Continue readingHow to make renting attractive in the UK
Central banks have been busy saving the West from its own excesses since the great financial crisis of 2007, but in the process, they have made housing unaffordable for young people, particularly in the UK.
House prices have surged in many UK cities, with record low interest rates and money printing making homes more affordable for “investors” and less so for those who actually need them as places to live in, as opposed to assets to speculate on.
Despite record low mortgages and various subsidies, homeownership is increasingly unaffordable for a rising number of people.
The consequence is deepening inequality, which makes the UK look more like a feudal, rather than modern, society.
One of the ways to tackle the so-called “housing crisis” would be to make renting an option perhaps as good, if not better, than buying a property.
Here are four ways in which the UK government could go about making renting a truly affordable option for young people in the UK – and a few of the reasons why it will never do it.
Continue readingHouse prices are becoming red hot, and this is scary
House price growth is accelerating in the UK and the rest of Europe, but it is far from healthy growth. The consequences of lax rules on lending to house buyers could be devastating.
Continue readingMortgage guarantee could sow the seeds of trouble
The UK government awarded hard-working medical staff a meagre 1% pay rise in the most recent budget, all the while splashing out on yet another indirect subsidy for house prices: the mortgage guarantee.
Continue readingThe UK should stop subsidising house prices post-Brexit
Forget Covid-19 and Brexit. The question to which most people in the UK would want an uncertain answer is what will happen to house prices in 2021.
Covid-19 should stop the government’s house price subsidy
Before the new coronavirus pandemic, one of the main ways in which the UK’s Conservative Party boosted consumer confidence was pushing house prices up with the aid of various taxpayer-funded schemes such as Help to Buy.
But as the damage done by Covid-19 to the economy heaps pressure on the public purse, should the taxpayer still generously fund schemes that mainly serve to boost house prices and the fortunes of a few big companies and their already well-off clients?
The safety of housing as an investment is about to be tested
The price growth of an “asset” into which investors everywhere around the globe have poured billions since the financial crisis has slowed dramatically, and this should worry policymakers.
Cooling housing markets will prevent interest rate rises
Housing markets in certain developed economies are beginning to lose steam, prompting worries that house prices might see corrections, especially in countries where they had been overheating.