House prices: realistic; borrowers: under-stressed; R&M readers: surprised
Professional futurist Patrick Dixon looks at the UK housing market and finds under-stressed borrowers, reasonably-priced homes and "fertile immigrants". The fundamentals are what you might expect... a housing famine combined with an explosion in demand and a collapse in confidence in investment funds. More interesting, Dixon holds that a mortgage of 7.5, even 8, times salary is not only the equivalent of a 3 times salary loan back in the early 1980s (because of our historically low interest rates), but is even less painful to a family, because of the falling prices of entertainment, bread and, er, ping-pong tables.
That's the problem with so many 'futurists' - they have a hard time keeping up with what is actually happening. Falling bread prices? Low interest rates? On the today programme only this morning, it mentioned how bread prices were rising due to high commodity prices, and we all know which way interest rates are headed...
Posted by nikshah at
July 9, 2007 10:48 AM
Comments
So what does he think of the fact that september wheat futures have rocketed in recent weeks?
