Mortgage Free Owners increasing

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

Hometrack said the lending drought since 2007 and the increasing number of baby boomers paying off home loans meant the number of people owning their properties outright could exceed those paying down mortgages within two years.

It said: "Taking the recent growth rates for mortgagees and non-mortgagees over the last 10 years and using this as a basis of forward projections, we calculate that by 2014 there will be more people owning their home without a mortgage than with.

"This is a trend set to continue, re-enforced by lack of mortgage availability and households taking advantage of low interest rates to repay debt."

http://www.independent.co.uk/property/house-and-home/property/home-prices-at-standstill-since-northern-rock-run-8143352.html

Good news for those able to get a decent mortgage deal pre-2007, taking advantage of the low rates.

Not such good news for Generation Rent though, prevented from buying a house by the mortgage drought.

abaxas

What's that smell..

Ahh Hamishit.

Eellogofusciouhipoppokunu

Hopefully the credit crunch has been a wakeup call for a lot of people who saw their house as a piggy bank to fund a lifestyle their salaries couldn't afford. If people are rebuilding their equity and starting to be more sensible with their finances, then this is no bad thing.

Loughton_Monkey

Not a particularly enlightening article. Tells us broadly what we already know.

After pointing out the 55% "boom" from 200 to 2007, they offer this pearl of wisdom:

Although asking prices have been virtually stagnant since the autumn of 2007, in real terms homeowners are actually more than 15 per cent worse off after five years of inflation running above the Bank of England's 2 per cent target...

This is pure hype. It would only be 'correct' if it said "those who bought in 2007 are 15% worse off..." rather than the implication that we are all worse off. As an owner having had the benefit of the 55% boom since 2000, I don't feel "worse off".

And incidentally, I'm sure even more owners would be mortgage free if it wasn't for the fact that a lot of us were clever enough to buy "Offset" mortgages. I am far from the only one who had the mortgage fully offset for years, until base rates went down so far. Now I keep it 99% used, preferring to pay my bank 1½% for the use of money I can invest at 4%.

Large gin & tonics all round....