this post was submitted on 02 Jul 2023
10 points (100.0% liked)

United Kingdom

4082 readers
299 users here now

General community for news/discussion in the UK.

Less serious posts should go in [email protected] or [email protected]
More serious politics should go in [email protected].

Try not to spam the same link to multiple feddit.uk communities.
Pick the most appropriate, and put it there.

Posts should be related to UK-centric news, and should be either a link to a reputable source, or a text post on this community.

Opinion pieces are also allowed, provided they are not misleading/misrepresented/drivel, and have proper sources.

If you think "reputable news source" needs some definition, by all means start a meta thread.

Posts should be manually submitted, not by bot. Link titles should not be editorialised.

Disappointing comments will generally be left to fester in ratio, outright horrible comments will be removed.
Message the mods if you feel something really should be removed, or if a user seems to have a pattern of awful comments.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Just saw this linked on Reddit. The government have got all the big lenders to agree to a range of measures to support mortgage holders, including the option to switch to interest-only for 6 months to wait out the period until dates reduce, and various other borrower-friendly options. Have a look if you've been worrying about payments under the current rates

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Relevant FT article

UK’s mortgage relief measures risk a financial shortfall in later life

https://archive.is/SeSgL

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This is going to be a timebomb, I'm sure of it. Rates are not going back to sub-2% for a long time, and more people are going to be looking at interest-only.

The banks are perfectly happy with this, provided people have at least some equity in the property, as it means more money long-term for them. But it is going to mean a lot of people passing retirement age with large interest-only payments still coming out.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Rates are not going back to sub-2% for a long time

I disagree quite strongly.

Economies limping along at ~1% GDP growth per year and little or no GDP per capita growth can't handle larger base rates for long. It's a self-correcting cycle - if base rates remain elevated for too long discretionary spending will collapse and many, many businesses/loans/credit with it.

Rishi promised to half inflation not because he's a financial genius with a secret trick, but because he knows two things: 1) what I said above, 2) inflation is often given as a YoY measure, so by December 2023 we're measuring inflation above the 10% inflation of December last year, and the country can't afford 10% inflation per year for long either.