Tuesday, Mar 16, 2010
Mortgage arrears cases fall by 4%
Guardian: Mortgage arrears cases fall by 4%
"The number of borrowers behind with mortgage repayments fell by 4% in the last quarter of 2009, as low interest rates continued to help homeowners meet their monthly bills, figures showed today."
Interesting information showing us that the road to HPC is not one way. This is particularly relevant because it's been a long time since interest rates changed so that is not a reason for the improvement in mortgage arrears.
I'm not sure why it takes 3 months to get this information published, but it will be interesting to see the results for the post Christmas period in another 3 months time.
Posted by catmandu @ 12:51 PM (1961 views) Add Comment
52 Comments
- If you do not have an admin password leave the password field blank.
- If you would like to request a password allowing you to add comments and blog news articles without needing each one approved manually, send an e-mail to the webmaster.
- Your email address is required so we can verify that the comment is genuine. It will not be posted anywhere on the site, will be stored confidentially by us and never given out to any third party.
- Please note that any viewpoints published here as comments are user's views and not the views of HousePriceCrash.co.uk.
- Please adhere to the Guidelines
1. mr g said...
"low interest rates continued to help homeowners meet their monthly bill"
And some people think the baby boomers were lucky.
2. landofconfusion said...
"And some people think the baby boomers were lucky."
And who owns the most housing? The under 30's? Under 40's?
3. holding out said...
The baby boomers may have been great beneficiaries of the housing boom (assuming they already owned a house). But you can hardly blame them for bidding up prices. That was done by the relatively young Krusty worshipping brigade. It is still these people who desperately want to keep prices overvalued as they are the ones who've gambled it all on ever rising prices and who seem to believe a successful economy is based on the buying and selling of houses and going shopping.
4. landofconfusion said...
"But you can hardly blame them for bidding up prices. That was done by the relatively young Krusty worshipping brigade."
I see. So it was the young who removed all the HP suppressive taxes of the 50's, 60's and 70's? All so that they could pay higher prices now?
5. gone-to-colombia said...
Are we suggesting that just by being around a certain age that it is our lot to accept the blame for the mess weare all in?
Might work for Sun reader but not for this forum.
6. mr g said...
Ageism was supposedly outlawed in 2006 but is still alive and well on HPC from those who are so embittered that they believe in the BBC aka Baby Boomer Conspiracy.
7. mark wadsworth said...
What LandOfConfusion says.
The big swing away from property taxes and liberal planning laws (and indeed sensible lending) was between 1963 and 1989. You'd have to be at least fifty years old to be to blame for any of this (and the older, the guiltier, frankly).
The descent into Home-Owner-Ism really got into full swing after about 1970, when all of a sudden more than half the electorate were homeowners. No doubt that there are a lot of younger Home-Owner-Ists as well, but they didn't invent the system or ask for it, they inherited it, for better or worse (mainly worse) and don't really know anything else. They see these bubbles and inflated values as completely normal.
8. This comment has been removed as it was found to be in breach of our Blog Policies.
9. mr g said...
MW@7 "You'd have to be at least fifty years old to be to blame for any of this (and the older, the guiltier, frankly)."
I normally have respect for your comments Mark, if only because you're a fellow Yorkshireman, however the above comment is, with respect, nonsense.
I'm 62 and as I've said many times before, I've paid my way through 14% interest rates and 24% inflation by going without foreign holidays and boozing and p*ssing it against the wall, not doing the dirty on anyone and as sure as hell I'm in no way guilty of anything.
Yes, there are many people in my generation who are guilty of many things that have created today's obscene house prices but equally there are many in the 40 to 50 age group who have done the same.
I find the underlying HPC theme of blame everything on all baby boomers to be crass ageism, intolerant and lacking in any intellectual and moral content.
10. Gallerymacabre said...
I'm younger & I don't blame older people but back to the point, saying "It's a long time since interest rates changed so that is not a reason for the improvement in mortgage arrears." may be completely wrong, it may indeed be because the interest rates have been so low for so long that borrowers have got back on to terms with their mortgages...
11. shipbuilder said...
mr g - nah, most things get blamed on the evils of socialism and ZaNuLiebore or whatever. Lazy minds will inevitably blame what they see as the polar opposite to themselves - young blame the old, old blame the young, rich blame the poor, citizens blame immigrants etc. etc. ad nauseam.
12. enuii said...
I'm not a so called baby boomer and to be brutally honest I'm with Mr G on this one as over simplified nonsense such as 'homeownerism', BTL and being stuffed into a convenient box by your age is a crass simplification.
I would elaborate further but we all know, putting emotions aside that we live in a complex, manipulated world stuffed full of good/bad intentions and their intended/unintended consequences.
Getting personal is missing the point and the sort of divide and conquer nonsense that politicians thrive on.
13. mr g said...
If a hate campaign such as the one directed at the boomers was aimed at an ethnic minority or a certain religion it would be racism or whatever the "ism" is when you criticise religion.
Ageism, however, doesn't seem to matter to a politically correct younger generation and the failure of the 2006 anti ageism legislation is just another chapter in the failures of this poxy government.
14. happy mondays said...
@ mr g, & fair play to you, i would have done exactly the same, as thousands of others have, & through there naivety helped push prices through the roof..
If this was spelt out a decade or 2 ago that you are going to stuff up a whole generation of families with massive knock on effects, hopefully most would look at there actions with a different view..
The Hopi Indians would look at the effects of what they are doing upto 7 generations down the line, to help preserve there community & way of life..Unfortunately now we live in a self preserving way, with a f**k you jack, i'm alright attitude...
c'est la vie
15. This comment has been removed as it was found to be in breach of our Blog Policies.
16. mr g said...
Happy Mondays@13
We bought our first house for £4250 in 1972, the Halifax Building Society turned down our joint mortgage application because my wife and I did not earn enough even though we had saved with them for many years. Even a generous pay rise, when I married, of 1 whole pound per week raising my salary to the princely sum of £1352 per annum didn't change the Halifax's mind but it was enough to persuade Abbey National to lend us the money. You just got on with things and didn't whinge.
Similarly when we bought our present house for £34000 in1985 it was because we needed a bigger house for a growing family not as an investment and to this day I have no idea of, or interest in, it's value, it's simply our home.
I come from a working class background where a house is considered a home and certainly not an investment.
If thats naive, so be it, but i've certainly no reason to feel guilty about my actions.
17. mr g said...
Brandeed@14 "no one is accusing you personally."
That's nice to know, thanks for that!
18. mr g said...
That should have been Braindeed, sorry!
19. braindeed said...
16. mr g said...
Brandeed@14 "no one is accusing you personally."
I meant that - no small detail. Brandeed? Sounds like you've enough bran already, Grumpy
20. mark wadsworth said...
Mr G, if the over-eighties want credit for winning World War Two, then so be it - they deserve it. Nobody's taking away that collective "credit".
But it is also a simple fact that Home-Owner-Ism as the dominant economic philosophy took off when Schedule A was scrapped in 1963, you can trace that through...
1. the number of homeowners in the electorate hitting 50% in 1970,
2. an end to new development in any meaningful numbers in the 1970s,
3. the sell off of council houses in the 1980s,
4. the Housing Act 1988, which put an end to protected tenancies (that was a good Act, AFAIAC, actually, taken in isolation),
5. lifting of mortgage rationing in late 1980s (mortgage rationing doesn't seem to have done you any harm - had the LTV multiples been higher then you would have ended up paying far more than you did in 1982)
6. End of Domestic Rates in 1989 via unpopular Poll Tax to disguised Poll Tax aka Council Tax.
all of these accompanied by two big and one humungous property price bubbles, all of which were followed by recessions (and the next one will be humungous of course) and so on.
Now, seeing as all these things were quite popular at the time and voters voted for them and the governments did what the voters wanted, how on earth does any blame whatsoever attach to people aged (day) under 30? They never voted for any of this.
I personally belong to the lucky age group who bought their first proper house in the 1990s when they were relatively cheap (but still twice as much as what you paid in 1982), but that's an aside.
21. happy mondays said...
Mr g No worries, no reason to feel guilty, & no blame game,my parents did exactly the same..It was away of getting out of the council estates..
22. mr g said...
Nice one Braindeed!
Do you think I could make a bob or two if I contacted the BBC (the Beeb, not the Baby Boomer Conspirators) to see if they would be interested in me appearing on Grumpy Old Men?
23. mr g said...
MW "But it is also a simple fact that Home-Owner-Ism as the dominant economic philosophy took off when Schedule A was scrapped in 1963, you can trace that through..."
I just happened to be around at that time, so what, in your opinion, am I guilty of?
24. rumble said...
"So it was the young who removed all the HP suppressive taxes of the 50's, 60's and 70's?"
Yeah, I bet the gov gave the choice. "Dear people, as you know, we're always listening." Democratically elected dictators.
25. rumble said...
"Lazy minds will inevitably blame what they see as the polar opposite to themselves - young blame the old, old blame the young, rich blame the poor, citizens blame immigrants etc. etc. ad nauseam."
There are no lazy minds in the middle?
26. braindeed said...
24. rumble said...
"Lazy minds will inevitably blame what they see as the polar opposite to themselves - young blame the old, old blame the young, rich blame the poor, citizens blame immigrants etc. etc. ad nauseam."
Heaven forbid that anyone should be to blame - that's the rub isn't it? We laugh about VI's, but everyone is a VI to some extent....savers scream.....what about my interest? Too high interest now would have promoted a meltdown. FTB need a price drop to buy.....what about the lot who threw their hand in with renting from Rigsby and bought?
Lazy minds say.....There's no solution, to paraphrase your argument.
27. icarus said...
For what it's worth - I know an academic, half-owns a company, still works in his late 60s (a pre-boomer, but that's irrelevant). Enjoys his work but says that two of his three 'kids' (daughters aged 35-40, one separated, one unmarried) are draining money out of him.
BTW Politicians passing HPI laws in the 50s-70s were born in the 1890s - 1920s. They were all old boys in those days, no Camerons.
28. braindeed said...
Ronald Wilson Reagan B.06/02/1911
29. braindeed said...
.....Point is, fly-boy - the were pampering the boomers for their votes
30. icarus said...
Lots of pre-boomers in the house-buying electorate in the 50s and 60s.
31. braindeed said...
Yes there was, but their time was passing and there was never a bulge like the boomers......it was their time
32. tenant super said...
Humanity is strangely homogeneous. No demographic group or generation is more stupid, lazy, selfish than any other. Most people just want what's best for themselves and their families. Most of us have some notion of what is objectively right morally, but if I look into my heart I see that self-seeking aspect that exists in all of us except perhaps the odd sufi mystic or Tibetan monk.
As well as being inherently selfish to some degree all human beings have the characteristic of choosing their arguments to support their predjudices or justify their own motives. Even the scientist chooses a hypothesis as his starting point. There is no such thing as impartial and rational debate.
I have said it before - if I had been a boomer, I would have taken full advantage of the favourable circumstances dealt to me in life's card game. Most of us youngsters who think we would have been any different are kidding ourselves.
33. p. doff said...
Sorry to lower the 'intellectual' tone as usual, but I always find that these boomer bashing threads conjure up visions of Monty Python's Yorkshireman sketch.
34. Icarus said...
From the 2001 Census
Age Range Total Males Females
0 - 4 3486253 1785688 1700565
5 - 9 3738042 1914727 1823315
10 - 14 3880557 1987606 1892951
15 - 19 3663782 1870508 1793274
20 - 24 3545984 1765257 1780727
25 - 29 3867015 1895469 1971546
30 - 34 4493532 2199767 2293765
35 - 39 4625777 2277678 2348099
40 - 44 4151613 2056545 2095068
45 - 49 3735986 1851391 1884595
50 - 54 4040576 2003158 2037418
55 - 59 3339004 1651396 1687608
60 - 64 2880074 1409684 1470390
65 - 69 2596939 1241382 1355557
70 - 74 2339319 1059156 1280163
75 - 79 1967088 817738 1149350
80 - 84 1313592 482707 830885
85 - 89 752035 226520 525515
90 and over 372026 83492 288534
Totals 58789194 28579869 30209325
Let's get some perspective. There is a bulge of 1960s births (aged 30-39 in 2001) - so currently aged under 50. The other bulge - the one most of this discussion is about - was those born in the late 1940s (age 50-54 in 2001). There are about 400,000 more than might be 'expected' in that group = 0.75% of the total population.
35. icarus said...
From 2001 Census
Age Range Total Males Females
0 - 4 3486253 1785688 1700565
5 - 9 3738042 1914727 1823315
10 - 14 3880557 1987606 1892951
15 - 19 3663782 1870508 1793274
20 - 24 3545984 1765257 1780727
25 - 29 3867015 1895469 1971546
30 - 34 4493532 2199767 2293765
35 - 39 4625777 2277678 2348099
40 - 44 4151613 2056545 2095068
45 - 49 3735986 1851391 1884595
50 - 54 4040576 2003158 2037418
55 - 59 3339004 1651396 1687608
60 - 64 2880074 1409684 1470390
65 - 69 2596939 1241382 1355557
70 - 74 2339319 1059156 1280163
75 - 79 1967088 817738 1149350
80 - 84 1313592 482707 830885
85 - 89 752035 226520 525515
90 and over 372026 83492 288534
Totals 58789194 28579869 30209325
Some perspective. There is a bulge of people born in the 60s (aged 30-39 in 2001, currently aged under 50). The other bulge - the one this discussion is about - is those born in the late 40s (aged 50-54 in 2001 currently early in their early 60s). This group is about 400,000 bigger than might be 'expected'. That's 0.75% of the population.
36. Stevie Dee said...
Mortgage arrears down 4%, certainly par for the course, but like other comments, a mere mirage before the tsunami hits this year. As for the baby boomers, well, whether deliberate or not (a quirk of fate), the subsequent generations, including their own grand children will be paying for this ponzi housing scheme for many generations to come. I only hope this generation, end up eating soup. The morally bankrupt generation. You only have to look at the 16-24 and compare todays opportunities with the youth of the 60's, they too were rebellious and a revolution ensued, the same will happen soon. A relief... I am not a Sun reader.
37. enuii said...
Icarus; you just proved my previous point, 400,000 or 0.75%, hardly a boooom, perhaps most of them no longer live in the UK anymore then, and the figures are nearly 10 years old.
38. paul said...
Denying that baby boomers have contributed a significent part in our current economic malaise and credit boom that precursed it is a little like saying that pollution isn't a man made problem.
The linking evidence isn't always there, but there is actually no other culprit with the influence and sheer numbers to effect such changes.
No-one individually is guilty - just as many baby boomers were nothing to do with the credit boom (which actually has its roots in the 1970s) and subsequent bust, I can validly say that I can't be a polluter because I recycle and drive an electric car. But actually I don't escape blame at all because I have indirectly contributed at every stage - I enjoyed the benefits of polluting materials as mch as the next person.
Baby boomers claiming "it was nothing to do with us, gov" are being equally disingenuous. And if instead you prefer to blame current generations who "want it all" or "don't want to work" you are being quite frankly, an arse. Current generations are only expecting exactly what their parents got for granted.
39. rumble said...
Braindeed, "to paraphrase your argument." -- I think you did more than paraphrase - you assigned me somebody else's.
40. mark wadsworth said...
Mr G, as Paul says, very few people are individually guilty of anything.
But the over-80s want to take credit for winning WW2, and in turn blame today's sixty year olds for 'the permissive society', and the baby boomers say "I'm all right, Jack, when I was a lad I went out and got a job and bought a house my wife didn't need to go to work, today's youngsters want it all" then is really everything - all the way back to scrapping Schedule A tax, which is when the rot set in - the fault of today's under-30s who can't just go out and buy a house? This whole Home-Owner-Ism is a distinct economic philosophy just like Communism and it has been imposed on us (largely by the electorate) over the past few decades.
I would humbly submit that today's under-30s (collectively) are not to blame, so tell me who is?
41. rumble said...
"blame, so tell me who is?"
The government. I blame the government for everything. The buck stops with them. They want control, it comes with taking responsibility. You take the glory, and you take da shame. Many actions are taken mid-term when voting is irrelevant. Government know full well that the majority are clueless and that democracy is therefore da mockery. The moment government interfere (pass law) they are favouring somebody, and someone else is getting screwed. Sometimes they don't intend it. Evil or a clumsy oaf. That's da mockery for you.
42. tenant super said...
"I would humbly submit that today's under-30s (collectively) are not to blame, so tell me who is?"
The Blind Watchmaker!
43. happy mondays said...
tenant super said...
"I would humbly submit that today's under-30s (collectively) are not to blame, so tell me who is?"
The Blind Watchmaker!
No! SPARTICUS is to blame, & I'M SPARTICUS
44. mark wadsworth said...
Rumble, that's possibly true as well, but when will we get an honest government that sorts this all out?
With the benefit of hindsight, I'm starting to like John Major even more than I did then because he didn't try and prop up the house price bubble (and allowing Barings and IBBC or whatever it was called go *pop*), giving a great buy opportunity to all and sundry during most of the 1990s. Compare what happened here with what happened in Japan.
45. rumble said...
"will we get an honest government that sorts this all out?" -- That is the right question.
46. mr g said...
MW@37 "I would humbly submit that today's under-30s (collectively) are not to blame, so tell me who is?"
Agreed, therefore everyone over 30 must be a culprit, (I don't really believe that incidentally), which I suspect puts most of the boomer haters in a bit of an embarrassing position.
47. it_is_going_with_a_bang said...
This isn't about any particular age of person. It is about the state of mind of a whole population - or at least a large percentage of it.
Unfortunately, those very same people have been the swing vote in this country that all parties are courting. Which is why you don't often hear MP's telling us that house prices are too high and should be allowed to go down. You hear the word affordability thrown liberally around which just relates to how something is financed - totally ignoring the obvious fact that it costs too much as a purchase price - not just as an interest only mortgage at 6x salary.
The over 60's may be cashing in on their house prices- as I am sure are the over 30's, 40's and 50's - but who wouldn't? As already pointed out, they are being hounded by their offspring in many cases to make ends meet.
So who's to blame? Ultimately Government - because that's what they do. Set the rules - set the agenda and make sure that society functions properly - fairly. The mixture of lax banking legislation,tax law and immigration has made this situation. I am sure there are ways of preventing house prices from reaching unaffordable levels - but let's face it - they are not popular because a lot of people want a lot of money for doing a lot of nothing other than owning a house or should I say using a house as a cash machine - to fund a life they otherwise would not have.
48. 51ck-6-51x said...
MW, said "when will we get an honest government that sorts this all out?"
- Come on... the only honest government is one that devolves their own control (including arbitrage and regulation] by function to individuals via markets.
For the vast majority (maybe all) functions this would be via a capital market, although there /may/ be some exceptions where a natural monopoly exists or a public good is not provided well by private institutions where the market would be a democratic (or hybrid or as yet unimagined and fairer) process.
But don't hold your breath since such a government would be diminishing their own purpose and that of their opposition.
49. rumble said...
6s, exactly. Government exists not because it is necessary, but because it makes itself necessary.
50. clockslinger said...
What is that at Stevie D @ 36? A revolution ensued in the 60's did it? Would that be the release of individualism because that was all that happened other than the electrification of the blues....I certainly don't think there was much shooting recorded in the archives up our way.
As for the usual trite ageism, I wonder how all the Oasis will generation feel being blamed for the Iraq war? It happened on your watch (like our Liam and Noel even went to Tonys party innit) therefore you all must have voted for it...that at least would appear to be the depth of reasoning in the posts on here. Sadly for the theory the reality is that plenty of people in their fifties, sixties and seventies raged against privatisation, council house sales free market dogma and property price inflation and probably a lot of them from my area got a kicking or a baton from the Met for their troubles on the picket lines. For sure a good deal more politically committed than your average thirty year old poster on this site is likely to be I'll venture.
Many others probably did vote on purely selfish greed based criteria, though their self interest was likely guided by job or class considerations in addition to home owning a house (like, the average cop sees himself as cop before home owner). Many others never voted at all (a stance I am increasingly inclined toward given the non choice available). Still, why let reality get in the way of a simple and convenient prejudice that makes you feel better? (That said, I do recall the Met singing "Arthur Scargill pays my mortage"..and they'd all be in their fifties now!!!)
51. mr g said...
Arthur was always generous to a fault - to himself.
52. This comment has been removed as it was found to be in breach of our Blog Policies.