Clarky Cat

A downturn will hurt most those who have overstretched themselves without any contingency planning. For example, someone who paid £600,000 for a 2 bedroom flat in London, without considering where they'd find £120k if things dropped by 20% and they needed to move. At least they could probably just continue to pay the mortgage. The person with multiple highly leveraged BTLs however..

How do people think stocks would behave in the no deal scenario? I've got quite a proportion in funds that are investing outside of the UK. I'd presume a devaluation of the pound would actually make these a good way to preserve wealth.

Exactly. Tiny little carrot, huge stick. Gives the impression that landlords are being helped, so no sympathy from the public whatsoever with the removal of mortgage interest relief.

The bit about "curtailing other tax perks" could mean completely abolishing tax relief on mortgage interest, which surely would be a good thing?

Amusing article. I searched locally for houses over 1 million - currently 15 on the market. There's been 25 houses over £1 million sold here since 2007 according the the BBC stats , so just over 2 per year. I think those people trying to sell their houses will be waiting rather a long time..

That's a fantastic rant, but also a good summary!

While perhaps this example sounds a little extreme, anecdotally there does seem to be a distinct lack of decent lower priced houses locally (SW Wales). The 2 and 3 bed places that previously would be listed around the £200k mark are coming on around £250k and do seem to be selling. The more expensive places stick at the same price for years and don't sell.

Possibly because it's not affecting enough "ordinary people" yet. If we start getting "hard working families" trapped in their 2 bed flats that they bought for £600k and are now worth £480k, then it'll be headline news.

Those pictures are so depressing. Young adults (I presume) having to share bedrooms. Still, the houses themselves look like nice period properties, and would make nice family homes.

I'd prefer an "eco" house to the standard mass produced tiny boxes you see by the motorway everywhere. Meanwhile, in Swansea they're building decent looking council houses to Passivhaus standards, adequate parking etc Here

I'd be a bit concerned if my AST had some explicit **rsehole ripping clauses in it. Most of my clothing is not suitable for tumble drying. Would the landlord be happy to compensate me for when it's ruined due to his regulations (I dry inside, with a dehumidifer)

Hardly a surprise, and confirming suspicions on here about small scale BTL paying tax https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/aug/13/half-of-landlords-in-one-london-borough-fail-to-declare-rental-income Edit - just noticed this was already posted - feel free to merge

The "property as my pension" idea should never have been allowed to become established. All that money going into non-productive assets, and increasing the cost of shelter. Imagine what could have been if it was invested into business development, research, technology..

Transactions dropping Annual rate dropping

Really? I know in Wales you now have to pass the "Fit and Proper" person test, and this is just complete disinformation