Yes. The Bank of England is hesitant to raise interest rates so it will be interesting to see what happens.

We are looking at properties that are on the market for the same price as what they were about a year ago. Talk about sellers in denial.

Sorry to have not responded earlier.

Swanage is a very popular upmarket area of Dorset. There is also Corfe in the area.

Cheers is not really correct regarding Burford relative to RAF Brize Norton. Firstly, the airfield is five miles away and secondly one has to look at the alignment of the runways which are west/east and Burford is to the north so one is unlikely to get anything other than the occasional flyover.

RAF Lyneham, which was fairly close to your property near Avebury (five miles away) is due to close fairly soon and the transport aircraft (propeller) will move to Brize Norton to be added to the existing tanker fleet and jet transport C-17s. I would not expect a great deal of activity to disturb Burford.

Anyway, Burford is a very attractive little town in itself and should be carefully checked out, even though it is an extremely popular centre for visitors to the south Cotswolds.

I would think that by now all the powers that be would have finally recognised that housing is indeed a vital driver of the economy in terms of equity creating spending power. The other issue relating to housing revolves around the fact that one can create an immobile workforce if it is stranded in its negative or near negative equity housing unable to go where the jobs are. The BOE will therefore tread very lightly to ensure that there is a balance between issues of potential (cost push) runaway inflation and the need to avoid a housing decline/crash due to interest rate rises. Overall, property prices impact consumer confidence and it is confidence in the UK which is severely lacking at this point and impeding purchases. Of course the looming public sector job cuts isn't helping confidence any either.

Today they are talking 1/4% point increase at the end of this year maybe.

I think the problem is that the sneaky sons-of-guns did realise that ... Blair and Bush benefitted from a happy "nouveau riche" population of voters who all of a sudden could afford that Dodge monster pick-up or a vacation to Thailand. I think they were all too aware of the role of house prices in driving the economy - and keeping voters happy.

Controlled growth of housing equity would have helped the economy to grow based on consumerism, but they allowed it (through their economic policies) to ramp up at a sustainable rate. It amazes me that so many economists, bankers, politicians were taken by surprise by the economic crisis. Maybe the scale and ferocity was a surprise, but I can't see how anyone in their right mind would think that house prices coudl continue to double every 6-10 years without rampant salary inflation.

Changing the subject.

Some of us were quite captivated by the quality of property that comes to market in Helensburgh, which is a bit further out than you are.

This one for starters, though outside our league:

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-...-32679329.html

Any thoughts on it? I also found some beautiful property in Largs and near Dalry of similar style. All roughly the same distance from Glasgow (Largs somewhat further by rail).

I had a friend lived in Helensburgh a while back when I lived here in 2000 (unfortunately she died very young of ovarian cancer).

Anyway, she loved it there. Probably too far to drive to Glasgow regularly, but good rail service. They used to watch the nuclear subs coming in, out of the living room window!

See post #468. This was bought by an expat from NZ

Quote
Mission accomplished. I had a offer accepted on the house in the link today.

http://www.s1homes.com/property-for-....shtml?print=1

I had a look around some furniture shops today, and am contemplating not shipping most of our stuff, just buying new when we get here in a month.

I'm going to have a few beers tonight to celebrate

Hi cheers,

Yes I think we know! I reposted the property as an example of nice Helensburgh property to save folks digging back thru yesterday.

BTW you can get a fixed mortgage but only for up to say seven years. After that you would have to go to another fixed or a tracker mortgage or stay on the lender's standard variable rate. I saw A bank that had a longer term mortgage a year or so back but they are very rare and you wouldn't want it right now anyway as the rates are far too high.

The problem is that in anticipation of rate increases, fixed rate mortgages have gone up in rate. A couple of years back you could get tracker mortgages at BOE rate plus 1% or less that these are no longer around or anything close.

What is more, you will have to pay a fee of up to 1% of the mortgage amount to get the fixed and then another fee when you renew in say seven years.

Mortgage lenders are not very nice people and only normally offer decent or special deals to new borrowers. Therefore, when it comes to renewal of terms once the first mortgage term has expired, borrowers often switch lenders or more likely now simply take the standard variable rate (SVR) and have done with it.

When I last adjusted my mortgage I did it all online and there were no fees, but that was five years back. I got a seven year fixed @ 5.1% and that was very cheap at the time in January 2006.

Today, with the BOE at just about zero and the bank's base rate is .5%, that same lender is offering a buy-to-let mortgage fixed for just two years for 4.49% with a fee of 995 pounds for a 40% deposit. For residential mortgages, a two year fixed is 3.39% with a fee of 1,395 pounds for a 40% deposit. The lifetime tracker mortgage is 4.19% (3.5% above base*) with a fee of 1,395 pounds and a 25% deposit.
The bank's SVR is 3.99% at present. Nothing longer than two years is offered.

*This is such a dreadful spread that nobody in their right mind would take it but then none of these rates are attractive as you would have to review everything in just two years.

HSBC are offering a five year fixed for first time buyers with a 40% deposit for 4.59% with a 199 pound fee. With just a 10% deposit the rate is 6.69% no fee.

- I think that is the assumption these days in the UK - people will simply remortgage every few years to get the best rates. I'm guessing that when/if the economy improves and BOE rate goes up, banks will relax their margins a little - because BOE + 4% is bad enough when BOE is 0.5% but when it's 7%, it means the mortagge is simply unaffordable.

I am luckily on BOE + 0.59% lifetime tracker, offset, with 5% deposit (got it in early 2007) - it's also portable (I think, have to check the terms and conditions). If I do manage to get back to the US, or move elsewhere within the UK, you can be damn sure I'll cling like hell to this mortgage. At one time I thought that renting out this place would be a PIA, but am increasingly thinking that it might be a good way to keep a decent mortgage deal (if they would let me rent out without switching to one of these "permission to let" BS deals).

Your link doesn't seem to work ...

It's inter4esting they are allowed to describe that mortgage as a "two year fixed". Here in the US it would be have to be described as a "two year adjustable". For a mortgage such as this, how often can it be adjusted after the initial two years and are there any caps on the size of adjustments that can be made?

Yes I tried also just now and same thing. It may have been removed because it is sold. Sorry mate.

You could try going to the original forum and try from there.

I posted the rightmove link to the same property in Helensburgh earlier right? dunroving has already seen it.

Oh, OK, it's the same place. I think what happened is the Web address is "abbreviated" ( .... in the middle) in Cheers' post, so it's not the correct (complete) Web link address.