12.11.08 by Andrew Montlake

Buy Property & Cut Up Your Credit Cards

With mortgage rates easing back into the realms of affordability, attention is moving back onto the wider economic issues, namely how to stop house prices falling further, rising unemployment and credit card rip-offs.

With the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors reporting that “UK home sales had fallen to at least a 30-year low over the past three months”, many Estate Agents are calling for stamp duty to be abolished for a specific period.

To be honest I am not sure on this one, as I am never convinced that artificially created special “windows” completely work. It would be better to look at a wholesale permanent re-vamp of the stamp duty system, raising the limit again and exempting all first-time buyers.

This alone would not solve the issue but would be a major step in the right direction.

As I have said before, we are naturally coming to the bottom of the market which I believe will be somewhere in the next 6 months, so anyone who buys within that timescale I believe will be looking back happily in 5 years time.

As far as credit cards are concerned, some of the cheeky blighters who provide such cards have come under attack for hiking their rates at a time when the Bank Base has been slashed.

Downing Street has been forced to get involved after it came to their attention that some have raised rates by up to 10% almost overnight. These companies deserve to be outed and shamed so check with your providers and complain publically.

In other news, the Government are actively looking at a programme of tax cuts to help their “spend your way out of recession” policy, which we are all looking forward to seeing details of.

We shall see.

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