Mortgage Figures from the Bank of England
The Bank of England today released figures showing the collective mortgage and loan debt of the country. I always find it interesting how the tabloid and broad sheet newspapers report these figures. Sometimes it’s something sensationalist like “Mortgage Debt goes through the One Trillion Barrier”, but it’s nearly always a glass half empty look at the market.
Time permitting, I prefer to read the figures from the bank myself and pass my own judgment. If you get time, take a look at their calendar schedule to see the dates scheduled for their specific announcements.
Looking at today’s figures the thing that jumps out at me is that, although the debt owed by homeowners is indeed over 1 trillion, the unsecured equity is 3.6 trillion - that’s over three and a half times as much. We hear talk of UK PLC and if we used the same analogy, just to talk about the housing sector, we could say that it has a completely manageable ‘gearing’.
It’s oft repeated nowadays too that last year just over 15% of people’s income goes on interest repayments, whereas in 1990 that figure was over 25%.
There’s doom and gloom in every market and no matter how regulated the market is or becomes, there will always be people who take on too much debt
