OK, so the housing market appears to be going into decline. But does this really matter?
After all, unless you actually want to move home, then even if you have a high “loan-to-value” mortgage, it is all a matter of paper. So called “negative equity” only matters if you actually have to repay the mortgage.
But look at the other side of the coin. A fall in house prices may make us feel less well-off and this might reduce consumer spending. But it would be a real boost for first-time buyers, who - while the 100% mortgage may no longer be available - could at least see house prices fall back within reach. And a boost for first-time buyers helps the entire market.
The absence of generous mortgage deals for those at the start of the housing ladder might not last long in any event. Banks always tend to over-react and the credit crunch owes much more to sentiment amongst lenders than underlying economic problems - at least so far. Once banks find that borrowers are not defaulting in large numbers, banks will wake up to the fact that their security is good and will start lending to each other again - which is probably more important than what the Bank of England does, at the moment.
It would be nice to think that the banks might have learned a lesson from the past eight or nine months. But this is unlikely, because so many executives are measured by market share and share price, neither of which is linked to prudence. Have the days of good mortgage deals gone? Yes, for the moment. Will they come back? Probably faster than most pundits believe!
