Saturday 26 July 2008

21% of mortgagees worried about defaulting

The Times published an Ipsos MORI Survey, today, which I can't find on their website, so here's the cutting: The original data at Ipsos MORI suggests that 14% think it is 'certain, very likely or fairly likely' that they will not be able to keep up with mortgage payments, but once you knock out the 36% of people who answered N/A (no mortgage or renting), that makes 22% of those with mortgages, which is a heck of a lot of households (about 2.6 million).

Which is roughly the amount of households who would be in negative equity, if prices fall another 30% before bottoming out...

Those other statistics don't look too rosy either.

(This post updated slightly, Buctootin at HPC pointed out how to reconcile the 14% with the 21%, oops).

5 comments:

M said...

I've been generally positive about the state of the housing market, but the downturn is finally becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Mark Wadsworth said...

And the price bubble wasn't?

Anonymous said...

I'm so glad I refused to play the property game. All around me my friends and workmates were buying houses the size of sheds for silly money. Now they live on beans on toast every day. Boo bloody hoo. I pay 52 quid a week rent on a council house which is massive, big garden with private driveway. Fair enough, I dont own my house, but I can afford to live. Suckers.

AntiCitizenOne said...

Anonymous, your friends don't own their house either. they are renting it off the bank for more money.

If an interest only mortgage is roughly 10% more expensive than above renting then rent.

Mark Wadsworth said...

AC1, more to the point, Anon isn't hurtling towards negative equity. That's the bit to be rightfully smug about.