|
Financial journalists' blogs should, I feel, be there to impart words of wisdom on weighty matters to readers far and wide. Mine doesn't. It never has.
Welcome to my world. The one-issue-at-a-time world of keeping-things-simple.
This month it was thus: to move or not to move, that was the question.
There was nothing noble in my mind when considering it; just pound signs and the need to balance the family budget.
We thought we had everything tied up. We had a buyer; we had a house to buy (admittedly it would have been an uninhabitable shell for a good while considering the remedial work required) and we had a property 5 doors away to rent. We had an exchange date (of 3 weeks ago) and a completion date (20th May). Then we pulled out.
Why?
With this property, the sums simply didn't add up. The remedial work we uncovered in the structural survey included action to address: severe wet rot; replacing sewers; bracing walls; treating timbers for worm; replacing windows and possibly dealing with dry rot as well. We didn't have a meeting of minds with the vendors over a suitable revision in price and that was that.
So why not move somewhere else instead? The answer to that lies in what is happening across the country today.
Regardless of who is voted in to power and whether that power is shared there will be a period of severe financial retrenchment for the entire nation. I am expecting our household income to take a nosedive as the successful government introduces a variety of draconian measures to balance the books.
How can any mortgagee identify their future disposable income when they have no idea of the extent of any changes to: VAT, National Insurance, Income tax, Child and working tax credits or Child benefit, never mind the equally fundamental double whammy of inflation and interest rates?
Inflation has risen in recent months and, no doubt, base rates will follow. The question is, as always, how soon and by how much. Fiscal measures introduced by the new government may stifle the recent resurgence in inflation but there is a time lag between when the government introduces inflation-stamping hardship on the nation and when inflation may take the hint. I'm fearful that we could face higher taxes, higher inflation, and higher interest rates (which of course means more expensive mortgages) all at the same time.
That is why I won't be moving anywhere for at least a year or two.
|
