Growth of crisis in the UK housing market

The UK has been hit by a similar housing crisis that it is affecting the US. Specialists have predicted that if the crisis is not stopped at the beginning it could be far worse than the US foreclosure crisis, as the British economy is more reliable on the real estate industry.

When the information of a possible crisis hit the British, economists have forecasted a 0,5% fall of home prices in May, but the problem seems to have been made worse, with a drop of 2.5% on housing prices. The problems have been made worse by a number of factors, led by a series of interest rate rises in 2006 and 2007, which further increased affordability constraints. This was then followed by last summer's credit crunch and its dramatic effects on the mortgage market.

With the whole crisis lenders such as Abbey are lifting mortgage costs, and in the UK today there are only 15% of the mortgage deals that were previously available.

Until now, economists have said that the current constraints on the market will lead to falls in the number of homes changing hands and slight annual price decreases, but not the steep house price falls seen in the early 1990's crash.