Word: britishers
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...could that passion for real estate also drag the nation down? After trebling in the decade to last October, the average U.K. house price fell for the sixth straight month in April, according to Nationwide, a British residential lender. At $354,000, that price is 1% lower than it was a year ago, marking the first annual fall since 1996. Banks, still nervous about lending to one another following the collapse of the U.S. subprime market, are being no less careful when it comes to their loan customers: tougher lending criteria and higher mortgage rates have discouraged British house hunters...
...still nascent downturn in the British market exposes more than just property investments. The social and cultural value of home ownership in the U.K. makes any slump more difficult to shoulder. The roots of this love affair with property go deep. For centuries, a house of one's own gave an Englishman not just privacy and status; until 1832, those in the countryside had no right to vote without property of a certain value. Small wonder, suggests Stuart Lowe, a housing expert at the University of York, that the English dream of home ownership has become "a deep cultural issue...
...British are all the more exceptional in their willingness to bet big on property. Mortgage debt as a percentage of the country's disposable income stood at 125% in 2006, compared to 103% in the U.S. and 71% in Germany. One reason is that British homeowners came to fervently believe that bricks and mortar almost inevitably reward investors with a juicy return. After all, the FTSE 100 share index of Britain's biggest firms rose just 2.7% in the 10 years to May, while the average house price shot up 178%, according to Nationwide. That increase produced "a massive reservoir...
...also put an end to cheap credit. Mortgage lenders were happy to coddle British homeowners with easy money during the boom years, helping to push the rate at which U.K. house prices rose over the past decade far higher than economic drivers like income growth and low interest rates could justify. Now banks are throttling back. They have slashed the range of available mortgages and cut the amount they'll lend relative to the value of a property; no more can U.K. customers borrow more than a home is worth, as many had done...
Whatever it takes, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown will be praying that the market stays afloat. Trailing in the polls behind the Conservative opposition, the last thing his beleaguered Labour government needs is a messy collapse of the housing sector. Labour was in opposition during the last slump, and has since invoked it as a peril of Tory government. To head off the worst this time, Labour ministers announced plans on May 9 to extend debt-advice services and free legal representation to those at risk of losing their homes. Yet just days later, as Housing Minister Caroline Flint entered...