It's your moral duty to buy property

The housing market may have helped cause the financial crisis, but according to the CBI it also holds the key to the recovery.

Much of the debate about the continued economic malaise in the UK has focused on growth, or rather, the lack of it. Indeed, the International Monetary Fund has now cuts its growth forecast for the UK for 2011 to 1.1%, from its earlier prediction of 1.5%, and pinpointed the nation as one of three large, developed economies at risk of a double-dip recession.

So how do we get things moving again? Everyone seems to have an answer, with ideas put forward including cutting business taxes and reversing the VAT rise implemented at the turn of the year.

One interesting suggestion though comes from the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), which has pinpointed the housing market as the key.

Buy a house, boost the economy!

In a speech last week, the director general of the CBI, John Cridland, suggested that the Chancellor needs to consider how to boost activity in the housing market and construction sector, arguing it could be a major ‘game change’ for growth.

Cridland called for a ‘revitalised’ mortgage indemnity guarantee to get banks lending at high loan-to-values again. He also suggested the Government start allowing potential first-time buyers to access the cash they have locked up in a pension through a loan-back scheme, to help struggling househunters to meet the costs of buying their first home.

Other ideas included more shared ownership, and changes to the planning laws to get the construction of new homes up and running again.

Clearly, the CBI is of the opinion that if you buy a house, you will boost the economy.

So is it really your moral duty to go out and buy property?

Making things easier for buyers

I don’t think anyone would argue that making things easier for young people to buy a property is an undesirable thing, it's how to go about doing it that is open to debate.

There are some lovemoney.com readers (and writers for that matter) who argue that the important thing is that house prices fall significantly, so that they are no longer four, five or even six times the average person’s income.

Personally, I’m just not convinced that will happen anytime soon, so at least building new properties to meet the current growing demand would help stem any house price growth. If we don’t address the current property shortage, there are suggestions house prices may reach £200,000 in just a couple of years.

As for lending to borrowers with only a small deposit, the situation is far better now than it was a couple of years ago. Check out this table from Moneyfacts which demonstrates the improved level of choice such borrowers face today. It’s not perfect, but it’s a start.

Get a loan, to help you get another loan!

However, the pension loan-back idea strikes me as a touch barmy. For starters, the CBI may not have noticed but there is a pension crisis already in the UK, with younger people not saving enough in the first place. So chances are they don’t have much to ‘borrow’ from their pension pot anyway.

But I also have a problem with the idea of taking out a loan – albeit from yourself – in order to get hold of another loan, in the form of a mortgage. So not only will they have to budget for their mortgage repayments each month, but also paying back the money they borrowed from their pension pot, as well as keeping up future pension contributions to ensure they actually retire with some money set aside.

Sorry, but I’m not a fan.

Growth built on a bubble

But the real issue I have with all this is pointing the finger at the housing market as the answer to our economic prayers. If the economy is to turn around for the long term, surely we want something more sustainable than a vibrant housing market and Kirstie and Phil all over our TV screens to be the catalyst?

Cridland is right that the Government needs to do something to boost growth. But that means encouraging new business, getting us manufacturing actual things rather than relying on the City and the financial sector, and ensuring that workers have a few quid in their pocket each month to spend.

What it doesn’t mean is huffing and puffing until we have a 2007-esque housing bubble again.

Buying for the right reasons

That said, if you can afford it and are buying for the right reasons – a property you want to live in for the long term, rather just an investment -  the fact that some vendors are cutting their asking prices means now may be a decent time to take the property plunge.

Check out the great deals below, or have a chat with one of our fee-free mortgage team over at our mortgage centre.

20 terrific mortgages

More: Five cheap ways to fund home improvements | Buy-to-let is back and it’s meaner than ever

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This article aims to give information, not advice. Always do your own research and/or seek out advice from an FSA-regulated broker (such as one of our brokers here at lovemoney.com), before acting on anything contained in this article. 

Finally, we tend to only give the initial rate of a deal in our articles, but any deal which lasts for a shorter period than your mortgage term may revert to the lender's standard variable rate or a tracker rate when the deal ends. Before you take out a deal, you should always try to find out from your lender what its standard variable rate is and how it will be determined in the future. Make sure you take all this information into account when comparing different deals.

Your home or property may be repossessed if you do not keep up repayments on your mortgage.