Updated Info

[andrewducker]

Cheers to drplokta for this graph:

which shows mortgage payments versus income - a more useful way of telling whether house prices are high.  Which they clearly still are (and that graph doesn't go past 2005, so there's more overheating there) - but the swings aren't quite as severe.

Comments

[the-locster.livejournal.com]

Actually the graph doesn't go past 1999, the last bit is a forecast. Also there is a very real possibility of the government bond market going sour and thus interest rates going sharply back up in the short term. That said there is a clear pattern there and it would interesting to see an updated version and to compare it with the price/earnings ratio graph.

I'll probably get around to this as measuringworth.com have some % rate data going back several decades I see.

I mainatin that my main gripe is that the inital payments may not reflect payments over the long term; even if you get a fixed rate your rate could be changed (due to, oh, lets say a banking crisis). And actually fixed rates over the full term are still fairly rare in the UK me thinks.

[andrewducker]

Yup - mine was fixed for 5 years, but that was it.

If I could lock in current rates for 10 years I'd be happy.

[drplokta]

You can probably lock in current ten-year rates for ten years, if you shop around. But ten-year rates are currently a lot higher than overnight or three-month rates.

[broin.livejournal.com]

Who *makes* these graphs? They're busy and unhelpful.