


UK mortgage rates have risen sharply, with far fewer sub-5% fixed deals. The episode explains what’s driving the repricing, how deposit size and loan-to-value affect rates, and what borrowers should do if refinancing within six months. It also covers first-time buying vs renting, buying flats (service charges/ground rent), and how to manage “mortgage shock” for people rolling off 1–2% deals.
Anthony Emerson, director of mortgage brokers Trinity Financial (London), specialising in bespoke mortgage advice; previously appeared in May.
Lenders reprice up to weekly as SONIA swap rates move; Bank of England base rate stayed at 3.75%. Sub-5% deals collapsed from ~1,500 to ~9. Higher LTV (95%) starts around 5.74–5.75% vs ~5.40% at 10% deposit. Start remortgaging conversations ~6.5 months out; remortgage products are valid up to six months. Renting and buying are close due to rising rents and flat pricing drops.
Extending mortgage term, part/full interest-only to reduce payment shock; capital repayment mortgages see smaller payment increases than interest-only. Flats face oversupply from new-build focus and landlord sales intentions (~48% within 12 months).
Written by AI. May contain mistakes.
Discussion about the rise in mortgage rates and its implications.
“Earlier this week, it was revealed that the average interest rate on a new five-year fixed mortgage deal had hit 6 % for the first time in three years.”
Insights into the factors driving current mortgage rate changes.
“Joining me to discuss this is Anthony Emerson.”
Exploring mortgage options for first-time buyers and their impact.
“And the oil crisis that kicked off as part of the Iranian war has caused a lot of the sort of swap rate markets and the gilts, which really derives fixed rate mortgages in particular, to change quite dramatically.”
Comparative analysis of renting and buying in the current market.
“So I'm kind of wondering, if I've just got, say, a 10 % deposit now and I'm a first-time buyer, what are the kind of rates I'm looking at compared to somebody with 40 % who's either remortgaging or moving house?”
Discussion on lenders' willingness to lend in the current market.
“Because they're still happy enough to lend to people.”
Examination of factors affecting the flats market and buyer sentiment.
“out over a 40-year term, those monthly payments are decent.”
Addressing worries about negative equity in the current housing market.
Discussing the financial implications for property buyers in recent years.
“So they most certainly haven't made anything out of these properties.”
Examining the effects of leasehold reform on property values and buyer decisions.
“The world of business is constantly evolving.”
Examining the effects of leasehold reform on property values and buyer decisions.
“Have you had any conversations about how the prospective leasehold reform is affecting those flats in particular?”
Exploring the implications of rising mortgage rates on homeowners.
“Those individuals are very mindful of taxation issues, are very mindful of the way that they are treated within our economy.”
Discussing interest-only mortgages and strategies to manage payments.
“People who are on a capital repayment mortgage are seeing a much lower payment shock because of the fact that the way that the curve works, it softens the blow relatively significantly.”
Understand the importance of early discussions with your mortgage broker.
“Six months is the earliest that we can put anything in place because a remortgage product is only valid for a six-month period as a maximum.”
Explore the pros and cons of fixed and variable rate mortgages.
“your future on what might happen to interest rates, but this also does feel like a particularly difficult time.”
Analyze the effects of the new Help to Buy policy on the housing market.
“Is it the right thing for the overall general public?”
Discuss challenges in stimulating housing development amidst market conditions.
“getting a 20 percent grant from the government that that's great it helps you get onto the market it all just depends on what the products look like that come with them what are the price them?”

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1:57Welcome to Merrin Talks Your Money, the personal finance edition of Merrin Talks Money. In these bonus podcasts, we talk about the best strategies for making the most of your money. I'm John Stebik, senior reporter and author of the Money Distilled newsletter. I'm in this week while Merrin's away. Earlier this week, it was revealed that the average interest rate on a new five-year fixed mortgage deal had hit 6 % for the first time in three years. Now, this is not the deal that most people get. Most of us get the best buy mortgages. But on that front, what really caught my eye was that in the past month, the number of sub-5 % fixed rate mortgage deals has collapsed from something like 1 ,500 to nearly zero.
2:40So it's very obvious that rates have gone up significantly. So for today's personal finance discussion, I wanted to get some clarity on why this has happened. the current state of the mortgage rate, the kind of things that are driving rates just now and what you should do about it, particularly if you're coming up to refinancing your mortgage in the next six months or less. Joining me to discuss this is Anthony Emerson. Anthony's the director of mortgage brokers Trinity Financial, which is a London-based firm that specialises in bespoke mortgage advice. He last appeared on the show in May and before that He was an expert voice on our How to Buy a House series.
3:18Welcome back to the show, Anthony. Thank you, John. Pleasure being on again. It's really good to have you back. You last came on in May, and since then, things have got even more exciting for the mortgage market. So I remember the last time you were on, you were reminding us that at the start of the year, you could get a two-year fixed rate mortgage for about 3.6%. And when you came on in May, that had jumped up to 4.7%. And since then, we've had a bit of a brief lull, but one of the most kind of eye-catching statistics that was from MoneyFacts, which is obviously a kind of data provider, in the past month, as everyone's been freaking out about global bond markets again, the kind of number of sub-5 % fixed rate deals has dropped from around 1 ,500 to almost zero.
4:07I think they said there's exactly nine deals, excluding Northern Ireland, which is a slightly different system. So what's going on there? What's happening? And also, how can we get one of those sub-5 % deals if we need to? The mortgage market has changed significantly. We have lenders repricing sometimes once or even possibly twice a week because the Sonya swap rates are changing quite dramatically. We're in this very strange period where a lot of people think that the Bank of England base rate is what controls interest rates. and the Bank of England base rate hasn't moved. So we've been at 3.75 from the beginning of the year through to now.
4:52And the oil crisis that kicked off as part of the Iranian war has caused a lot of the sort of swap rate markets and the gilts, which really derives fixed rate mortgages in particular, to change quite dramatically. And the speed at which they changed caught everyone off guard. So, we have now seen those rates at 3.6 that I mentioned in my last meeting with you now being closer to mid-fives. The average swap rate, the average two-year fixed rate and the average five-year fixed rate that money facts quotes is taken from a very wide range of products. the average person on the street is still getting considerably better rates than that so you know we have like you say got around about three or four lenders that are still offering deals at below five percent you generally have to be a high earner and be a premier banking customer relationship with them to be able to qualify for them but things are not quite as bad as that headline-grabbing interest rate that you mentioned.
6:10Well, it seems actually, I mean, because that's another good point there because I remember there was a point, even after this kind of more chaotic period or the higher interest rate period we've gone into, but at the start of the year, maybe a year and a half ago, your deposit didn't make as much difference to the interest rate you were offered as perhaps it does now. So I'm kind of wondering, if I've just got, say, a 10 % deposit now and I'm a first-time buyer, what are the kind of rates I'm looking at compared to somebody with 40 % who's either remortgaging or moving house? I mean, I looked at that before we started the conversation today.
6:54And if you had a 10 % deposit on a property, interest rates would start at around about 5.40 % for a two-year fixed rate. Yes, that's quite a big difference. It is quite a big difference. But when you consider that the sort of 60 % loan to value is priced at around about 5%, it's not dramatically bigger. Yeah. It's still manageable and it's still encouraging as many first-time buyers to get into the market as possible. at 95 % loan to value where you're only putting down a 5 % deposit interest rates are currently starting at around about 5.74 5.75 so that's your highest risk margin for the lender and the the difference between the 60 % where is the cheapest products and the highest range at 95 % is around about 0.85%, which is large, but it's not eye-wateringly large.
7:58Yeah. So this is interesting as well, because is it fair to say that banks still seem, there's not a panic here. This is just repricing, isn't it? Because they're still happy enough to lend to people. And the multiples, I'm right in thinking that they're still getting slightly more relaxed about the terms in which they'll lend to people in terms of kind of level of income and that sort of thing it's more generous now than it has been in the past i mean we have more and more lenders particularly if you're a first-time buyer lenders are sort of pushing the envelope quite far and sort of lending five and a half sometimes even six times your income now once you go beyond five times your income you're starting to sort of stretch things a little bit too thin and obviously these higher interest rates make borrowing that amount of money a little bit more difficult for you to be able to fund the monthly payments.
8:53If you are, however, young and you can stretch it out over a 40-year term, those monthly payments are decent. And we're still having conversations even today where those monthly premiums, if you're young and you can take a 40-year term, are actually comparable to what they were paying in rent. Maybe a little bit more, but you have to understand that there's an element of capital repayment built into that payment where in rent there is none. Yeah. That's an interesting one because, I mean, I do remember, again, when you last came on, there was a sense that the cost of renting versus ownership was sort of on a par.
9:35And then if you take the capital gains element and then you're still, as you say, paying off the loan over time whereas rent obviously is perpetual. Would you say that balance has shifted in favour of renting over the last four months or in favour of buying or not that much to it? Because of the fall in the number of rental properties becoming available now, you know, the Renters' Reform Act has had that unintended consequence of... Unintended predictable consequence to anyone. Unpredictable to anyone who was in the market, unpredictable to those in control, it would seem. But the Renters Reform Act and all those other influences, lack of properties on the market, has caused rents to continue to rise at a steady clip.
10:24And because of that, we are not as far off that par calculation that we were back in May because rentals have continued to increase. so personally I think if you are a first-time buyer and you're looking at it I would definitely have a conversation with a mortgage broker to find out what your borrowing capacities are to have a look at what the interest rates and the payments might be and then make that decision as to whether or not you want to go down that road and I say that because of the fact that at the moment we have flats in particular being very very competitively and significantly lower than they were at their peak so if you're looking at is it the right time to buy the right time to buy is always before it hits the bottom and you know we have dropped a fair amount and you know i would probably say to you that we are nearing that point and it might be worth those first time buyers actually doing that calculation and seeing whether or not we can facilitate what they need that's interesting in terms of the the flight specifically i mean obviously there's a lot of factors affecting the market there what do people need to watch out for if they are considering a flat, like what is it that's actually driven because basically if you look at property statistics you've got your super prime market which has fallen and you've got the market for normal family houses is basically flat, it's not really suffered particularly relative to the rest of the market and in some parts of the country it's still ticking higher so what is it about flats that has you know kind of caused this because it is pretty significant drops isn't it relative you know very very significant drops yeah i think it's a supply and demand issue um new developers are definitely not rebuilding houses they are building flats because of the number of units that they can get onto the land.
12:32The government is trying to hit its million-plus new developments in their parliament. And we've also got a huge amount of landlords. I mean, a survey the other day done by the National Landlords Association said that of their survey, 48 % or so of their landlords intend to sell within the next 12 months. and you know or when their mortgage comes up for renewal and two reasons number one that mortgage that's coming up for renewal is probably at an interest rate at somewhere around you know one to three percent and that can be going on to a sort of five to six percent interest rate so that gives them thought to to change all the taxation reasons that have hit landlords and all these new rules and regulations so we are seeing that we have more flats on the market than we have buyers for them at the moment and I think people have been holding off on buying flats because they think oh that market's falling so I'm just going to wait for it to go but I think we are at that point where things are starting to look interesting and and worth getting involved in because I don't think that they can fall much further without sort of triggering a bit more of a wider problem that's interesting i mean that in terms of a wider problem are you do mean negative equity and kind of knocking on to the i think those who bought these properties in the last sort of five years are possibly looking at not quite getting their money back um yeah i've had a number of those conversations with people.
14:17So they most certainly haven't made anything out of these properties. People who've bought them within the last 10 years are going to be making a significantly smaller profit margin. And people who've owned them for ages are probably going to be worried about the changes that are going to happen to capital gains tax.
14:45This is the Bloomberg Tech Minute brought to you by Chachi PT. Now with Chachi PT Work, I'm Carol Masser. Just when it seemed American car buyers had left electric vehicles for dead, there are new signs of life in that corner of the auto market. Bloomberg's Cara Carlson and Gabby Coppola report that Tesla and Rivian each posted better-than-expected EV sales for the third quarter. Executives at Hyundai and Ford say dealers are asking for more battery-powered inventory to sell as customers come back. Even some lower-volume models from Toyota and GM's Cadillac brand are gaining momentum. Dealers have also sold through much of that excess inventory, going from about a 180-day supply of EVs in early 2026 to 78 days' worth in August, roughly in line with industry stocks of vehicles with combustion engines.
15:32It all points to EV demand that's beginning to stabilize after last year's boom and bust, tied to the cancellation of generous U.S. tax credits for EV buyers. EV sales have stabilized at close to 6 % of the U.S. market this year, according to researcher Cox Automotive. To be sure, many automakers continue to report weak year-over-year EV sales, and a demand boom for new EVs has not materialized. Instead, shoppers are snapping up gas-electric hybrids, as well as used EVs which can be had for prices similar to their conventional counterparts. That's the Bloomberg Tech Minute brought to you by ChachiPT.
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18:11Have you had any conversations about how the prospective leasehold reform is affecting those flats in particular? Because I'm aware the government's kind of planning to, you know, kind of bring this in. but to an extent it strikes me that leaves people who've got existing leaseholds with an asset that's potentially worth less because it's encumbered by these issues whereas the new flats possibly won't be that that is very small part of it because yeah i think the people that are holding out for that um are just hoping for the best um we have seen a lot of people just extend their leases because of the fact that they need to for for matters of finance and and sale and things like that but the government doesn't move too quickly on this point so you know we've had we've been having this discussion on leasehold reform now for many many years and we are yet to see any of the terms and conditions as to what they think they're going to put in place so yeah so with with in mind that one should be careful their service charges uh cladding issues and leasehold and other estate now might be a good time for a buyer armed with a lawyer they feel they can trust to maybe take a look at the the flat market yeah i think you know if you are buying flats and things like that the ground rent and service charge is two of your biggest things that you need to look out for some of them can be relatively astronomical and they never ever go down they never get more expensive yeah well this this is the problem so if you can find common hold and obviously if you're outside England and Wales this isn't actually an issue because obviously as you can tell from my accent from Scotland where we don't really have lease hold as a thing and looking at the prime London properties there was another eye-catching stat from Savills this week which was basically the prime London properties fallen by 27 % in nominal terms since 2014 and I'm just wondering that that kind of top end of the market what are you seeing there what is it that's well a kind of why have we seen that significant a drop over that time but also is there any sense that that might turn around that the kind of world's super rich might start to think oh wait a minute this stuff's starting to look cheap you know it's property in mayfair or whatever um or is it a bit too early and a bit too politically sensitive for that personally i I think that the very top end of the market has been hit by a lack of confidence in the direction of travel of the UK government.
20:49Those individuals are very mindful of taxation issues, are very mindful of the way that they are treated within our economy. and I think for that reason we are seeing a fall because of the fact that there are less people interested in investing into that asset when you've got other areas of the world that are looking a lot more attractive yeah so basically it's sort of part of the whole wealth exodus issue a little bit yes yeah so can I return into uh to mere mortals um you know if it if you own a house just now and you've got a mortgage and you were lucky enough to be one of the last people to get onto a one to two percent loan at the kind of tail end of 2021 early 2022 and you're now staring down the barrel of like five percent remortgaging what should you be doing what should you be thinking if you're coming up to refinancing like within the next kind of year the next six months i think the first thing to do, John, is don't panic.
21:59Right? I mean... It's easy for you to see. We are seeing a significant mortgage shock as being a major part of our conversation piece with clients. And how do we mitigate that payment shock? And there is a number of different ways that we can look at it. And we can possibly extend the mortgage term, which would then allow that client to have a longer period to pay it back, which would make your monthly premiums lower. We could possibly consider, if applicable, using part interest-only, part capital repayments, or even possibly go as far as full interest-only in order to make those payments similar to what they were paying before.
22:44Quite a few people who took those mortgages five years ago might have had children. Some of them might be having school fees and things like that. and people are making changes to the way that they take that mortgage out in order to try and keep their payments the same so that they can afford the same quality of life. Unfortunately, people who are on interest-only mortgages are seeing the greatest payment shock because of the fact that it's a direct correlation between interest rates and monthly payment because there is no capital repayment element to it. People who are on a capital repayment mortgage are seeing a much lower payment shock because of the fact that the way that the curve works, it softens the blow relatively significantly.
23:32So rather than it being three times, four times more expensive as it would be with an interest-only mortgage, the capital repayment client is seeing only a change to what they were paying before, maybe five, six, 700 pounds on their maybe 1 ,200 pound mortgage that they were paying before, which is a lot more manageable than being asked for three to four times that figure. Actually, just something you raised, do you still see many people coming and rolling off of interest-only mortgages when they're actually home owners as opposed to landlords? Because that's relatively unusual. We have a lot of interest-only clients because of the fact that we have certain clients who are quite heavily incentivized with big bonuses.
24:18Of course, yeah. And from a month-to-month point of view, let's just say you get rather large bonuses in hundreds of thousands, but your basic salary is$100 ,000. Being able to do a capital repayment mortgage with your$100 ,000 monthly salary is a little bit more tricky than being able to do it with an average of that whole number. So with interest-only mortgages, those clients then make a lump sum reduction at the end of that financial year or they invest that money elsewhere. in the past, when interest rates were 1 % or 2%, elsewhere they could get a better yield. So they were investing that money into other assets, which would give them a higher yield and they'd maintain their interest-only mortgage at 1 % and be quite comfortable.
25:05Now those yields are a little bit more difficult to get an after-tax yield at 5%. And we are seeing significant reductions in those mortgages by people sort of cashing in those investments and those other assets that they have and lowering the amounts of their mortgage. Yeah. But it is still a very popular part of the mortgage conversation for your higher owners.
25:38This is the Bloomberg Tech Minute brought to you by ChatGPT. Now with ChatGPT Work, I'm Carol Masser. Just when it seemed American car buyers had left electric vehicles for dead, there are new signs of life in that corner of the auto market. Bloomberg's Cara Carlson and Gabby Coppola report that Tesla and Rivian each posted better-than-expected EV sales for the third quarter. Executives at Hyundai and Ford say dealers are asking for more battery-powered inventory to sell as customers come back. Even some lower-volume models from Toyota and GM's Cadillac brand are gaining momentum. Dealers have also sold through much of that excess inventory.
26:14going from about a 180-day supply of EVs in early 2026 to 78 days' worth in August, roughly in line with industry stocks of vehicles with combustion engines. It all points to EV demand that's beginning to stabilize after last year's boom and bust, tied to the cancellation of generous U.S. tax credits for EV buyers. EV sales have stabilized at close to 6 % of the U.S. market this year, according to researcher Cox Automotive. To be sure, many automakers continue to report weak year-over-year EV sales, and a demand boom for new EVs has not materialized. Instead, shoppers are snapping up gas-electric hybrids, as well as used EVs which can be had for prices similar to their conventional counterparts.
26:55That's the Bloomberg Tech Minute brought to you by ChatGPT. Get started at chatgpt.com slash work. Available with all paid ChatGPT plans. The world of business is constantly evolving. Every day, new challenges, new opportunities, new ways of working. Comcast Business keeps you totally in step with secure AI-backed networking built to power the way modern business gets things done today in more than 100 countries around the world. That's some serious muscle. And get this, Comcast Business powers over 90 % of the Fortune 500 and millions of small businesses. Behind it all, network engineers, cybersecurity specialists, support teams, thousands of experts answering your call at 2 a.m.
27:42like it's 2 p.m. Always on, always ready. That's a lot of coffee. One partner powering how business gets done for companies of every size all around the globe. When you add it all up, no one does business like Comcast business. Most meeting note takers get the easy words right and the important ones wrong. The client's name, the acronym, Whisperflow Notetaker is built to get the hard words right. It takes notes on any meeting platform, Zoom, Google Meet, Teams, even WhatsApp calls, keeps every meeting searchable, and connects to Claude or Chat GPT so you can ask, what did we agree to last Tuesday?
28:22Free to try on Mac and Windows at whisperflow.ai. That's W-I-S-P-R flow dot A-I. Running a business means keeping pace with the latest tech. You've put a lot into building your enterprise software stack, and scrapping it to integrate AI is out of the question. That's why IBM technology works with all the apps, data, and models you need. It's another way IBM helps you build on the technology you rely on. Let's create smarter business. IBM. Visit ibm.com to learn more.
29:02in terms of the practicalities as well so the last time um we were talking uh specifically about if you are coming up to the end of a deal any time up to six months and preferably basically as soon as possible you should start talking to your mortgage broker is six months about rate? Six months is the earliest that we can put anything in place because a remortgage product is only valid for a six-month period as a maximum. And that's because the lender has to put that money aside in readiness for you to draw down on those funds. And they don't want to put them aside in perpetuity. They want to have a defined timeline.
29:42If you don't use it within that period, the money comes back into the flow and away it goes. The biggest thing for us is start early and start having the conversation early. Around about six and a half months out, start having the conversation with your mortgage broker so that you know that you can put together all the paperwork, documents, etc. Ready to go at the point where you are six months out. You then apply for that mortgage. You get something in hand. You're not committed to take that mortgage out. You can walk away from it. You can cancel it. You can change it to a lower deal. If a lower deal becomes available, you can change lender over the course of the six months.
30:22But what we're saying to people is don't hang about, grab something now, put it in the back pocket, safe and secure so that you know what you are going to pay. And if things improve, fantastic. However, if things go the opposite direction, you've done the best you can at the earliest point that you could and you know the poor mortgage broker might need to re-broke that mortgage you know three or four times over the course of the next six months but that's pretty much why we exist well make you earn your money true Scottish exactly exactly I mean in terms of obviously you shouldn't ever be betting your future on what might happen to interest rates, but this also does feel like a particularly difficult time.
31:11Looking back, certainly I find it very hard to have any kind of level of high conviction as to what might happen to rates next. So what are you telling clients in terms of the choice between fixed and variable rate mortgages? Because obviously you can still get variable for what about is about half a percentage point less than the fixes. It's widened of late. Okay, yeah. When I was looking at them yesterday and having a conversation with various different clients, the margin had widened up on two conversations. One of them was 0.78 of a percent. Okay. The other one was over 0.9 of a percent. So effectively, a tracker rate now has three Bank of England base rate rises available within it until you get to the point where you are starting to match the available two-year fixed rate.
32:05So if you've got people who are a little bit more open to taking the risk, because obviously trackers are more risky, because it might not stop at three Bank of England base rate rises, it might continue beyond that. In which case, if you decide, actually, no, I can't handle this, I want to dive out of it into a fixed rate, you have to take whatever the market's offering at that point which could be anything yeah however given that swap rates have moved so significantly and as you see they're not linked directly to the bank of england base rates they might remain at this level where you know you could take this tracker rates be on a much lower rate initially and then gradually increase that rate as the bank of England increases its rates up to try and control inflation because that's the Bank of England's job is that it tries to use the Bank of England base rate to control inflation and the swap rates are based off the confidence in the market for the various different institutions to lend each other money and they forward price based on a two-year or five-year or 10-year modeling of where they think interest rates are, which is why the swap rates have risen and guilt rates have risen so significantly compared to the Bank of England base rate, which has remained stable.
33:27But the track of fixed conversation is a difficult one because it does come down to the client's attitude to risk. If you've got a mortgage that's infinitely affordable, maybe only three times your available income multiple, then you've got more sort of capacity to take on that extra risk in case something goes wrong. If you're trying to borrow five and a half times your income on a tracker rate, it might be a little bit more risky if things start to go the opposite way. Yeah, so basically you just have to model how much your monthly payment would go up to in a worst case scenario, I guess. And then being able to stress test that payment against your capacity and the way you want your lifestyle to be lived.
34:15And yeah, just one last question, actually, I wanted to kind of pick up with you. This new help to buy policy that the government is looking at or is going to announce, your first home enabling people to buy a 2.5 % deposit and a 20 % equity loan from the government. Have you any thoughts on how that will affect the market this time round because obviously it's quite a different set of circumstances from when help to buy came out in 2012 i think it was 2013 the fact that these are looking like they're going to be restricted to new builds only that policy looks to me like it's being used to get the builders to use the land banks that they've got to be able to develop the houses in order to try and meet the one point something million games that they want.
35:10Is it the right thing for the overall general public? Probably not because if you flood one part of the market, it has unintended consequences on the rest of that marketplace. It's really good for developers. It's really good to try and get Britain building again. But those builders will only build at a point where they feel that they can get the price they want and need for the development to be financially worthwhile. We are still in a world where those costs of build and materials and labor and all the other bits and pieces are quite a lot higher than they used to be. And it's hard for them to be able to make their margin.
35:55So I think it will help, but I don't think it's going to help quite as much as that helped to buy it back in the day. I mean, I know this isn't your area of expertise necessarily, but what would you do in terms of, what do you think would be a better solution for encouraging builders to build without having to essentially dump a load of negative equity risk going to first-time buyers? It's a very, very difficult one to solve, John, in my opinion, because of the fact that we have a massive oversupply of flats at the moment. And I think we have the buyers for them. but as I said to you earlier I think those buyers are somewhat holding off at the moment with this belief that everything is going to get cheaper and cheaper and cheaper and I think we've seen a significant move in the market and I think we're at that point now where it might very well be worthwhile for these people to come out of hibernation and start getting involved in it.
36:52until we get a sort of a supply and demand balance any of these sort of incentives are going to be lost because you know if you're only putting down a two and a half percent deposit plus you are getting a 20 percent grant from the government that that's great it helps you get onto the market it all just depends on what the products look like that come with them what are the price them? How affordable are they? How do they compare to local rents? Because we need to reach that balance where it actually becomes worthwhile for somebody to get involved in it. And most people, you know, these products tend to come with like a five-year lifespan.
37:35They need to believe that they will be able to make a margin within that five years in order to make it worthwhile. Because two and a half percent is very, very small change in the property price for you to effectively fall into negative equity. Yeah, especially if you're buying a new build, because as soon as you walk into the new build, it drops in value. Especially in the first year or so, but then it should then claw its way back up again. But when you've only got sort of 2.5 % deposit, it doesn't have to fall by very much for you to be effectively negative equity in your share and your ownership of that property.
38:13Yeah, and then you're stuck. I think it's a great idea with a couple of tweaks that need to be done. Anything that stimulates the market, I'm up for. But it's just about trying to do it in the right way. It would be nice if that product was available for both new build and for second-hand homes so that we can get the whole market moving and not just doing it to benefit one person in particular, which is the developer. On that diplomatic note Anthony I really appreciate your time Pleasure being on again Thanks for listening to this week's Merrin Talks Your Money If you like our show Rate, review and subscribe Wherever you listen to podcasts Also be sure to follow Merrin And myself on X Merrin's at Merrin SW And I'm John underscore Stepik This episode was produced by Summer Sadi and Moses Andem questions and comments on this show and all our shows are always welcome our show email is merinmoney at bloomberg.net and a special thanks to Anthony Emerson
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John Stepek, senior reporter and author of the Money Distilled newsletter, is joined by Anthony Emmerson, director at London-based mortgage broker Trinity Financial to discuss rising mortgage rates and borrowers facing a jump in repayments, they explain what homeowners can do to soften the blow — from locking in a new deal early to extending their mortgage term or considering a tracker. They also look at opportunities for first-time buyers, falling flat prices and what the government’s proposed Help to Buy scheme could mean for the housing market.
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