Words from Jonnie

WORLD

TV presenter and property expert Jonnie Irwin gives his thoughts and views on first time buyers and the housing market

A week is a long time…

I like a bit of period drama. Not so much your Downton Abbey, although very pleasant and gentle Sunday viewing it was. Personally, I like a bit of darkness – some menace of the likes of Taboo, North Water or a bit of Peaky Blinders will stop me looking at my phone for an hour or so.

I’m not so keen on time travelling films, (A Christmas Carol and Back to the Future are obvious exceptions!). I find myself sitting on the sofa, settling in to watch my evening’s entertainment when suddenly a character pops through a wormhole to another dimension of reality. Now I’ve been plunged unwittingly into having to think. That takes effort and invariably involves me continually pressing the pause button and shouting “what?!”at the screen. I must have watched The Tenet three times now and am still none the wiser. Perhaps Christopher Nolan just requires more IQ from his audience than I have. I find myself asking questions like; which is the true reality? What is real? And then ultimately I wonder, what’s on the other channels? Click…

If you think time travel films move quickly, they appear at a glacial pace when compared to UK politics. The old saying used to be “a week is a long time in politics” well that could be amended from a week to just a day.

I appreciate some of my recent columns have included quite a bit of politics but that’s because it’s having such an impact on the property sector – to be fair it affects everything as we all know, but let’s stick to our area.

By the time you’re reading this article the fact that Kwasi Kwarteng was ever Chancellor will be distant memory or did we just dream it? Or was that another strange wormhole into an alternative universe?

Of course, our dire economic outlook was influenced by events that took place long before the ill thought-out mini-Budget, but the financial powers that be knew straight away that this wasn’t just the wrong direction, it was a further mistake that would have even harsher consequences. So, who is running the country? You could argue the financial institutions if their interventions can force the Government to turn around its policies like it did. You could argue that also changing tack and adopting some of Labour’s policies makes the shadow cabinet more than just an influence. At the very least, the newly installed Jeremy Hunt to Chancellor is arguably in control from Number 11, but by the time you’re reading this, anybody could be residing at Downing Street.

Whatever happens now we can be sure that any Government decision will affect us immediately. Within hours of the Kamikaze Budget, money lenders had removed mortgage products from the shelves leaving buyers marooned. The effect it’s had on the first time buyer market is obvious, with the ability to buy suddenly taken from purchasers, putting further time between them and being able to fulfil their dream of buying their first property. Some buyers were only weeks away from completion, now who knows how long they’ll have to wait?

Even if more favourable mortgage products are once again offered back to the market, one thing for sure is that they will be at higher interest rates, which at the very least will have a negative impact on buyers’ ability to buy at the levels they were excitedly considering just weeks ago. In order to gauge the mood of some experts in the first time buyer market I had a ring round and spoke to some mortgage brokers. One, who I speak to quite regularly summed it up perfectly, “After the 2008 financial crisis, Brexit, Covid, Putin and now the Kamikaze budget I’m used to things being a bit sh!te.” A bit of gallows humour, but slightly encouraging is the thought there will be a way forward sometime soon. I see the broker’s point but it also illustrates the one thing that can’t be extinguished with policy – and that’s desire.

The will is there, let’s take five and see what the next few weeks bring and in the meantime, try not to be too consumed by the hourly political briefings. My only offering is for us to appreciate that we are indeed powerless when faced with the decisions of numbers 10 and 11 Downing Street, but take a bit of comfort in the fact that there was a body of people in the financial sector who took the toys from the clowns until they started to act more rationally. Not particularly democratic, but then the Prime Minister and Chancellor have no mandate, so if you can’t beat ‘em…

What we must continue to do, is to be politically engaged and informed. Everything that we face, good and bad, comes in consequence of policy made for, and voted for, by us, the electorate. I’m not here to tell you how to vote, just to be aware of what we are voting for, in detail, because in such a sensitive economy our lives are changed with an ‘X’.