The City’s top regulator has called for curbs on 100% mortgages and a return to mortgage rationing to prevent another boom and bust in the housing market.

Lord Turner, in a wide-ranging critique of financial markets, some of whose activity he has previously described as “socially useless”, said policymakers needed tough new tools to prevent the mortgage market getting out of hand in future. Jill Treanor, The Guardian.

Are financiers and economists in the pay of the rich? Stupid me of course they are – because with the current inflated house prices how are those on low-wages ever to afford a house – let alone save for one? We give tax-breaks to rich landlords

The UK housing market is stacked against First Time Buyers. The Government currently gives huge tax breaks in favour of BTL investors – allowing them to write off their mortgage interest payments against income tax. First Time Buyers can’t compete and are priced out of the UK housing market – with no hope of joining the housing ladder. Priced Out.

House prices are still extremely high.

In 1971, the average home cost £5,632. By 2008, that average had risen to £227,765. If food and other essential items had risen at the same rate a pint of milk would cost £2.43, a chicken £47.51 and a jar of coffee £20.22. It would mean the average family paying around three times as much for their weekly food shop as they do today. Shelter.

What else is an attack on 100% mortgages but an attack on those wanting a place to call their own who don’t earn enough to save – the price difference between renting and repayments on a 100% mortgage are negligible.

And that’s not the worst of it

In remarks that might be interpreted as a call for credit controls such as those seen in the decades after the war, the chairman of the Financial Services Authority spelt out the need for a wide range of policy options, but said that one should be to force borrowers to save for a deposit before they are granted a mortgage. Jill Treanor, The Guardian.

So it’ll be back to the days when my parents brought their house – going cap-in-hand to the bank manager like latter-day serfs begging to be allowed to buy a house.

The UK housing market is geared to rich investors. It’s ridiculous that one of the necessities of like, a roof over our heads has become nothing more than something to be brought, sold for profit – we’ve lost our way.