Mums Finance

If the current situation continues I guess you could answer yes to that question. Many Brit’s have moved across to Europe - France and Spain being the biggest attraction - but also many remortgaged their UK homes in order to make speculative investments in housing developments in countries like Poland and Bulgaria. A few years back a good number would have recouped their money plus profit but now most are sitting with a huge loss.

Interest rates have risen sharply across the board causing a marked drop in people borrowing to buy properties; add into the equation the inflation rate of 28% in countries such as Poland and the drop by 7% in house prices in Ireland and what you have is a very gloomy outlook for the near future.

Take Bulgaria for example: Irish and British investors are sitting with their money sunk in large new housing developments there with no hope of any purchasers just yet. Yes, the properties are dirt cheap by UK standards, but who wants to buy a property that will be worth less in a few years than what they originally paid for it?

Property owners in Spain are doing it pretty tough as well; thousands of expat homeowners there are finding it almost impossible to sell their properties for any kind of profit - you can also blame recent bad publicity surrounding corrupt developers around the Costa’s for this though.

The old adage  ’it never rains but pours’ somehow comes to mind; either prices are right up or sitting on the ground - those pulling the strings of the economy can’t seem to get the balancing act right.

Popularity: 12% [?]