Culture

Towns & Cities Facing Mortgage Meltdown As HALF The UK Is Now Paying More Than £1,000/Month, Putting Thousands At Risk Of Losing Homes

Mortgages have more than doubled in some parts of the UK since 2020, putting millions of homeowners at risk of being priced out of their own home.

New analysis has revealed how, in the space of just three years, half the country has gone from paying less than £1,000-a-month on their mortgage to more than £1,000-a-month – a change fuelled by rising house prices and soaring interest rates.

Repayments have more than doubled for places in the south of England like Cornwall, where the average monthly mortgage bill has shot up from £565.38 in July 2020 to £1,142.36 in July this year.

Parts of Wales and Scotland have also seen sharp rises in the last three years, with prices in the Vale of Glamorgan increasing from £553.59 to £1121.39, while payments in East Lothian have increased from £582.69 to an eyewatering £1276.30 per month.

Elliot Taylor, director of Taylor Chartered Surveyors, told MailOnline that current mortgage prices are the worst he has seen in recent years.

Today’s average two-year fixed deal of 6.83 per cent is three times the average rate for the same two-year deal in July 2020, according to Moneyfactscompare.co.uk.

The collosal rise follows the disastrous Kwasi Kwarteng mini-budget during the short-lived Liz Truss government.

Rishi Sunak’s administration is now considering plans to offer more 40-year fixed term mortgages for first-time buyers unable to afford short-term fixed-rate deals.

HOW TO USE THE MAP: Press ‘play’ button on top right to flip between 2020 and 2023. Scroll around the maps to see the average mortgage price in each area.

A graph showing the average rates for a 2 year and 5 year fixed mortgage since January 2021

The latest analysis from Nous, revealed that there are now only three areas in London, the South East and the South West where a family could afford their own front door for less than £1,000 a month.

Based on the latest average house prices and mortgage rates with a typical 75% LTV ratio, the mortgage on a house in Plymouth would cost £990.53, the mortgage on a house in Gloucester would cost £941.18, and the mortgage on a house in the Forest of Dean would cost £993.17 per month.

In all other local authority areas in these regions, a mortgage on a house would cost more than £1,000 a month.

In the most expensive area in Britain, Kensington and Chelsea, the average mortgage on a house would cost almost £12,000 a month.

In July 2020, there were 61 local authority areas in Great Britain where the average monthly mortgage payment on a house would be more than £1,000, compared to 204 today. The increase has been driven by rising house prices and soaring interest rates.

According to the Bank of England, the interest rate on a typical 2-year 75% LTV mortgage rate was 5.5% in the month to 30 June 2023. In the month to 30 June 2020 the typical interest rate for the same mortgage was 1.41%.

Greg Marsh, CEO and founder Nous said: ‘The combination of soaring interest rates and prices pushed up by the pandemic-era race for space has hammered families’ ability to afford their own front door.

‘Across the whole of the South of England, it’s now all but impossible to buy a house with a mortgage of less than £1,000 a month.

‘All this is happening while prices of everyday essentials are still soaring and energy bills are almost twice as expensive as they were two years ago, causing acute hardship for millions of households.

Plymouth is one a few places in the south west of England where monthly mortgage prices have stayed below £1,000

In the most expensive area in Britain, Kensington and Chelsea (pictured), the average mortgage on a house would cost more than £11,000 a month

‘My advice is to get your finances in order and save where you can.’

Earlier this week the treasury reportedly held talks with MPs, the Bank of England and lenders offering 40-year deals, which offer one interest rate for the entirety of the loan, as part of a new plan to help more people get on the property ladder.

The longer term deals are likely to be cheaper than shorter ones and can be easier for first-time buyers to obtain while helping to protect against any future interest rate hikes.

Discussions have been held over regulatory changes that could help more firms offer the deal, including lowering capital requirements and easing loan-to-income limits.

Currently the average two-year fixed rate is 6.83 per cent, according to Moneyfacts, and the average rate for a five-year loan is 6.34 per cent.

Mortgage rates have soared over the past two months as disappointing inflation data increased the chance of further Bank of England base rate rises.

As a result, swap rates – the bank borrowing rates which reveal where the financial markets think fixed-rate mortgage prices will be in two and five years’ time – have been rising.

However, better-than-expected inflation data from June put some confidence back in the market and swaps are now falling with some high street lenders including HSBC and Nationwide reducing the rates on their fixed mortgages.

The news offers a glimmer of hope for homeowners, who have been struggling with the mortgage shock when coming off lower fixed rates.

Elliot Taylor, director of Taylor Chartered Surveyors, told MailOnline that current mortgage prices are the worst he has seen in recent years. , based in London, is optimistic that rates will continue to fall over the next few months but highlighted how volatile the market can be.

He said current mortgage prices for those looking to buy a house are the worst he has ever seen in recent years following a sudden increase in the past few months.

He said: ‘There is a feeling of nervousness with people looking to buy a new house due to the fluctuating house prices and there are definitely less people moving as a result.’

‘It is impossible to say whether we are at a low point in the market. But there is a feeling that house prices will recover.’

He is uncertain when mortgage prices will stabilise but said: ‘We won’t be going back to mortgage rates of one or two percent, rather rates between three and four percent will likely become the new normal.

‘People will make sacrifices to live in the property they want to live in rather than spending money when going out.’

However, cutting back on everday costs is becoming increasingly challenging for people amid the current cost of living crisis and soaring energy bills.

This is certainly the case in one seaside town in Wales where the cost of housing has led to people becoming financially overstretched and are now spending less on their local highstreets.

Penarth is a well-heeled Victorian town on the Vale of Glamorgan coastline, which has a 22,000-strong population, many working in the Welsh capital of Cardiff just a few miles away.

The town has a 22,000-strong population, many of which commute to the capital for work

The cost of housing in Penarth has led to some people living there becoming financially overstretched

Carer Tracey Davies, 53, who works in the town said: ‘I think it is ridiculously expensive here. People are over-stretching themselves all the time and there will be a price to pay.

‘Shops are closing in the main street. Every time you look around you see another shop has gone – Shaws the Drapers, M and Co, all sorts are going. That is because people haven’t got enough money to spend because of the cost of housing.

‘You see house prices going up around here all the time because it is desirable place to live. I agree but there is no point in crippling yourself.’

Nurse Sue Burge, 63, said: ‘Yes Penarth is a lovely place to live but people are being driven away by the high prices.

‘I have four children who would love to return to the town to live but only one can afford it.’

She added that people moving out of London in pursuit of a more rural setting are beating out locals for new properties which has caused further increases in house prices.

Sue said: ‘We noticed a lot of people from London are moving here. It is all about quality of life – they can work from home and are still only a couple of hours away from London on the train.

‘That is driving up prices from local people around here. It is a lot cheaper to live in Cardiff then here.’

Sue’s daughter Zowie, 41, a business owner, lives just a few miles away in Cardiff, where house prices are much cheaper. She is keen to move back to the seaside town but can’t yet afford it.

She said: ‘I would love to come back here to live but it is just so expensive these days. Once you move out it is very hard to come back.

‘Getting a mortgage when you have your own business can be very difficult too because there is so much paperwork. I live in Cardiff but love coming back to visit my family.

‘Yes there are a lot of people from London moving around here, some second homes and some just few a better life balance. It is cheap compared to London but it is not worth overstretching yourself.’

Carer Tracey Davies, 53, who works in the town, thinks house prices are ‘ridiculously expensive’

Nurse Sue Burge, 63, has four children that all want to move back to the town but only one of them is able to afford it

Sue’s daughter Zowie, 41, a business owner, lives just a few miles away in Cardiff, where house prices are much cheaper

Zowie said that it is very hard to move back to Penarth after she moved out and added that getting a mortgage as a business owner can be a lengthy process

She added that many people from London have bought properties in the area either to use as a second home or move away from the city

Kai Logan, Group Marketing DIrector at Bradleys Estate Agents, which operates across Cornwall, Devon and Somerset, has noticed more people are selling their homes across the region.

He said: ‘With a greater choice for home movers to choose from, there is a greater chance of seeing a property of interest which will inspire more sellers to in turn, market their home.

‘This is however, in line with a typical housing market following the drought of properties in the wake of the pandemic.

‘Buyers registering with us over recent weeks has also increased showing there is still a healthy demand for properties in Somerset, Devon and Cornwall.

The average monthly mortgage price in Cornwall has increased by 2.02% since July 2020, but other areas in the south west have seen worse rises.

For people living in the South Hams, a local government district along the south coast of Devon, prices soared from £687.82 in 2020 to £1507.21 this year. North Devon has also a 2.05% increase, with prices going from £541.75 to £1111.63.

Kai said: ‘Buyers should be getting an agreement from a mortgage lender on their affordability so they can shop the range of properties being marketed with confidence.

‘We are seeing transaction timescales slowly reduce where lenders, local authorities and other third parties involved in the conveyancing process are getting on top of their workloads and so moving forward there is optimism for the West Country property market.’

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Welcome back, Samuel Beckett | Culture

The 20th century brought us Stalin, Mao, two world wars, the Holocaust, atomic bombs and a couple more carnages that I would rather not recall. Several million people died as a result, according to the most conservative calculations. Logically, the soul of Europeans was shaken, and it is admirable that we have survived as a species. A Martian would have expected us to commit suicide once and for all with a big nuclear bash.

The battered world conscience led to several new outcomes in terms of human representation. Living with the constant threat of extinction affected artists, who are the ones that truly represent us and not politicians. So the artists began to represent us as they saw us: strange, deformed, shapeless, anomalous, invisible, crippled, stuttering, or simply mute.

We have been more temperate for several years now, and it seems that we are now able to analyze that past, which was called “the avant-garde,” with some calm. Not everywhere, of course, but it is possible in a West that is fading, but which is no longer massacring its slaves. And the effect that this awareness of destruction had on literature was the emergence of a group of immense writers who could no longer represent humans in a luminous and heroic way, so to speak. However, it would be a very bad idea to leave them for dead. Joyce, Proust, Kafka, Faulkner, Bernhard, Manganelli, Benet, Rulfo — throughout the West, a literature took shape during the 20th century in which only the bare form remained with a capacity to simply be. And one of its main writers was Samuel Beckett.

It is a source of joy that this difficult, harsh, dark, but wise literature’s ability to fascinate, moralize and illuminate us has not run dry. And reading these artists is a very convenient way to understand that everything could go dark at any moment. I am currently celebrating the release of a new Spanish translation of Watt, Beckett’s last novel in English, by an affordable publishing house that can reach many students (Cátedra).

The story behind this novel is another novel in itself, well told by the translator José Francisco Fernández in his extensive foreword to the new Spanish version. Beckett wrote it while fleeing from one hideout to another as a member of the Resistance, pursued by the Nazis who were occupying France. In those absurd conditions, Beckett carried his notebooks, in which he was writing and annotating what would finally become the novel Watt, which is the name of the main character, who is as non-existent as Godot, the most famous of Beckett’s characters. Watt has a partner, Mr. Knott, whom he serves in a parody of the old novels of masters and servants that have been immortalized thanks to television series like Upstairs, Downstairs.

Rejected by the publishing world

Although he finished it in 1945, Watt was not published until 1953 after being rejected by almost all English and American publishers, who were very reluctant to recognize that this convulsive and sarcastic prose was a faithful portrait of 20th-century civilization. And once it was published it barely made an impact. It was not until 1968 (what a year!), when it was published in French by the Minuit publishing house, in the author’s version and with the help of the Janvier couple, that enthusiasm for the novel would begin to get some traction. The French powers-that-be recognized themselves in the portrait of the warped, disintegrated human race, described with a lacerating irony that the Irishman created out of nothing.

There were other effects that fascinated those who dominated literary opinion at the time. One of them was the obvious caricature of Descartes, a philosopher whom Beckett always counted among his favorites, and the reference to whom was immediately picked up by the masters of structuralism and deconstruction.

Welcome back, then, to our Beckett, a precise portraitist of terrifying years that could return at any moment.

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Culture

The Hat Worn By Napoleon Bonaparte Sold For $2.1 Million At The Auction

A faded felt bicorne hat worn by Napoleon Bonaparte sold for $2.1 million at an auction on of the French emperor’s belongings.

Yes, that’s $2.1 million!!

The signature broad, black hat, one of a handful still in existence that Napoleon wore when he ruled 19th-century France and waged war in Europe, was initially valued at 600,000 to 800,000 euros ($650,000-870,000). It was the centerpiece of Sunday’s auction collected by a French industrialist who died last year.

The Hat Worn By Napoleon Bonaparte Sold For $2.1 Million At The Auction

But the bidding quickly jumped higher and higher until Jean Pierre Osenat, president of the Osenat auction house, designated the winner.

‘’We are at 1.5 million (Euros) for Napoleon’s hat … for this major symbol of the Napoleonic epoch,” he said, as applause rang out in the auction hall. The buyer, whose identity was not released, must pay 28.8% in commissions according to Osenat, bringing the overall cost to 1.9 million euros ($2.1 million).

While other officers customarily wore their bicorne hats with the wings facing front to back, Napoleon wore his with the ends pointing toward his shoulders. The style, known as “en bataille,” or in battle, made it easier for his troops to spot their leader in combat.

The hat on sale was first recovered by Col. Pierre Baillon, a quartermaster under Napoleon, according to the auctioneers. The hat then passed through many hands before industrialist Jean-Louis Noisiez acquired it.

The entrepreneur spent more than a half-century assembling his collection of Napoleonic memorabilia, firearms, swords and coins before his death in 2022.

The sale came days before the release of Ridley Scott’s film Napoleon with Joaquin Phoenix, which is rekindling interest in the controversial French ruler.

Culture

The Call for AI Regulation in Creative Industries

THE VOICE OF EU | Widespread concerns have surged among artists and creatives in various domains – country singers, authors, television showrunners, and musicians – voicing apprehension about the disruptive impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on their professions.

These worries have prompted an urgent plea to the U.S. government for regulatory action to protect their livelihoods from the encroaching threat posed by AI technology.

The Artists’ Plea

A notable rise in appeals to regulate AI has emerged, drawing attention to the potential risks AI poses to creative industries.

Thousands of letters, including those from renowned personalities like Justine Bateman and Lilla Zuckerman, underscore the peril AI models represent to the traditional structure of entertainment businesses.

The alarm extends to the music industry, expressed by acclaimed songwriter Marc Beeson, highlighting AI’s potential to both enhance and jeopardize an essential facet of American artistry.

The Call for AI Regulation in Creative Industries

Copyright Infringement Concerns

The primary contention arises from the unsanctioned use of copyrighted human works as fodder to train AI systems. The concerns about AI ingesting content from the internet without permission or compensation have sparked significant distress among artists and their representative entities.

While copyright laws explicitly protect works of human authorship, the influx of AI-generated content questions the boundaries of human contribution and authorship in an AI-influenced creative process.

The Fair Use Debate

Leading technology entities like Google, Microsoft, and Meta Platforms argue that their utilization of copyrighted materials in AI training aligns with the “fair use” doctrine—a limited use of copyrighted material for transformative purposes.

They claim that AI training isn’t aimed at reproducing individual works but rather discerning patterns across a vast corpus of content, citing precedents like Google’s legal victories in the digitization of books.

The Conflict and Seeking Resolution

Despite court rulings favoring tech companies in interpreting copyright laws regarding AI, voices like Heidi Bond, a former law professor and author, critique this comparison, emphasizing that AI developers often obtain content through unauthorized means.

Shira Perlmutter, the U.S. Register of Copyrights, acknowledges the Copyright Office’s pivotal role in navigating this complex landscape and determining the legitimacy of the fair use defense in the AI context.

The Road Ahead

The outpouring of concern from creative professionals and industry stakeholders emphasizes the urgency for regulatory frameworks to safeguard creative works while acknowledging the evolving role of AI in content creation.

The Copyright Office’s meticulous review of over 9,700 public comments seeks to strike a balance between innovation and the protection of creative rights in an AI-driven era. As the discussion continues, the convergence of legal precedents and ethical considerations remains a focal point for shaping the future landscape of AI in creative industries.

Thank You For Your Support!

— By Darren Wilson, Team VoiceOfEU.com

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