Loans Scotland

The IMF (International Monetary Fund) is predicting that house prices will fall after rising 50% more than they should have done over the past decade. They are overinflated and need a correction. Fortunately we are not alone -it is even worse in Spain and Ireland. As far as the IMF are concerned, the European housing market needs correction to be sustainable in the long term.

Do we think that Britain’s addiction to investing in property is about to come to an end? Not likely. Every drop in price will simply lead to investors “bargain hunting” because we are so damned irrational about the whole thing.  Anyway, none of the analysts think that there will be a full scale crash, more like a 2-3 percent fall over the next couple of years.

First it was was taper relief, now self-employed entrpreneurs are going to find mortgages tricky to access. Its time to jump ship to the public sector.

The Mortgage Lender (TML) found that a quarter of mortgage applications from the self-employed and those with poor credit histories, though accepted even a couple of months ago, would most probably be turned down today. This reflects a new mood of caution among mortgage lenders about people they define as high risk, as concerns mount over bad debts following the collapse of the sub-prime mortgage market in the US.

Some British mortgage lenders are now requiring new borrowers to put down a larger deposit than has been the case in the recent past before they will advance any money on a property.

Fear not though, this market is so competitive that lenders will come back to the feast as soon as the credit crunch is forgotten.

In a shocking volte-face that left the good people of the central belt speechless, the Labour government has decided to start supporting married couples with the admission that “children notice” when their parents are married. As Chief Secretary to the Treasury says “I don’t seek to preach to anybody, but in an abstract way I think it’s better when children are in a home where their parents are married and I think children do notice if their parents are married or not.” errrrrrrr right!

However, there is a lot of members of the labour nomenklatura who have an ideologicaly aversion to marriage arguing that it diminishes single parents so dont expect Labour to support marriage immediately… there is another year or two until the next election, for god’s sake.

This wouldn’t be a tory policy would it.

Read more about it in the torygraph

Research from Orange (the mobile phone to internet company) discovered that one third of respondents who wanted to start a business in England and Scotland were worried that starting a business would effect their lovelife. Other concerns among those who had considered starting a business included the fear of becoming more aggressive (33%), of adding pressure to family life (25%) and of getting less sleep (32%).

Almost half the people were thinking about setting up a business, but most had one fear or another about failure. One of the characteristics of entrepreneurs is both a drive to succeed and a lack of fear. What I do not know is whether this is a byproduct of entrepreneurship or a prerequisite. What is certain is that most people will not start their own business and for most people they will really miss out on the excitement of creating and making something happen.

Here in Scotland, we really suffer from a fear that leads to few people starting meaningful entrepreneurial businesses as opposed to small lifestyle businesses. What people should realise is that starting a business means you do lose sleep, you do worry, you lose focus on the family… however it also means that that become precise, sharp. In short the world is in focus.