The Bank of England has been warned pushing interest rates to 7 per cent could send shock waves through Britain’s housing market and average prices tumbling.
Leading economist Allan Monks, of JP Morgan, said some indicators suggested the Bank of England’s key rate would have to rise a further 2 percentage points to 7 per cent to curb inflation as prices continued to climb.
Housing experts warned hiking the Bank’s base rate that high could be “game over” for the housing market, with one mortgage broker saying it could cause average prices to plummet.
But a leading economist said Britain was “not facing a 2007-2008 scenario”, and there was “no sign of any crash”.
Craig Fish, managing director at London-based mortgage broker Lodestone, said if interest rates hit 7 per cent, the mortgage market would “tank completely”.
“There would be massive consequences for the economy and for the housing market,” he said.
Borrowers are already panicking about the potential for interest rates to hit 6 per cent, Mr Fish said. “If you go to 7 per cent, we will see a lot of properties come onto the market and people will be forced to sell,” he added.
“If we see rates hit 7 per cent, I genuinely think house prices going down 35 per cent is possible. I think it is going to be dire. That is why I cannot see it going to 7 per cent, because it would just have such dire consequences.”
Tom Pugh, an economist at consultancy RSM, warned a base rate of 7 per cent – which would be the highest level since 1998 – would “start to break things” and he predicted house prices could fall by more than a fifth.
“Interest rates at 6 per cent would be enough to push the economy into a mild recession. But even a mild recession would quite reliably strip inflation out of the economy. So I don’t think you need to go that extra percentage point to push the economy into a deeper recession.”
Riz Malik, director of Southend-on-Sea-based independent mortgage broker R3 Mortgages, said further rate hikes could be “the straw that breaks the camel’s back”.
Mr Malik said Jeremy Hunt’s mortgage charter, agreed with a group of Britain’s biggest lenders to allow those struggling to switch to interest-only mortgages, would stave off a housing crash, protecting homeowners from foreclosure.
But he highlighted the devastating impact of interest rate hikes so far, saying his clients’ mortgages were being pushed up by between £300 and £700 a month.
He expected house prices to fall by between 10 and 15 per cent at the beginning of the year, and said if interest rates increased further some homeowners would be pushed into negative equity – where a person’s mortgage is larger than what their house is worth.
But Professor Abhinay Muthoo, a fellow at the National Institute for Economic and Social Research, insisted there was “no need to panic” as Britain is “not in a 2007-2008 [Global Financial Crisis] scenario”.
He told The Independent: “Nothing crazy is happening, there is no need to panic. The financial crisis of 07/08, that was panic time. We are not there. But people who are already suffering right now will suffer more.”
He said the upper middle class and richer households “will be just fine” if rates reached 7 per cent. And Prof Muthoo said that while this would have “implications for mortgage rates”, it would be “nothing crazy like double digits”.
He called for the government to provide urgent support for those on lower incomes, already struggling with higher food and energy bills.
“The treasury needs to find a way to provide targeted support to the people who need it,” he added.
