17.11.08 by Andrew Montlake

Light In The Gloom

It’s been a weekend of depressing stories in the press, quite apart from England’s cricket / rugby exploits, Cherie Lunghi leaving Strictly Come Dancing, and also the fact that we all work hard for a living whilst a young Hannah Montana is set to be a billionaire by age 20 !

It seems that many of us in the UK seem to be affected by Seasonal Affective Disorder, or SAD. This affects over 2 million people in the UK as less than 10% of the population work in natural outdoor light. This results in a dramatic increase in light deficiency symptoms which include depression, feelings of gloom and despondency for no apparent reason – mainly centered around the financial industry and certain journalists at present.

With this in mind it’s good to know that people are helping to keep us positive, like George Osborne, (not). My favourite quote around the whole talking down the value of the pound gaffe is from the wonderfully colourful Justin Urquart Stewart who said, “Political and economic lightweights usually make no impact. But if they are in a situation they don’t understand, playing with matches in a petrol station is a bad idea”.

So is there any good news at the moment in our industry? Well, I think there is. We are starting to see some interesting rates around at the moment as I was highlighting in The Observer this weekend.

Today we have also seen Northern Rock weigh in with a nice 3.99% fixed rate, albeit for 1 year, but this is a good option for many waiting for things to iron themselves out and get back to some sense of normality, (whatever the hell “normal” is now), over the next 12 months.

Abbey have some great rates and many other lenders are set to follow suit, albeit with the best products reserved for 60% to 75% Loan-To-Values.

Anyway, you have to start somewhere and these are definite green shoots which will help a lot of those who were worried about finding an affordable rate once their existing mortgages came to an end.

So keep positive and make sure you get out for at least a bit each day and get some light.

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