Bank of England Issues Housing Boom Warning

Britain’s booming housing market could be heading for a fresh crash, the Bank of England said in its toughest warning yet about the dangers of the return of rapidly rising property prices.

Sir Jon Cunliffe, Threadneedle Street’s deputy governor for financial stability, said it would be dangerous to ignore the momentum apparent across the country and dropped strong hints of new measures to slow down the market in the months ahead.

On a day when it emerged that one in 15 London homes are now selling for £1m or more, Cunliffe said Britain had a history of booms turning to bust. “This is a movie that has been seen more than once in the UK.”

The Bank’s deputy governor said that there were always risks to financial stability “blinking on the dashboard” but made clear his concern about the possibility that borrowers taking on large mortgages could find themselves in trouble when interest rates inevitably rose.

“The growing momentum in the market is now in my view the brightest light on that dashboard”, Cunliffe said. “It has not yet been accompanied by a substantial increase in aggregate mortgage debt, though gross mortgage lending is growing and there are signs that debts are becoming more concentrated.”

via The Guardian

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