A couple with a first baby sought my advice: they had accepted a low offer for their cramped London flat and bid the asking price for a nice house in commuterland. But they need a bigger mortgage and if Brexit leads to a property crash, they could face negative equity and financial stress. Should they call the whole thing off?
Emphatically I said they should not: buying a family home is a long-term choice, rarely regretted, in which fluctuating value matters far less than whether you love the house and whether (as in their case, I gathered) income is sufficient to support the mortgage. Conventional wisdom, perhaps, but I’m pleased to see the nation thinking the same way: the property website Rightmove reports a 6.1 per cent year-on-year surge in agreed sales in the month to mid-August, with rises of up to 10 per cent in the east and north-east, with many buyers pressing for completion before 31 October.
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