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Introduction
If you would indulge me, I should like to go even further and say that what I see out there in the UK property market truly scares me. Nearly every website I visit has "price predictors" of what your property "might" be worth in 5 years time. Or every time I switch on the TV, there is another programme about how to find your "dream home", how to increase the value of your home or what is the next "up and coming" area to buy in....and so on. Truly, it has become a national obsession and I am sorry to say, in financial terms, an unhealthy one- as it was with the trading of "tech stocks" in the US just a couple of years ago. As the old adage says, "what goes up has to come down"! This is not something that you will hear from most "advisors". The current generation, who were not homeowners in the 1970s or in the late 1980s/early 1990s - just no longer face the reality that negative equity is a very real possibility. In the modern era, there is no such thing as an "island" economically speaking. If there was, God forbid, a series of terrorist attacks in London tomorrow- do you think that a house in Camberwell (which has no underground sytem and the worst crime rate in London) would be worth £2 million in five years? - which I was just informed that would be the case by an online "property predictor". And if interest rates in the United States rose to 8% - can the Bank of England (whose warnings about property prices have gone unheeded for years) avoid following suit? Still, we do not know about our position of joining Europe- whereby Brussels would set our interest rates. All these points aside, as we all should know, these economic ups and downs run in cycles and we have been in rather a long "up" cycle over the last decade! Just plain common sense tells you, when you look at the average salaries per family, the average savings vs. debt per family and other economic factors- rises in property prices are just not sustainable. The attitude I have seen amongst my children's generation of simply re-mortgaging to wipe off their credit card debt- and then the next year "maxing" their cards again- I find extremely depressing and irresponsible. However, enough of my ranting and raving which has no doubt put the fear of God in you and turned you off ever getting a mortgage....!!! What I have been attempting to say is that we have tried to make this website as unbiased and independent as is humanly possible, with no "axes to grind", so to speak. Getting a mortgage can be an excellent financial decision in the long-term, allowing you to have something very important in your life- a home! It can also create long-term stability in your finances and create security for you and your loved ones. By laying out all the information that you will ever need about UK mortgages, I hope to have in some way helped you in this very important step that you are thinking of taking. Yours Truly,
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Firstly, I would like to introduce myself. My name is Max Castell and I have been dealing in UK property most of my adult life, both making and losing fortunes of money! The motivation behind this website is not to "advise" you, but rather "inform" you of what I feel you need to know before making probably the biggest financial decision of your life. I have become so frustrated with the lack of truly independent support there is for such guidance both on and offline. While many websites appear to be offering "free and independent advice", it is in reality completely done with a vested interest- in pushing you to one or other of their "partners", so that they will make money in commission. This is understandable- everybody needs to eat!- but the fact remains that they do this by not revealing all the facts and information that it is out there.