| Panorama spoke to a number of people able to offer advice on pressing property issues. Here are their top tips on buying in the current economic climate and how to cope if you are struggling to pay off your mortgage.  Suman: View your house as a home rather than a development |
Suman Antcliffe Advice Services Manager at the East Staffordshire Citizens Advice Bureau.  People need to view their house as a home and not a development or an investment and also that we need more social housing. If people run into difficulties, I would suggest they come immediately for advice, because you know we may be able to save their homes for them. If they run into difficulties with their mortgage they need to seek advice early, because most of the time we can help them save their homes
Professor of Housing Policy, University of York. We need to revisit the regulatory regime. We need to look again at the safety net, for home owners and we need to look at the use of mortgage guarantees as instruments in response to the kind of credit crunch. For individuals, given the way property prices are going at the moment, certainly I think they should be thinking about renting, rather than buying in the short term if they have options. If they are thinking about buying they need to put in a very low offer on properties because expectations are property values are to decline rather than anything else in the immediate future.
 Ray Boulger: Work on the basis the credit crunch will continue |
Ray Boulger Senior Technical Manager at John Charcol. Don't over commit yourself, work on the basis that the credit crunch is going to last for another two or three years, although I don't expect it to last that long but always budget for the worst case scenario. And do your budgets on the basis that if interest rates go up by one or two percent you're still solvent.
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