Is the Housing Market a Rerun of the 1990s?

The Bank of England and the Financial Quality Authority have been making lenders apply a kind of stress test to whether people can live with higher interest rates. But I think there's another reason to be slightly more optimistic that we may not see a rerun of the early 1990s, which as you say, was a very difficult time in the housing market. Most people could probably live with the 10 to 15% fall in house prices that people talk about as being plausible without the mortgage being higher in value than the house value. The advice would be, look at your personal circumstances. Make sure you have a mortgage that you can afford and make sure you're not overpaying for a property,. but that