Steph McGovern

And your point being that if it's about confidence, if that's our biggest hit, that'll stop people spending and that will bring inflation down.

Yes.

So in terms of what lenders are thinking around all of this, because you get an interesting take from looking at what is happening with the prices being offered for mortgages, the rates being offered.

So across the world, so Europe and North America, the mortgage costs have risen sharply.

It's been steepest in the UK.

We've talked about this before.

We always seem to be the country that everyone assumes is going to be hardest hit by geopolitics, by

big hits on the global economy.

So just looking at some specifics for you, the average rate on a two-year fixed mortgage with 75% loan-to-value ratio has increased from 3.97% in February to 5.1% in April.

Good God.

So that is a big jump.

So February to now.

Yeah.

That is a huge jump in terms of what you will get offered for a mortgage that you are taking out now if you're remortgaging or you're buying a new home and getting a mortgage on it.

That's a big jump.

On the basis of rates not changing in that time, this is an assumption that things are going to get tougher.

A lot of the lenders had priced in rate cuts that they thought were going to happen.

But also to himself as well, because in the US, if you look at what's happening with mortgage rates there, a 30-year mortgage rate is 6.36% there.

And that is back where it was before the Fed started cutting rates.

So, you