The UK housing market is not in a good place. Mortgage rates are up, buyers are disappearing and so are sellers. The former don’t want to dump money in a falling market, and they can’t afford mortgages at current prices anyway. The latter don’t want to accept that prices are falling in the first place. The result? A standoff. And that means the number of transactions are dropping. And while prices aren’t sinking very fast right now, what happens when sellers can’t hold out any longer? If the past is any guide, prices will fall very fast indeed—just like they did in the early 1990s. How far and how fast? In this week’s episode of the podcast Merryn Talks Money, Senior Editor Neil Callanan and Senior Reporter John Stepek join Merryn Somerset Webb to discuss the scope of the potential implosion. There are an awful lot of vested interests out there insisting that prices won’t fall more than 10%, but without government intervention, they warn prices may drop as much as 40%. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ask this episode

“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.