China has raised interest rates for the first time since 2007

China has raised interest rates for the first time since 2007, as it tries to rein in inflation and dampen its red-hot real estate market.


The People's Bank of China said it will raise its one-year lending rate to 5.6% from 5.31% and its one-year deposit rate to 2.5% from 2.25%.

Pink Residential,Chilli.

At the beginning of the week it was announced again that house prices were to fall, I personally remain unconvinced. This keeps rearing its ugly head, with the threat of negative equity, but with the shortage of housing and the cost of land and building new houses remaining high, a substantial fall seems unlikely.


This, of all weeks, means our concern over such matters needs to be brought into perspective. A developing country has been brought together as they have strived to bring about a fantastic feat in engineering, to save the miners and reunite families whom must have had the most traumatic times in their lives. It is wonderful news that the miners in Chilli have been successfully rescued.

Buy to Let

Can you believe the rental market?  Since the children went back to school the rental market is really strong.  The properties available are limited and mostly moving off of the market quickly.  This can surely only encourage the Buy-to-Let purchasers, especially as the interest rate stays low.  With the Conservative Party cost cutting exercises to reduce the national deficit, will more people turn to rented accommodation.  Indeed, will more people invest in property, as Buy-to-Let, to reduce their savings and make them cash poor?  We wait and we will see. 

Child Benefit Changes

The big financial news this week was the planned withdrawal of Child Benefit from the higher tax payers, announced on Monday, and in the wake of that the Conservative Party Conference was held. This too included much on the need to 'tighten belts' due to the nation's deficit.

How will this effect the housing market? You can never tell!

There is always the need to move; growing or shrinking families, change of workplace, school catchments and changes in family situations.

Fundamentally there can not be too much ' belt tightening ' as this would cause the recovery to go into decline; naturally this is not the required result. However, the most important part of the chain is getting the committed first time buyer in place, as of yet the first time buyer has not been financially targeted.