Merryn Somerset Webb

Where are all the first time buyers?

There has been much talk recently of the rise in the number of mortgage products available to those with small deposits. But the existence of these products is beginning to look rather more theoretical than actual. If they were really being granted to borrowers rather than just trumpeted in the press you might expect to see the number of first time buyers entering the market rising for example. But you aren’t seeing any thing of the sort. 

To read more click here

Ocado says it plans to let its shoppers buy its shares. Here's why you shouldn't

Back in March, when online grocer Ocado first said they were planning a £1bn launch, I wrote about it on the blog at moneyweek.com. I found the whole thing entirely bemusing and rather suspected that after firm words from a few of the banks, Ocado would quietly drop the whole idea. They have not. Instead they have hired almost every bank in the UK (not a bad move given that banks involved in IPOs rarely say nasty things about the firm paying their fees) alongside a smart PR agency and are offering anyone who has spent £300 or more with the last years. That is unlikely to exclude anyone who has ever used Ocado (getting one of their smart vans to pull up outside your house might impress the neighbours but it doesn’t come cheap). But presumably a large number of Ocado shoppers have some degree of financial savvy – or they wouldn’t be able to afford it in the first place – so why on earth would they take up this far from tempting offer?

To read more Click Here

New PM must use Greece as cover to cut the deficit now

I went on Moneybox Live on Saturday morning (you can listen to the show here). The conversation was, as one would have expected, all about the impact of the hung parliament on markets. Just how big a deal is it? I went in under the impression that not only is it a whoppingly big deal, but that everyone understood that.

Not so. The other two guests seemed to think that as long as sometime this week there was a "clear plan" for cutting the deficit, all would be well. They didn't even think said plan needed to show the cuts biting now. No, as long as said plan showed things getting going next year, that would be enough.

To read more Click Here

Why I hate the mansion tax

The sudden popularity of the Lib Dems after the first debate meant a sudden rush to catch up with their economic policies. But there is one policy – perhaps their most famous one – that people still don't seem to get.

It is the mansion tax. An article in The Times today claimed that it will really do for the central London rich – what with the "stuccoed house" in a Notting Hill garden square and the rectory in Gloucester, lots of them will find they have two houses worth more than £3m, and will therefore be hit with a bill of "at least £40,000 a year." Sounds nasty doesn't it? But it isn't quite right.

To read more Click Here

We are a nation of gamblers because we have no choice

for the last couple of decades, the Anglo-Saxon world has been swept by wave after wave of speculation. Where we used to trust in long-term savings vehicles, and assume that putting away money into regular deposit accounts was the best way to deal with our cash, we now leverage ourselves up to bet on property; we spread bet endlessly and we trade.

Here at MoneyWeek we get emails from perfectly ordinary people asking about everything from how they can bet on the differing spreads on European sovereign debt, to how best to buy repossessed houses in Florida and get exposure to the Canadian currency. And, of course, tens of thousands of Brits own houses all over Portugal, Spain and Bulgaria – some just as holiday homes, but most with the expectation of somehow cashing in too.

It sometimes feels a bit bonkers. But it is in fact entirely rational. Why? It is all about pensions.

To read more Click Here