We ask the experts if they think repossessions will become reality in W4

Another week, another round of credit crunch stories complete with their ‘end is nigh’ headlines for the property market. With the city in such turmoil and more jobs set to be lost, do the local experts believe that a ‘surge in repossessions’ is set to hit Chiswick?

Berkeley Consultants' Stephen Rogers told ChiswickW4.com “Certainly with the typical cross section of Chiswick residents that we deal with, I would say that it could be possible, even when extracting W4 from the national statistics.

“Although the average salary earner in Chiswick might be higher than the national average, the amount of jobs held down by residents of W4 that would be affected by the current crunch knock on effect is also greater. City jobs and bonuses have all been at risk for the last 12 months and for that matter the next 12 months, so the law of averages applies that mortgage possession claims could hit our area.

“It is worth considering though that mortgage possession claims only represents the first stage in repossession and lenders are genuinely working towards aiding borrowers in repossession to arrive at a debt recovery plan.”

From an agent’s viewpoint, Oliver Finn’s Christian Harper said, “I think it would not be professional for me to comment on the entirety of W4’s financial position but I think it is fair to generally say that we have not been as heavily affected with a downturn in the market as some areas of the UK and hence. Due to this, when owners are coming to remortgage their properties they are able to get them valued up and thus move to slightly more competitive rates than base rates.

“The problem of repossession stems from existing mortgage borrowers coming to end of their fixed rates and then facing huge increases in monthly payments which they are unable to avoid as lenders are either declining to lend due to loan to value or the considered value of the property.

As more and more of us come to the end of our fixed rates I feel this problem will certainly increase and we might start to see the highly geared buy to let owners finding problems meeting their payments and thus repossessions might creep in, not so far from home”.

Faron Sutaria’s Christopher Simon added “Even though the market is pretty terrible at the moment, I don’t think Chiswick will be affected by repossessions. I can see other areas such as Shepherds Bush being affected as there are many more first time buyers. So far this year, I haven’t had one repossession to attend.”

May 15, 2008