Genie: national scheme means you can buy a house without a deposit

You guys, and girls, really need to be more careful with your headlines. While this page reads, 'Genie: national scheme means...', the email headline reads, 'Nationwide scheme allowing you...'. Now while 'Nationwide' could mean nation-wide, it could also refer to Nationwide, the building society known to the vast majority of LoveMoney readers. I would expect greater clarity from a team expected to write educated stories about money and its influences on our lives. Please leave the sensationalism for the likes of The Sun and The Mirror. We don't want flashy photos of Sheryl Cole's knickers, or the latest goss from Hollywood. All we want is a matter-of-fact appraisal of Money and how it affects us. As for this scheme, bring back genuine Building Societies, instead of banks posing as such. Building Societies charged interest on home loans provided by savers who saw a good rate of return for their savings. A bank loan is currently around the 10% APR, while a bank savings account is around the 0.0000000000000000000000000000125% APR (Just me being facetious). As for property prices, I don't think they are actually the issue. I think the real issue is that wages and salaries haven't kept up with inflation and other indexes over the years. We are earning less now than we were some thirty years ago, inflation adjusted. So house prices have remained constant, but our earnings have dwindled. Given the fact that half of the UK is, according to government statistics, on the Breadline, and well over a million people each month rely on Pay Day loans, and not forgetting that over 1.5 million motorists have now given up their cars because they became unaffordable, no one can blame the housing market for this shortfall in cash. Even I have become a victim of the so called recession, where my employer has not awarded me an inflation matching pay rise, due to market conditions. Ironic that they can splash out on other activities such as parties for the staff, and a new helicopter for the boss (the old one was looking tatty after two years of service). Oh, and I should also point out that Sir Tony Blair and Sir Gordon Brown encouraged mass immigration to drive the labour market down. What with foreign nationals doing well paid jobs for minimum wage, no wonder bosses have never had it so good. In fact, my old employer won't employ anyone who doesn't speak fluent Polish, for the simple reason it is far cheaper to employ them. (I have nothing against anyone, but merely demonstrating how commerce has taken advantage of a cheap labour pool from Eastern Europe, eroding our own social structure to the bare bone). How does this affect me? It doesn't. I am already on the housing ladder with a place I love to live in, in a location I adore. This is not to mean I don't feel for those being screwed by a corrupt system. If I could help, I would, but my tax burden is already too great. It is the duty of our leaders to see us all right, so it is about time they started earning their £72 grand a year salaries, and do something for the people, rather than their greedy selves.

Late 80's people were in over their heads with mortgages in a house price rise few believed would stop. Nobody could or wanted to stop it - 6% was norm? Then crash....... Next, I recall the banks doubled the interest rate overnight in 93 - remember 14-16% anyone? Sadly, many lost their jobs and homes, bad.. but that was because like now, property is over valued, people were invited to get in too deep because the banks smelled cash!! 2007 Deja vu? but this time govt. are artificially keep most banks afloat with your money and housing prices up with cheap money. Pretty soon we'll be like Japan with generational mortgages (oooh that's another plan!) :-( The country is living beyond it's means, has been for years, it's time for a correction but we won't learn.. you can't get a quart from a pint pot!

Yet more proof the market is way over valued and nothing is being done to correct this. In fact, the government are manipulating the market to keep prices high whilst savings and pensions are robbed. This is not a Conservative party in charge. My experience of many years tells me that you either buy with a straight forward repayment mortgage over 25 years, or don't bother.