Coping with the Credit Crunch Details

UK Households: Coping with the Credit Crunch?

Seminar Series

216 Squires Building, City Campus West, Northumbria University

The credit crunch is already having material effects on households that will deepen in the coming months. Households are experiencing a reassessment of their creditworthiness that impacts on their capacity to access consumer credit at affordable rates of interest. Limitations on the availability of particular mortgage products and risk-adverse lending standards, combined with falling house prices, also create challenges for existing home-owners and would-be first-time buyers. Thus, in policy terms, new patterns of financial exclusion and the sustainability of home-ownership are crucial issues coming to the fore.