There is no doubt in my mind we've got a mortgage drought on our hands and only the most financial fit are going to get to the cool "Low Rate" mortgage oasises.

Talking to my mortgage advisor yesterday made it really hit home about how little was on offer for first time buyers or buyers with little deposit. She said to get anywhere near a decent rate of interest I would need to come up with 25% deposit, or to make the most of the low 0.5% base rate, I would need 40%.
A fifth of all mortgage products left on the shelf require 40% deposit!

So based on an average 3 bedroom detached house in East Sussex costing £230,000 you would be required to put up a whooping £92,000 and then a further £2,300 stamp duty.

No wonder only 31,000 mortgages have been approved in the last month, only a few can afford the deposit.

Just a thought, but what would happen if all MP's had there expenses taken away, how much of the tax payers money is spent on the lavish life styles of politicians?

To be fair a limited amount of expensive are justifiable but some of the MP expensive claims are utterly ridiculous such as £1600 for a window cleaner for Stevenage MP Barbara Follett. When expenses claims like this are made and paid I find myself asking, who is their window cleaner? If a window cleaner gets paid £1600 a year one year for one house, I'm in the wrong job!

So if all these expenses were pulled, how much money could go back into doing something positive for the UK economy?

The latest news from the banking minister that "100% mortgages were foolish!". NO SHIT SHERLOCK! Any switched on person could have told you that years ago! Only now after the world's economy's are crumbling do the government realise it was a bad idea and all the party's start playing the blame game.

Up until the banking crisis started you could get a 125% mortgage, you could even borrow upto 6 times you annual salary. It is just another way the greedy bankers were trying to make more money until it all fell flat on its face. And who has to pick up the pieces from this mess, yes you got it, the tax payer!

Due to the threat of the total meltdown in the banking industry, the tax payer has bailed some major banks with billions. But even with the huge cash injection to get the banks moving again, it is almost impossible to get a mortgage. If you want a mortgage now that is NOT a rip-off rate you are going to need at least 25% deposit, or for the best rates 40% deposit. Well that's pretty much killed the first time buyer market. First time buyers are essential to the housing market, someone has to buy at the bottom of the chain so everyone can move up!

I don't know who's worse, the mind numbingly stupid government or the greedy fat bankers!

Everyone is talking about the housing market and what 2009 will hold for anyone wanting to buy or sell a property. But with so much contradictive information being thrown at us, it makes a very confusing outlook for the general public.

For the last year the word from the media and has been very gloomy with their reports from the Nationwide and Halifax of the month by month drop in house prices. On the other hand if you speak to an estate agent they will tell you a different story. Some have implied the Nationwide and Halifax are over exaggerating and whilst admitting a minor drop in the market, it all just a media storm in a tea cup.

Only today whilst do my usual internet search for property price index information did I come across one of the most confusing messages about the property market so far. Right next to each other 2 headlines, one telling me that house prices had gone up last month (Jan 09) and the green shoots of recovery could be seen, and the other telling me that the housing market was set to drop a further 30% this year. Has the media really been flooded with so much information so quickly that they actually report conflicting information on the same page of their own publication.

SO what can we really expect to see from the housing market in 2009??
I don't think we should be looking to estate agents for the answers, they have no choice but to try and talk the market up. The housing market slump is certainly affecting their cash flow, insider knowledge tells me that some of the independent estate agents are cutting wages to try and prevent them from going to the wall.

It is my personal opinion that you can not trust the banks since I firmly believe they are the main cause of this recession and are not doing a damn thing to help us get out of it. Irresponsible lending around the globe has caused the problem and the greed of the bankers are preventing us returning to a stable market.

The birth of the Big Pod Blog is tonight friday the 13th, maybe that's an omen but fuck it i'm not that superstitious and I probably won't finish building the blog until tomorrow anyway.

What is the Big Pod Blog? (I just realised what a mouth full that is!)

Well, the BPB is just my thoughts and comments about everything, stuff thatis going on in the media, the business world and probably just random chat about online earning. I'm not expecting much of a interaction from the world to start with but I hope that with a bit of networking I can increase the user interaction and create an interesting blog.

Over the last 10 year of being a web developer I like to think I have gained a reasonabily wide knowledge of useful technical skills, if not to mension leanrt a little about internet user's behaviours.