This is Money Blog

Top stories of the past week

This post appeared as a column in this week's Mail on Sunday. Also, don't miss: This is Money's 1.2m readership and the top stories of the month

The most clicked-on stories of the past week perfectly capture the problem facing millions of Britons.

Soaring oil and global food prices, largely a result of China's growing appetite for commodities,  has pushed up UK petrol costs, heating bills and prices in supermarkets. Add in repeated inflation-busting council tax hikes over the past six years and you have the perfect financial storm that now faces us all.

First-time buyers are feeling the pinch most: priced out of an expensive market and in need of larger deposits to secure a mortgage, following a post-credit crunch tightening of lending criteria.

To add to the misery it now emerges (story no.5) that with potential buyers spooked by the faltering property market, demand for rented property is on the rise. For the first time, the average home costs more than £1,000 per month to let. Typical repayments on the average £100,000 mortgage, on the other hand, are still  barely more than £700.

And the final blow? Rising commodity prices means greater inflation pressure, and that's what prevented the Bank of England cutting rates this week (story no.3). The storm couldn't be more perfect.

1. Thousand estate agents closed this year
2. Four ways to ease petrol price pain
3. Price fears hold Bank back from a rate cut
4. Spending power is at a 17-year low
5. Property turmoil sees rents hit £1,000
6. Advice for Inside Track victims
7. Midas share tips: HBOS rights issue
8. Warren Buffett tips South Korea
9. Microsoft mobile could pip iPhone
10. Tie up your money for better income

- Andrew Oxlade, Editor, This is Money

Most-read stories this week on This is Money

10 most-read stories of the week
(Number of reader comments as of 13.00pm on 02/05)

1. Buy-to-let giant Inside Track goes bust (53)
2. Bank bail-outs to be kept secret (44)
3. House prices now lower than a year ago (53)
4. Is buy-to-let on the brink of collapse? (42)
5. Midas: should you buy in RBS cash call? (5)
6. Mortgages 'to rise by £230 a month' (25)
7. Opec: Petrol to hit £1.50 a litre this year (41)
8. Earn instant interest on new e-bond (3)
9. Abbey's 'bargain' holiday credit card offer (2)
10. Thousands face a £245 road tax rise (13)

Two issues dominated the attention of our readers this week. News on Wednesday that property investment firm Inside Track had gone under drew enormous numbers.

This cheerleader of the buy-to-let boom had made its money running seminars that promised massive returns to punters prepared to buy up strings of urban new-build flats, often well before completion.

Reality often failed to fulfil the promise, and This is Money and Financial Mail have a proud record over the years of warning would-be investors against swallowing the hard-sell of firms like Inside Track - and of airing the stories of individuals who have been scuppered by rental returns and flat valuations well below billing.

Some of our readers' 53 comments, however, expressed little sympathy with those who fell foul of Inside Track's lure. Some also questioned the ethics of buy-to-let landlordism, and others asked if the market had collapsed - our buy-to-let market analysis article was another hit.

Close on the rails was last week's Financial Mail front-page revelation that the Bank of England will not be disclosing which banks dip into its £50bn credit crunch finance. This ran all week and amassed 44 comments, largely disparaging of a perceived arrogance in the Old Lady's handling of taxpayers' money.

This reflects a year-long burgeoning of interest not only in the credit crunch, particularly as it starts to affect households directly, but also in the condition of our big banks' finances, and whether bail-outs are justified.

- Adrian Lowery, Assistant editor

Top stories on This is Money: April 2008

This is Money has just had its best month ever: more than 1.2 million people visited the site in April, a corking 50% up on the same month last year. They looked at nearly 9.5 million pages, which is 37% more than in April 2007.

News and analysis of anxious economic and financial times is attracting most interest, along with advice on savings. The burgeoning number of comments being posted on articles also reflects people's key concerns.

Foremost among which evidently is the property market. Not only were the two most-read articles of the month (see below) on house prices but also these, together with Nationwide's latest figures, have received nearly 200 comments from readers.

Interest in the condition of buy-to-let (taking spots 3 and 4) was redoubled by the news this week that cheerleaders Inside Track have gone bust - a story that comes in at 7th despite being only two days old. You can read our record of warning punters against the rash promises of such firms here.

As doom and gloom appear to descend, more people are seeking advice. Isa-fever set in before and after the tax-year deadline, with four of our Isa advice pieces in the top 20.

Most-read stories in April:
1.  House prices falling faster than 90s crash
2.  UK homes overvalued by 30% says IMF
3.  Is buy-to-let on the brink of collapse?
4.  Buy-to-let novices face mortgage ruin
5.  Bank bail-outs to be kept secret
6.  Are you at risk? The UK sub-prime map
7.  Buy-to-let giant Inside Track goes bust
8.  House prices fell by £5,000 in March
9.  Barclays leads with 6.5% cash Isa
10. How safe is your bank?
11. The top 10 cash Isas of the year
12. Could Kaupthing Edge be the next Rock?
13. Savings bonanza erupts in fixed-rates
14. Revealed: the real rate of inflation
15. HSBC offers to pick up mortgage casualties
16. Former BBC presenter's £40,000 debt
17. Interest rates cut by quarter-point to 5%
18. Will you choose a cash Isa or a crash Isa?
19. How to buy a bargain home in a slowdown
20. Most consistent cash Isas revealed

Not counted above, our best savings rates tables, which are independently researched and updated daily, have gained a web-wide reputation, used by 100,000 visitors this month:
>> Best savings rates tables

- Adrian Lowery, Assistant editor

Web Week: Top stories from This is Money

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/unfairbankcharges

A first-stage victory in the High Court for victims of excessive bank charges has enflamed debate on This is Money.

On one side are customers angry at being charged up to £38 a time for going overdrawn when the real cost to banks is estimated at £4. A legal stand-off allowed thousands to reclaim 'excessive charges' in county courts but future claims are on hold.

On the other side are customers in the black who believe it is right to penalise those unable to manage their finances: the fees were clear in the smallprint and, hey, it has enabled banks to subsidise basic services elsewhere and avoid monthly fees for all. 

But that ignores the injustice of many individual cases. Ben Manicom, a thrifty 20-year-old from Liskeard, Cornwall, has just been charged £57 in a week for going £2.38 overdrawn – a result of Lloyds TSB’s new charging structure. The fees are lower, starting at £6, but are imposed every day an account is in the red: lower charges but now applied repeatedly. (Read the full story on Ben)

If such changes are deemed unfair, it could spell the end of the free banking system. Like a hole in the dyke, if one exit is closed another will be forced open by a banking industry determined to maintain profits.

A more transparent system is fairer and inevitable, but hundreds of readers in our debate certainly disagree: 30 hours since the decision and our bank charges story is up to 72 comments.

Most read stories from the past week
(Number of reader comments as of 6.30pm on 25/04)

1. House price slump fears deepen (17)
2. Banks lose first stage in charges battle (73)
3. Petrol rises 5p a litre in 48 hours (70)
4. House sales crisis halves property market (40)
5. Darling: Banks must help hard-hit families (15)
6. The best (and worst) savings deals
7. House prices: Why look at asking prices (4)
8. Mortgages slump as banks run out of cash (8)
9. Savings bonanza erupts in fixed-rates (11)
10. Norwich Union with-profits: Deadlocked (7)

- Andrew Oxlade, Editor, This is Money

Ticket to (take me for a) ride

Why, as the cost to companies of administrating ticket sales has plummeted in recent years, has the amount charged to consumers for the process soared?

You might suppose that booking tickets yourself on a website, which then sets off an automated processing and posting system, costs companies a lot less than manning box offices and phone lines. But then of course most tickets are now sold through agencies, which are parasitical, er sorry, profit-making enterprises.

Just as we've got used to being charged 20% of the cover price for the privilege of being sold tickets to various sorts of entertainment, so now the ruse has spread to train tickets. Trainline.com - the ticketing website that somehow has managed to maintain a high profile despite its user-unfriendliness - has just announced it will be introducing fees on ticket purchases.

There will be a booking fee of £2.50: it doesn't say whether this is per ticket or per booking, but you can bet your bottom dollar it's the former - which of course makes it not a booking fee but a ticket surcharge. On top will be levied the amusingly titled 'fulfilment fee'. Fulfilling the obligation to give you the ticket once it has been bought: well thank you trainline.com, you are really spoiling us. Anyway, it's £1.00 for post and 50p for picking up at the self-service machines in stations.

This might not be so irksome if it wasn't adding insult to the injury of grievously inflated rail fares. I'm frankly fed up of train operators each time they raise fares bleating about what great value their discounted advance tickets are. It's rubbish: they are rarer than the red squirrel. And twice as elusive.

Anyway, the solution is simple: don't use trainline.com. The major train operator websites like Virgin Trains and particularly National Express do a better job but aren't, as far as I know, charging for it.

If trainline.com needs to levy these fees to prop up margins and loses its customers as a result, then maybe that's the market's way of telling it that it doesn't deserve to exist as a profit-making enterprise.

- Adrian Lowery, Assistant Editor, thisismoney.co.uk

ITV1: Britain's Rich List Give It Away

ITV claims to be giving us a peak of this year’s publication of The Sunday Times Rich List, tonight with Britain’s Rich List Give It Away (ITV1 9.00pm). It will apparently 'exclusively reveal' the riches of some of the wealthiest individuals in Britain.

As well as a rundown of the wealthiest celebs, the highest earning rock stars and the mega rich self-made entrepreneurs, this year's sneak preview of the famous list has an added twist as Britain’s super rich are asked if they are giving away as much as they should.

Aided by Dr Philip Beresford, who has worked on the authoritative Sunday Times guide for 20 years, the programme counts down the bank balances of some of the UK’s most intriguing celebrities, from the guaranteed wealth of the Royal Family to individuals from the worlds of pop music, publishing and business.

While the key results will apparently remain a closely guarded secret the show will exclusively reveal some of the winners…and losers:

Going up

- David Beckham is raking in the cash in Los Angeles. He and his wife Victoria are up three places with a fortune of £125 million.
- Outstripping more famous businessmen is the man who owns ICAP, the world’s largest inter-dealer money broker. Michael Spencer’s leapt up 26 places to number 62 this year. He’s now officially a billionaire, with £1.15 billion.
- Andrew Lloyd Webber’s £750 million fortune has clinched him number 101= this year while fellow music mogul Simon Cowell sits at number 717= on the list.
- Sir Paul McCartney has won something this year - he’s top of the rockers list yet again with his £500 million fortune. The Sunday Times Rich List believes that McCartney is £100 million richer than was suggested in his recent divorce hearing because the court estimates of his wealth didn't appear to take account of the proceeds of Linda McCartney's will and undervalued his back catalogue of songs, image rights and recordings.
- By far the richest female rock star is the Goddess of Pop herself - Madonna. This year she and husband Guy Ritchie are worth £300 million, which makes them 270= on the Rich List.

Going down

- Maybe Sir Richard Branson should have pushed for Northern Rock - he’s down nine places but still sitting pretty on a £2.7 billion fortune.
- easyJet founder Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou has slipped down to 94=, but he's still got a massive £812m to play with.
- Heading up the creatively wealthy is JK Rowling. The seventh and final Harry Potter book had its usual impact and increased her fortune to £560 million, but she’s still fallen back a few places to number 144. 

Presented by entrepreneur and fitness club supremo Duncan Bannatyne (who’s on the Rich List himself with a £310million fortune), Britain’s Rich List also shows how:

- Britain’s super rich are getting richer: you now have to have a cool £80 million to even make the list of 1,000 (£70 million in 2007).
- There are seven more billionaires on the list this year, taking the total to 75.
Sex is relevant.
- There's a disappointing total of 96 women among Britain’s Richest 1,000.

If you want to join the super-rich. Don't miss...

How to invest like the world's best investor: http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/invest-like-warren-buffett

Britain's best paid jobs: http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/best-paid-jobs

How to get rich: http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/makemoney

Top stories of the week

Property market news regularly draws the most interest. And so it was this week, but with the top report attracting an unprecedented surge of readers. The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) warned house prices are now falling faster than during the darkest days of the early Nineties crash.

With a dizzying array of house price surveys and indices, why does the RICS report cause such concern? Firstly, the study is based on recent feedback from estate agents as opposed to asking prices or agreed sales, so economists regard it as a reliable early indicator. Secondly, it was first to show up the early Nineties slump.

However, it seems estate agents are helping talk themselves out of a job: a warning that a third of Britain's estate agents could be forced to close this year made second most popular report of the week. Interest, you would imagine, was driven by self-interest and schadenfreude rather than heartfelt concern.

Most popular new reports in the past seven days...
(Have your say on each report or post your comments below on this blog - email only required for verification and URL not required) 

1. House prices 'falling faster than 90s crash'
2. Fear of closure for 4,000 estate agents
3. Has your savings rate fallen?
4. Boost your pension pot by up to 63%
5. Soaring euro puts £200 on summer holidays
6. £50bn package to stave off recession
7. Lenders raise rates despite cut by the Bank
8. Borrowers face rate blow as inflation rises
9. Newspaper and magazine share tips
10. Banks battered on B&B cash-call fears

- Andrew Oxlade, Editor, This is Money

>> Top stories and record traffic: March 2008

Credit crunch? Bank are throwing loans away

Praise the Lord, I’m in the money. The pity is that it’s not actually mine; it’s my banks. They won’t stop throwing it at me, despite my protestations. But, wait a minute, aren’t we supposed to be in the throes of a credit crunch?

That’s the problem, you see, we are. So much so that banks are falling over each other to seduce High Street customers with great savings rates. They’re also keen to sever off any dead limbs, such as those customers that borrow money but always pay it back on time, robbing them of much-needed interest in the process. Could Egg please stand up?

But as they push these hapless customers away, they are just as keen to grab hold of another type and press them to their bosom: the borrowers that take on debt and can handle it, but only just.

That’s why I constantly got loan offers and unsought-after overdraft increases pushed through my letter box. I’m one of those people who spends like crazy, racks up debt, pays my due in interest charges, gets scared and then lives frugally for a time to pay it all off.

Banks like people like me now more than ever, mainly because we’re money-earners; they can lend to us, make a killing, but suffer little risk because we always come good.

Happy days all round? Not exactly. Anyone would be a fool to take advantage of many ‘deals’ now being offered by banks to some customers. They’re an expensive sweetner aimed at sugar-addicts who are liable to go on an all-out binge and line the chocolatier’s pockets in the process (we’re still talking about debt here).

For example, I have a modest overdraft with NatWest which is pushed to the limit at Christmas and when holidaying, but is always reigned back in. I have practically no credit card debt. As a result, I receive regular overdraft increases completely out of the blue that are absurd relative to my income.

I have now got an overdraft limit of over £5,000 which, at an interest rate of 19.41%, I will never use. Add to this offers of £10,000 loans over five years at a rate of 10.4% which, I must remind myself, I do not need and will pay £6,400 in interest for the privilege.

For the bank though, the offer makes complete sense because it’s all about making money.

Similarly, a colleague recently received a letter from Barclays offering secured loans of £15,000-100,000. It said it would waiver the £995 arrangement fee if they took up the deal before May 20, but this ‘deal’ was presented in terms of low monthly payments, not the total amount repaid.

A loan of £15,000 at a monthly rate of £155.22 over 300 months (these were the figures quoted) amounts to a total repayment of £34,566 (not quoted). The £100,000 would result in a repayment of £230,433 over the same period.
Why not look into remortgaging instead? And is encouraging people into ludicrous loans over 25 years now considered responsible lending?

I suppose the catch-cry of the banking industry is that it is just fine as long as the person can afford to make the repayments.

There’s also the credit crunch; banks need the money, and everyone needs them to stay afloat.

After all, the end justifies the means. Doesn’t it?

Top stories of the week: This is Money | Financial Mail

The credit crunch and the end of the ‘Noughties’ boom has polarised opinion, and the internet is stoking the debate. Last week Financial Mail revealed how Rosemary Jane, 57, has seen her retirement dreams dashed by her late entry into buy-to-let.

Some sympathise, many don’t and, in fact, vocalise a passionate dislike of property investors. ‘I struggle to find sympathy for what is total greed, you have created an overpriced market which has caused more misery than you can imagine,’ writes Andrew from High Wycombe, Bucks, in one of the dozens of reader comments left on the story.

As editor of This is Money I have seen the division become further entrenched. On one side, the property speculators and optimists; on the other, a mix of priced-out  house-hunters and conservative owners of single homes. The division is replicated on the debt debate: people seduced into borrowing too much during the good times are now demonised by readers who took a more sensible approach.

This week, I start a weekly column in Financial Mail which will summarise the big issues and top stories of the week.  This week’s agenda was led by HSBC’s suspiciously generous offer to remortgagers, pulled apart by Helen Loveless in this week's paper, and Halifax’s report of the biggest fall in house prices since the early Nineties crash. That one has attracted 61 comments so far. If you’re feeling brave, join the (heated) debate in the story below.

This is Money top stories
1. Buy-to-let novices face mortgage ruin
2. House prices fell by £5,000 in March
3. HSBC offers to pick up mortgage casualties
4. Are you at risk? The sub-prime crisis map
5. The top 10 cash Isas of the year
_______________

Financial Mail top stories
1. Buy-to-let novices face mortgage ruin
2. Bank to cut rates as economic gloom grips
3. Taking stock: Profit warnings will kill bear rally
4. Mutual bosses' pay: Crunch? What crunch?
5. Terminal 5 workforce backs BA boss

- Andrew Oxlade, Editor, thisismoney.co.uk

editor@thisismoney.co.uk

What's happening to the property market near you?

So what is happening to house prices where you live?

When it comes to the property market, the Mark Twain quote ‘there’s lies, damned lies and statistics’ is one that springs to many minds.

The biggest statistic so far highlighting the troubles burdening the property market arrived this week with Halifax’s house price report recording a 2.5% monthly drop in the cost of an average home – that’s just shy of £5,000.

This is the biggest monthly fall since the depths of the 1990s property crash, when prices fell by 3% in September 1992, and doesn’t even reflect the recent spate of mortgage cuts.

But bundled up with Halifax’s headline-grabbing report were the regional figures for the first quarter of 2008, which actually showed prices rising in some areas.

The biggest complaint we hear levied at the Halifax house price index, it’s big-hitting rival the Nationwide house price report and other lesser used figures, are that they don’t reflect what is happening in This is Money reader’s local areas.

Due to the illiquid nature of homes, it’s almost impossible to translate headline figures into a detailed insight into the immediate property market, so I thought it would be a good idea to ask readers to give us a snapshot of where they live.

To kick it off, I can describe what’s going on near me.  I live in Stroud Green, a little area between Finsbury Park and Crouch End in North London, generally bundled in with Finsbury Park for simplicity.

It mainly consists of streets of Victorian terraces, many divided into flats but quite a lot containing houses that are still as one. It’s a popular area, a bit shabby round the edges, with a good selection of restaurants, pubs and independent shops, that would probably be termed up-and-coming, if that phrase didn’t annoy me deeply.

It’s also a favourite as it sits just down the round from trendy Crouch End and Highgate, within walking distance of even trendier Highbury and Islington proper, and has a park, two tube lines and a mainline train station.

My girlfriend and I bought our flat almost two years ago – the offer was accepted in May 2006. At that point prices were rocketing and the £230,000 we paid for our one-bedroom garden flat, swiftly became £250,000 for similar properties in estate agents’ windows, then £270,000 and finally some were pushing £300,000.

Up until about six months ago there was a shortgage of such flats on the market, and some would be snapped up in weeks, but recently there have been a lot more coming on and not going anywhere.

Asking prices have maybe fallen slightly so a one-bedroom flat is around £260,000, while two-bedroom flats are asking around £320,000-plus, a classic Victorian terraced house is £550,000 for two storeys, or £650,000 for three. In the top roads, where there are bigger houses with large gardens you’d be looking at £750,000 upwards.

The problem is not much seems to be selling and no one is dropping prices.

So that’s my area. What’s happening to the property market near you?

- Simon Lambert, This is Money

Useful links:

>> Will there be a house price crash?

>> The latest mortgages and property news and advice

This is Money top stories: March 2008

This is Money's readership, based on the industry-wide measure of 'unique users', hit a new high in March. Nearly 1.2m unique users came to the site and looked at more than 9m pages.

Many were people were looking for Isa advice. 'Isa season' sees a rush to take up the £7,000 allowance before the 5 April midnight deadline each year. You get a fresh allowance of £7,200 from 6 April but it's a case of use it or lose it with this year's allocation.

We were braced for a rush of readers to come to the site, given that our independent savings tables, including Isas, are now among the most popular online. And, of course, we also gather Isa fund tips. But we were chuffed with a 30% rise in readers on a year ago, and double a figure of 572,000 two years ago.

The average time spent on each page, an important satisfaction benchmark, also hit a new record of 84 seconds having climbed steadily from 77 seconds a year ago and 71 seconds a year before that (March 2006).

Unique users
March 2008 - 1,166,561
March 2007 - 897,245
March 2006 - 572,652
March 2005 - 313,154

We also saw a surge of interest from people concerned about the health of banks and the safety of their savings. Borrowers are also worried about their ability to find a new mortgage deal and are hunting around for views on whether the value of their home will fall this year.

To read our advice and for the web's best savings tables , go to http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/isa-advice

1. Easy steps to getting the best Isa
2. Budget 2008: Look up your new road tax
3. Iceland's banks top riskiness league
4. Is there going to be a house price crash?
5. Is buy-to-let on the brink of collapse?
6. Ten steps to reclaim unfair bank charges
7. Will you choose a cash Isa or a crash Isa?
8. Interest rates: News and predictions
9. How safe is your bank?
10. Barclays leads with 6.5% cash Isa
11. Budget 2008: What it means for you
12. Property market slumps to 20-year low
13. House prices to fall 20%, economist warns
14. The day the banks faced disaster
15. House prices fall as property crunch bites
16. Could Kaupthing Edge be the next Rock?
17. Which banks hold your money?
18. The European house price boom is over
19. Premium Bonds winning numbers
20. Bank charge letter templates
21. 50 ways to save money...
22. £520 NI stealth tax if you earn £40,000
23. Investors suffer as buy-to-let backfires
24. How to buy a bargain home in a slowdown
25. Pressure for rate cut as house prices fall
26. How your Isa will change in 2008
27. The 100% savings account
28. A guide to Isas and other tax-free investing
29. The last-minute Isa hunt begins
30. Experts pick their top equity Isas for 2008
31. HBOS crisis rumour denied as shares tank
32. Buyers of second homes face crackdown
33. Sell Tesco shock as City gloom deepens
34. Newspaper and magazine share tips
35. Banking crisis fears after Stearns collapse

- Andrew Oxlade, Editor, This is Money

Abbey's £130 penalty for one credit card mistake

I've become a victim of the newly sharpened practices of Britain's wily credit card industry. One late payment has just cost me at least £130.

Yes, as editor of Britain's most read financial news website I should known better. But it was a simple mistake.

I've had an unused Abbey credit card for several years. To rekindle my interest, the company offered me interest-free credit on spending for six months. The timing suited me: I rapidly ran up a debt of around £4,000, allowing me to pay for a new patio and other garden improvements.

However, last month - halfway through the 0% offer - I missed a repayment. The punishment was swift. I was immediately stripped of the 0% rate, with the cost of borrowing hiked to 15.9% a year. My statement registered a £12 penalty charge and £59 interest, rising to £61 next month unless I cleared the entire debt.

I accept it's my responsibility: I should have checked the small print; I should have set up a standing order or direct debit for at least the minimum repayment. But, like millions of other Britons, I have two demanding children and one demanding job. Time is tight.

The point of this blog post is to highlight the shift in the industry - it will cost you. Once, it was easy for shrewd borrowers to exploit loopholes. You could borrow money on credit cards at 0% for up to a year then shift it on to another year-long interest-free deal. Even if you did miss a repayment, there was some flexibility. Some people racked up as much as £40,000 to offset against their mortgages, saving hundreds of pounds a month in repayments: read more.

But no longer. A ruling from the Office of Fair Trading in 2006 ruled typical fees of £25 were unfair. It effectively capped charges at £12 per misdemeanour.  Lenders obviously haven't taken it lying down. They cut penalties to £12 - and then set about ratcheting costs and charges in nearly every other area.

So now you need to watch out for these pitfalls...

- Balance transfers come with a charge of between 2% and 3% (just a few cards offer fee-free balance transfers - find out who)

- Expect higher interest rates, especially when withdrawing cash or on credit card cheques

- If you have interest-free debt on a balance transfer and some from spending on a higher rate, it's now likely that you'll have to clear the free money before being able to tackle the pricey debt. And you'll probably only realise when it's too late

- Previously most credit card companies would refund charges on a first offence. It's now less likely. I tried this with Abbey - it now has a strict policy of one strike and you're out.

- More pitfalls, by Mail on Sunday's Jo Thornhill

- Case study: The tiny credit card mistake that cost £182

The current crisis also means lenders are tightening their criteria, leaving fewer alternatives for borrowers who place a wrong foot in the credit card minefield.

Fortunately, I can cash in on a healthy return from Latin American stock markets, which should help me clear the debt within a month or two. Forced investment selling is bad practice and pot luck - a booming Brazil has helped me ride it this time. Really I should have at least three months' wages tucked away for emergencies - and I shouldn't spend money I don't have (or have easy access to).

But I, and millions of other borrowers, have operated in an environment for the last decade of easy credit that rewards those willing to exploit it.

The tide has turned. Saving is saintly; debt is dangerous. Tread carefully in post-credit crunch Britain.

- Andrew Oxlade, Editor, This is Money.co.uk

Other recent Abbey yarns (yes, they've had a few customer services issues)...

> Dead 'Abbey' customer is alive and well
> Abbey customers fuming over delay
> Abbey fails relatives of deceased customers
> Abbey lost then shredded my details
> Abbey tops league of rip-off bank fees
> Abbey plays God
> Abbey is a complete mess
> Abbey delays cost me hundreds in lost interest

Feel free to highlight new credit card tricks or to tell your story...

House prices peaked in 2003 - expect them to return there

The shine is starting to come off the housing market. For me, the only issue this raises is a question: why didn't it happen a long time ago? The idea that house prices could continue rising for ever is an absurd proposition but one that has been palpable in the minds of far too many people for far too long. The question now is: how low can they go?

We can all pontificate and speculate using economic models, historic similes and fancy jargon. But I want to tell you a little story.

In the first few months of the new millennium I was working on a major web launch and we were looking for themes that summed up the state of the nation. News, fashion, sport, celebrity, the usual suspects, but there was something missing. We needed to tap further into the zeitgeist than B-list celebrities and football. Checking the mailbag it became obvious. People were starting to seriously worry about their debts. Brilliant. We'd launch with a big get-out-of-debt campaign. That was in early 2000.

Now, for various reasons the web project was shelved - along with our debt campaign. But that didn't matter any longer because within a year the mood of the country had changed. The Bank Rate (formerly the Base Rate) remained steady in 2000 but by early 2001 it began its steady decline. Money was becoming cheaper and cheaper. Previously rational people were drawn into a crazy borrowing binge, egged on by brokers, banks and other lenders and goaded into taking more and more credit by self-appointed money experts.

Suddenly, it seemed that everyone where I live had gone out and bought a new car or two. Other people were having new kitchens and Roman-style bathrooms installed like they were going out of fashion, which incidentally, they now are. Builders were adding extra rooms to homes, where previously they would have been deemed illegal. It became impossible to get a plumber to visit unless you were looking to install an entire new central heating system.

But pay wasn't rising by anything much above inflation. So where was the money coming from? From house prices, of course.

By now I was development editor of This is Money, working not at head office with the other journalists but in the development hub in 'new media land'. It was exciting and we were creating things that had never been done before with a talented young team, staffed by college leavers and other, well, let's call them first-time buyers.

Being the only person from the money team in the building, conversations often turned to money-related issues. It was great to see people taking an interest in such matters. But increasingly the conversations were not about the stock market and interest rates but about debt. Not about how to get out of it, but how to get more.

The country's collective attitude to debt had completely changed. Never mind that it could take a lifetime to clear a £30,000 credit card debt and that anyone with common sense should try to live within their means, that was irrelevant for people leaving university with up to £15,000 debts to show for their education.

Over the next couple of years, some of these youngsters had not only bought their first flat but within six months of doing it had remortgaged to buy stuff and go on holiday on the back of the rise in its value.

It wasn't just youngsters, of course; everyone seemed to be at it. But what happened next would affect the youngsters most and by 2003 they were in a fix.

The credit boom was over. House prices had peaked. The cost of a one-bedroom flat was now out of reach of the average first-time buyer on the income multiples that sensible lenders were prepared to offer. It was time to settle down and wait for wage inflation to close the gap and breathe life back into the market.

But it didn't happen that way. Word soon spread around the office that someone had secured a loan with Standard Life Bank (it could have been any of the banks but this is how it happened). It was a loan based not on income but perceived affordability. It didn't take long for everyone trying to break into the housing market to contact Standard Life or a mortgage broker to try to get hold of bigger and bigger loans.

By now even the local newsagent was advising his customers on how they could get into the housing market as a first-time buyer and as a buy-to-let investor - a sure sign that the boomtime was over. But it wasn't.

Estate agents were pricing homes on a see-what-we-can-get-away-with basis. And with lenders willing to lend just about anything to just about anyone - even the unemployed and people prepared to lie about their incomes - the boom continued for five years.

And so here we are now, in March 2008, and it's over. The loans made to people without a hope of paying them back were packaged up as investments and sold off by bankers (an even greedier element of the financial system than any estate agent or unscrupulous mortgage broker). And no one knows the extent of the impending damage we're about to face. What we do know is that personal debt is off the scale and it's pay-back time.

How far house prices will fall as a result of this recklessness is anyone's guess. I'd say any gains made since 2003 on a property's 'value' are a bonus that we should expect to lose. And to borrow a phrase much quoted by those people who believed that house prices were going to keep on rising for ever: 'This time it's different.'

Yes, you're right. This time it is different. This time it's carnage.

Richard Browning

Related

Financial crisis puts crunch on home loans

Estate agent reveals dirty tricks

Brokers banned for false mortgage applications

Please note: Yes this is one-sided. It is my opinion. Here's one I wrote two years ago:

Doomwatch: house price storm is brewing

Money talks: Sky and Mega Super Soccer Easter Sunday

Manchester Utd vs Liverpool and Chelsea vs Arsenal. Football matches don’t get much bigger than that, so Sky must be delighted that fortuitously both of these fixtures have managed to fall on Easter Sunday.

Actually scrap the Easter Sunday bit. This is Mega Meltdown Super Soccer Easter Sunday.

And believe it or not, the fact that a pair of fixtures involving the four biggest teams has just happened to fall on the second biggest Bank Holiday of the year is a complete accident and has nothing to do with money.

The executives at Sky Sports must have been performing a football dance for months to get the Gods of the fixture list to throw this one down.

And even more miraculously the matches also fell the other way round on the biggest advertising day of the year – two Sundays before Christmas.

Now some people suggested when this happened just before Christmas - Mega Meltdown Super Soccer Santa Sunday, as we’ll refer to it - that it was more evidence English football had sold is soul to television and money.

This was of course denied. Mega Meltdown Super Soccer Easter Sunday and its Christmas cousin are just lucky accidents.

To confirm this, I called the Premier League and asked them how fixtures are generated. The process works like this:
The fixture list is randomly generated
It’s referred to a fixtures working party group
The clubs make recommendations on the provisional list

Things that can get games moved are safety concerns, police requests, certain close rival clubs not allowed to play at home at the same time and European games.

The Premier League admitted outside factors could have influenced the Easter Sunday games slightly, but said this was likely to have been European games. And the definitive answer was that Mega Meltdown Super Soccer Sunday was nearer the random end of the scale than not.

This was decided by football men – not TV executives, advertising suits, or those concerned with BSkyB’s share price.

Now I’m not one to disagree with England’s top football clubs, but this is all a bit suspect.

Mega Meltdown Super Soccer Easter Sunday was not caused by games being moved for Europe – these fixtures have been set for this weekend since August, as was the weekend that delivered Mega Meltdown Super Soccer Santa Sunday.

Would it not be easier to stop pretending and just admit English football is now run for the benefit of television and money?

I support a club (Watford) and watch them live when I can, but I’m no football snob. I love watching football on TV, but this is overkill. Out there is the sound of a Golden Goose being trampled – let’s hope they stop leaping up and down on it before it expires completely and Sky adverts really do go completely bonkers like this.

- Simon Lambert, This is Money

Useful links:

>> Premiership dominates football rich list
>> Sky gets tough on skinflint subscribers
>> The best and worst paid jobs in Britain

Most popular This is Money reports in February 2008

Nationwide, the UK's largest building society, this week reported house prices fell for a fourth month. Meanwhile, the bad news continues to seep out of the US property market. The S&P/Case-Shiller index suggests average home prices fell 9% in 2007 and that the pace of decline is getting worse.

So it's no surprise to see so many people flocking to reliable news websites, such as thisismoney, for information on the British market - and to gauge what they can expect for the price of their own home. I'd recommend you bookmark this dedicated channel for the latest news and analysis: http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/houseprices

But house prices weren't the only burning issue last month. Readers were also hungry for advice on Isas, bank charges, Northern Rock fall-out and Egg's mass credit card cancellation project.

This is Money had nearly 1m readers in February. The 978,951 unique visitors, which represents a 28% rise on a year ago, looked at 8,283,889 pages.

Here's the top news stories, features, guides and round-ups. Read these and you'll be bang up to date on all the crucial finance issues of the day... 

1. How to pick the best Isa
2. Ten steps to reclaim unfair bank charges
3. Interest rates: News and predictions
4. Is there going to be a house price crash?
5. The names Bond, savings Bond (pictured right)  
6. Q&A: Norwich Union windfalls
7. How to buy a bargain home in a slowdown   
8. Bank charge letter templates
9. What next for Northern Rock?
10. How to make your child a millionaire

11. Has Bank cut affected your savings rate?
12. The new class: The Whingeing Wealthy (Charlotte Ross, pic below)
13. How your Isa will change in 2008
14. NU boosts windfalls to break deadlock
15. 50 ways to save money... 
16. Experts pick their top equity Isas for 2008
17. Egg has lied over credit card crackdown 
18. House prices may fall, warns Mervyn King 
19. Miracle anti-wrinkle cream: £1.89 from Aldi 
20. Would you be better off renting a home?

21. Nationwide jacks up deposits to 25% 
22. Has your mortgage rate been cut?
23. Unsold homes rise as sellers fail to budge
24. Cheap credit gone forever - City watchdog
25. Best paid jobs revealed
26. Bank cuts interest rates to 5.25% 
27. Ten tips for buy-to-let 
28. Agents see sixth month of property gloom
29. Eight steps to fix all your finances
30. Icelandic bank begins savings battle

31. Barclays chases after Russian calendar girls 
32. How to get a windfall 
33. Disc fiasco victims could win £300 each
34. Is now the time to invest in banks?
35. Midas share tips: FTSE Dogs and ailing banks
36. BT stealth rise will cost 1,900% more
37. Savers beware as rates start to fall
38. Mum jailed after Abbey's £135k blunder
39. House prices a headache for Northern Rock
40. Lotto winner goes from riches to rags (pictured right)

As ever, please drop me an email if there are any other issues you think we should be investigating: editor@thisismoney.co.uk

And to make sure you don't miss any of our best coverage, make sure you're signed up to our weekly newsletters and newsflashes.

- Andrew Oxlade, Editor, This is Money

30 ways to save and make time and money

If you don't have time to worry about money and paperwork and other aspects of day-to-day life because you're... um... normal, we have created This is Not Work, a daily light-hearted but deadly serious tip-sheet of stuff you can easily take care of in your lunch hour; things you should know and things you might like to know. There are no ads and no time-wasters. It is primarily aimed at parents who work but everyone is welcome. Here's a round up of some of the tips featured since we launched.

Where to find the cheapest cars online
Half-price Sonic toothbrushes
Half-price meals at decent restaurants

The best Isas for 2008
How to be the world's richest parent
How to make a paper CD case

How to fight parking tickets
£189 flights to New York
Robot vacuum cleaner for £38

Where to get the best broadband
Time-saving tips from a top parent
Be my Valentine with cheap roses

Center Parcs for half price
Get your own back on your bank: reclaim the insurance you may not know you have
20 reasons to avoid British Gas

How to make your child a millionaire
Part 1 0-£40,025
Part 2 £40k-£500k
Part 3 £500k-£1m

Best all-round printer
Ryanair's 1p vs SAS £39, the true cost
Refunds: Claim £4 for delayed Tube journeys

Sort out your finances in eight steps

Part 1 - the will
Part 2 - the credit card debt
Part 3 - the life insurance
Part 4 - the company pension
Part 5 - the house
Part 6 - the emergency savings
Part 7 - the get rich slow plan
Part 8 - the fee-based adviser

And finally

The table football table for £16 that normally costs about £80 that you really don't need but if you did want one then this is worth checking out

>> Newsletter: Get more of these in your inbox

Top 10 dirtiest hotels in Britain

A great bit of viral marketing by Trip Advisor, the travel forum. You can't not click on this:

Top 10 dirtiest hotels in Britain

My favourite is the Europa in Crawley. When you click through to the site you'll see it's the 24th most popular hotel in the town. Out of 25. So there's another hotel in Crawley that though cleaner than one of the country's dirtiest is even less popular. Welcome to Britain.

Richard Browning

More travel...

>> Cheapest travel insurance

>> Half price 'Center Parcs'

>> 20,000 victims of holiday fraud

A 37% return from a Latin American stock market boom

Ay caramba! as they say in Tijuana (and Springfield).

My punt on Latin America paid off last year. The Invesco Perpetual Latin American fund - my only investment last year - returned 37% in 2007.

So why the boom? South Americans have been flogging their copious reserves of copper, zinc and the like to the highly industrious Chinese who, in turn, have kept the world economy afloat. It is also enjoying a rare period of politicial stability and genuine economic reform.

That's part of the story - demographics are important for me on investment decisions - and Latin America has some interesting stories: Mexico has a youngish population and lots of women entering employment; Chile has one of the best funded pension systems in the world - one of Pinochet's better legacies - and the prospect of a generation of pensioners awash with cash.

Respected fund picker John Chatfield-Roberts helped confirm my choice last February. I'll be catching up with him before making any decisions on this year's Isa (and reporting on this blog what he says).

My gut instinct at the moment is to continue to avoid Western economies which I think face a slow-burn bust and staying with First State Asia Pacific and Jupiter Emerging European Opportunities, and probably topping up a little more on the jaguar economies of South America. It's a high-risk strategy.

You can find the best advice on picking the right investments here:
>> How to pick the best Isa

- Andrew Oxlade, Editor, thisismoney.co.uk

> My Far East child trust fund selections
> A 40% return on a child trust fund
> My 59% return in a year

                     Invesco Perpetual Latin American returns Source: Morningstar

Gazza magic - money can't buy happiness part two

Like most people I could do with a bit more cash. A lot more cash to be perfectly honest – enough cash to roll around in, throw out of windows and behave like Richard Pryor in Brewster’s Millions.

Were I to win the lottery I would indulge in some serious purchasing and acts of generosity before heading snowboarding at various locations around the world for the next six months.

I don’t go in for any of this I wouldn’t want the money, it would change my life, wouldn’t know what to do, couldn’t trust anyone stuff.

But money can’t buy you happiness and sometimes, as I wrote about Watford footballer Al Bangura a while back, it doesn’t mean a thing.

Luckily, Al has been given leave to stay in the country and not be deported back to Sierra Leone, but another football-related incident brought the 'money doesn’t matter' thought to light again for me today.

Paul Gascoigne was in the news again today for the wrong reasons, having been arrested and sectioned. Like many of my generation, Gazza was the first superstar English footballer to really grab our attention and while he was a genius footballer he was no angel and often brought his problems on himself.

You can trace a path from how his every movement was watched and analysed by the media to today's millionaire superstars like David Beckham, John Terry and Wayne Rooney.

Sadly, it hasn’t turned out too well for Gazza since finishing playing football and I wish him luck getting himself sorted.

So, just because I can, here is some Gazza magic. Enjoy.

- Simon Lambert, This is Money

Useful links:

>> How to make your child a millionaire

>> How to pay less tax

Why a nationalised Northern Rock will make money

Here's a guest post from Simon Ward of New Star fund management. Simon (pictured) made a name for himself after being the only economist in a Reuters poll to correctly predict a bank rate rise last January (2007).