When the interest rate goes up so do your debts, and the latest increase is apparently only the start of a series of increases, why is the number of people in debt continuing to increase? The level of debt, both secured and unsecured is at one of the highest levels in recent times, but at the same time unemployment is on the rise. This has lead to a large amount of debt having to be written off by lending institutions. This in turn has lead to new lenders being assessed more stringently and the interest rates that lending institutions being increased to over the cost of the debts that were written off. The biggest question is why people are accumulating far more debt than before and the answer to that it is due to inflation.
Comparisons of debt levels can go back as far as the Second World War sometimes. You don’t, however, need to track back that far to realise that interest rate increases are a relatively new occurrence. Two generations and more back there was shown very little inflation, something that has left many now retired people with inadequate funds to cope with their retirement in a world where inflation is increasing every day. Many older people are finding themselves in debt as they struggle to maintain an adequate lifestyle in their own home. Since they are receiving very little income they can mount up debts without quite realising it and when and interest rates increase occurs then they suddenly find they are in danger of losing far more than they realised.
For the generation after that a lot of the major debt is related to property and those debts related to looking after a family. A lot of people may have had varying prosperity leaving them with debts that are hard to completely eliminate. For many people this debt problem can be eliminated by taking a homeowners loan or mortgage out, but when there are interest rate increases then they may find themselves far more stretched trying to pay off their mortgage. This leads to increased financial problems that they might try to remortgage their property to cover their current debts, but the cycle continues nevertheless.
For the generation after that a credit card is viewed as the same as cash and the ease with which credit card debt and huge mobile phone bills is massive. For this generation unsecured debts, such as those mentioned before, are likely to cause the most problems. Since this type of debt is likely to have a higher rate of interest on the principal, an increase in interest rates will hit them hard. One of the greatest consequences can be a bad credit record which can remain to make things problematic later on in their lives.
National Guarantee is reputable financial institution that is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority. They specialise in Remortgages, Bad Credit Mortgages,
CCJ Remortgages as well as Adverse Credit, Self Cert Mortgages and Homeowner Loans. For further information visit:
http://www.nationalguarantee.co.uk/
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