House Prices Fall

The Halifax reports today that house prices fell by 2.5% in March, the largest monthly fall for 15 years.

It is expected that when the Bank of England MPC meets on Thursday it will announce a cut in interest rates of at least 0.25%.

All well and good.

However, given that the banks and building societies are not passing on these cuts to their borrowers and are in fact increasing their rates, it will have little positive effect on either the housing market or the economy as a whole.

Until the government and Bank of England grasps the nettle of frozen liquidity, and pump in real confidence into the money markets, drip drip rate cuts will have no effect.

Bold actions, such as those taken by the Fed, on an internationally co-ordinated level are required.

The Fed is capable of bold leadership, regrettably the Bank of England is not.