JANUARY 11TH, 2007

Home repossessions could become more common if UK interest rates rise this year, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) has warned.

Mortgage repayments are now a bigger burden than at any time since 1991, RICS said.

For a two-person household on average incomes, home loan repayments now take up 22% of take-home pay.

Many experts are expecting the Bank of England to raise the cost of borrowing again in the next few months fueling the suggestion.

Rising prices

House prices have far outstripped incomes in the past decade, with the cost of buying a home rising by a staggering 278%.

The price rises were partly driven by low interest rates which have made bigger loans easy to afford.

So far, property repossessions by mortgage lenders have been running at very low levels at a time when borrowing has become its easiest.

Just over 8,000 properties were seized by lenders in the first half of last year.

That was a far cry from the hundreds of thousands repossessed in the property crash of the early 1990s.

But it was still the highest figure for five years, and RICS believes things may get worse.

"Affordability conditions will also continue to worsen with the Monetary Policy Committee expected to raise interest rates in February," RICS senior economist David Stubbs warned.

"However, many households will still be watching today's interest rate decision with keen interest."

Accessibility

The cost of getting together all the upfront costs of buying a property for the first time have also shot up, according to calculations by RICS.

It says a first-time buyer couple now needs to muster £32,784 to pay for items such as a deposit, stamp duty, legal and estate agents fees and various other costs.

Mr Stubbs said that these now amounted to 82% of first-timers' take home pay, up from just 25% in 1996.

"Unless the government builds more affordable housing, and raises the stamp duty threshold, many households will continue to struggle to access the housing market," he said.