Ironically, lower interest rates, coupled with easy access to personal loans, have caused the value of unsecured personal credit to rise to as much as 22.5% over the last five years, which will reduce the affordability of ownership for many. In 2018, the affordability it leveled off after five years of declines, but is still much worse than pre-recession levels some 20 years ago.

Of course in this, as in many other things, the UK is a bit of a quilt. The affordability The price of housing ranges from the lowest in Copeland, in the North West of England, where it is 2.5 times the average income in the workplace, to Kensington and Chelsea in London, where the average price of housing is 45 times greater.

These figures concern me in the same way that climate change worries Mrs Long-Bailey. While it seems reassuring to believe that we are past the housing price recession, the numbers underscore the huge impact that the pre-recession housing boom of the mid-to-late 2000s had on the housing market and the long shadow it continues to cast across the country.

Strict

The affordability It's still a problem for many because banks and building societies burned their fingers so badly on property "bad debt" that they now apply much stricter lending criteria, which has limited home lending, although this has improved the stability of the housing market.

However, while it has become more difficult to obtain a mortgage, the substantial increase in unsecured personal loans points to a growing demand for funds that could limit future home loans. And while the data doesn't separate homeowner and renter loans, it should be safe to assume that much of these unsecured loans are being used by owner-occupiers.

The demand for housing will continue to grow as the population increases, and in this scenario there are only two ways to improve the affordability: increase the supply of inventory or ensure that income increases at a faster rate than house prices. The latter is extremely unlikely, which means that a higher supply is essential.

Read More: Economy is growing but more jobs are needed
Therefore, a coordinated approach to building more affordable housing and increasing the number of affordable housing in general, with increased financial and regulatory stimulus for housing construction, would help alleviate overall demand in the sector and produce steady growth. , more than exceptional, which is the true mark of success in the real estate market.

The key to that success lies in maintaining a market that remains vibrant and dynamic without becoming a runaway “winner-take-all” scenario. Only a few speculators want to boom and bust again, but there must be incentives that allow the emerging generation to consider home ownership as an achievable goal.

Stability balancing has been managed quite effectively since 2008 and I wouldn't want to upset that apple cart. However, a slight relaxation of mortgage lending criteria (i.e. deposits and income loan requirements) could open the door for more homeownership hopefuls without a return to the recklessness that blocked the market in the early years of this century.

As orders from Europe and the Middle East dried up due to the coronavirus, Ye Zhenqing knew that he would have to take drastic measures to prevent his sunglasses manufacturing business from going under. With corporate loans out of reach, Ye pledged his own apartment as collateral for a 2 million yuan personal loan to help his business.

“I am extremely short of money right now. It is difficult to apply for a bank loan," said Ye, the founder and CEO of Wenzhou Zhen Qing Eyewear, in the eastern city of Wenzhou. Special low-interest business loans have been introduced to help companies cope with the consequences of the coronavirusBut "they don't apply to us," Ye said, adding that small companies like his have to put up huge amounts of collateral and pay higher interest rates than big companies.

As more business owners like Ye are forced to compromise their homes to stay afloat, the ramifications for the broader economy could be severe.

Small unbanked businesses form the backbone of the Chinese economy and are taking a serious hit from the outbreak of coronavirus: 85% of 1,506 SMEs surveyed in early February expect to run out of cash within three months, according to a report by Tsinghua University and Peking University.

The 2 million yuan loan is enough to cover operating expenses and the salaries of about 100 workers for just two months, after which it will need new funds or the return of orders.

He coronavirus, which has infected more than 78,000 people and killed 2,700 in China, has already shut down large sectors of the economy. A wave of SME closures or layoffs would deal a further blow to President Xi Jinping's efforts to stimulate growth, which economists now expect to fall to just 3% in the first quarter.

Beijing has recognized the cash crunch facing small businesses and has deployed vast financial resources to deal with it.

Earlier this week, the People's Bank of China earmarked 500 billion yuan in fresh financing to provide cheap loans to smaller businesses struggling to resume operations amid the coronavirus outbreak. coronavirus. This is in addition to the 300 billion yuan re-lending quota authorized this month by the central bank.

Read More: Economic impacts resulting from the coronavirus

"If the support quotas are not enough, we will increase them further," Liu Guoqiang, deputy governor of the PBOC, said at a press conference on Thursday.

But these programs aren't reaching the businesses that need them, according to Zhang Qinghua, who works at a Guangzhou-based financial services company and helps small businesses apply for loans.

“There is a huge demand for loans right now, as most of the small and medium-sized businesses will face cash flight within three months,” he said. “Most companies are undecided about whether or not to continue, whether it is worth taking loans. Some business owners have already chosen to liquidate their business."

The race to stop the spread of the new coronavirus could be frustrated by Americans fearful of large medical bills if they get tested, low-income workers who lose pay if they take time off when sick, and similar dilemmas that leave the United States more vulnerable to the epidemic. than countries with universal health coverage and stronger safety nets.

As testing for the virus spreads, health care experts predict that some people with flu-like illnesses - or those who may have been exposed - will avoid finding out if they have been infected because they do not have insurance or because they have plans that impose a large part of the cost of their care on them.

Making sure the right people get tested, and keeping them away from others if they are infected, is crucial to help slow the spread of the virus within communities as it appears in an increasing number of states.

Now that federal health officials have ironed out teething problems with the test itself and have allowed more labs to get involved in finding the infection, this testing and quarantine work is the essential second stage. However, the government has not yet begun to tell Americans where to go for tests, and neither public nor private insurers are changing their rules to protect people from test-related charges.

Some preparations recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are incompatible with the way the benefits work. Officials have urged people to keep an adequate supply of their routine medications in case they end up in quarantine. But insurance companies rarely allow refills until the patient is almost out of pills. The agency also urges people with respiratory illnesses to stay home from work. But with no federal sick leave requirements, some experts predict the virus will spread more quickly.

For a rapidly spreading international epidemic, the country's health care system and benefits for many workers "are certainly not optimally designed," said Sabrina Corlette, a research professor at the Center for Health Insurance Reform at George Town University.

Federal funds cover the cost of the test coronavirus itself when performed in federal, state, or local public health laboratories. But that changes as academic and commercial labs get involved. In neither case does the government cushion the bills for visits to the doctor's office, urgent care center, or emergency room, even though nearly half of the 160 million Americans with job insurance have insurance plans. health with high deductibles.

"Deductibles are designed to make people think twice before going to the doctor if they're feeling sick," said Larry Levitt, executive vice president for health policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation, a health research organization. "In a potential pandemic, the last thing you want is for people to think twice before going to the doctor."

America's Health Insurance Plans, the industry's leading trade group, has published a guide called "Keeping Americans Safe from coronavirus«. The statement says that insurers are "carefully monitoring the system" and working with the CDC to share information.

Read More: Understand more about the tariff crisis

But he does not urge insurance companies to eliminate out-of-pocket costs for tests or for visits to doctors or clinics for respiratory illnesses, saying health plans may want to determine "whether policy changes are needed to ensure that people get essential care.

Thomas Inglesby, director of the Center for Health Security at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said removing the financial disincentive to get tested "has to be at the top of the list" of issues that federal health officials address.

Inglesby said that other countries, including Western democracies with government-funded health care systems, have not been fully publishing their testing strategies. But he said: "Countries where patients could receive large bills for diagnostic tests will have additional problems identifying people."