The Greek crisis seems to have been dragging on longer than the Trojan War. It has been vacillating from spikes of on-the-brink debt refinancing, to periods where it has been seemingly out of the news altogether.

But this time things appear different, more urgent, more on-the-brink. This week Germany’s Chancellor, Angela Merkel, has admitted the possibility of Greece leaving the Eurozone. And David Cameron has been using rhetoric that includes words such as “crossroads” and “make or break” when describing the Eurozone’s predicament.

Until now such talk was the preserve of journalists and the public, not of European statespeople. But now, just by admitting the possibility, it will have added to the speculation that it will actually happen.

Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank of England, has revealed that the UK has been making contingency plans for a Greek exit of the euro. While it’s comforting that such war games are being played out on Threadneedle Street; the fact that they can come out and admit it, that tells us that perhaps we are being prepared for possibility becoming reality.

The Governor has torn down the Bank’s 1.2% growth forecast for the UK in 2012 and replaced it with one of 0.8%. Inflation is likely to persist above the 2% target for the foreseeable future too. The reason for these revisions is the growing uncertainty in the Eurozone. Europe being our biggest trading partner, the repercussions will unavoidably hit our shores.

The Eurozone is going to have to try to pull together once again, if it wants to keep Greece in the fold. But the Greek people themselves will have to accept an austerity package too. With elections on 17 June, the stakes can hardly be higher, or can they?

There is an argument that Greece exiting the euro would actually be better for the Greeks, allow the country to stabilise quicker, while a less burdened Eurozone can look to give more attention to bolstering the economies of weaker countries such as Portugal, Spain, Italy and Ireland.

And the idea of doing something, rather than this persisting uncertainty, might prove a salve to the markets in the long run.

The sticking plaster solutions of the past year or so have served to bring an illusion of stability, and maybe complacency on the part of the Eurozone and of the Greeks themselves. As BBC correspondent Robert Peston tweeted on Wednesday, following news of mass withdrawals from Greek banks: “No surprise that Greeks pulled €700m from banks since election. Perhaps more surprising is stability of deposits before.”

The larger issue of a Greek withdrawal from the European single currency is that it sets a precedent. For those weaker Eurozone nations it would send a clear message that the Eurozone will only support you to a point. With reports of small pockets of residents in Ireland and Spain reverting unofficially to their pre-euro currencies, it seems that confidence in the euro in these fragile member states is at a low ebb.

Increasingly though, something needs to actually happen. This merry-go-round of uncertainty is damaging to Greece, the Eurozone as a whole, and of course, the UK too.

Available on Android and iPhone, Halifax Home Finder has everything you expect from a site/app such as Rightmove, but takes it further. It’s like having Kirstie and Phil – and a bank manager – at hand to help your house hunt.

Using “augmented reality”, the app utilises your Smartphone’s camera and GPS to pinpoint where you are, and bring up on-screen the properties that are for sale around you.

More than that though, you can use the in-built mortgage calculators to get a rough idea of what your monthly repayments might be when browsing prospective properties. The app also includes a “how much can you borrow” calculator, which will help you narrow your search to the homes you are likely to be able to get a mortgage on.

You can book a viewing using the app, but the fun doesn’t end there…

Once inside you can take your own photos, add your own comments to the property – even give it star ratings. Then you can email these details as a PDF, so you can compare your own impression of the properties you’ve viewed.

Of course none of this is stuff is new – the new bit is that Halifax has brought it all together in one place. There are successful property apps – such as Rightmove, and mortgage repayment calculators abound over the web; but to see the property, with an estimated mortgage payment is where the app’s potential really excites.

However, the word of warning should be that any mortgage calculations are indicative only – not necessarily telling you what you actually would end up paying or being able to borrow. They should be treated only as ballpark estimates.

Halifax Home Finder mortgage calculators

There are two mortgage calculators on the app – a “How much could you borrow?”, and a “how much will your mortgage payment be?”.

How much could you borrow?

Obviously this calculation is only an indication – it’s by no means certain that Halifax would lend this amount. There may be other lending criteria that would reduce the amount you are able to borrow from Halifax. The other thing to mention of course is that this is the amount you can borrow through Halifax –another mortgage lender may let you have more (or less).

How much will your mortgage payment be?

You can input the length of the mortgage and an initial interest rate to give an estimated mortgage payment. While this is a great way of making a high level comparison, you should be careful that you don’t mislead yourself into thinking that a certain property is within reach.

Mortgage interest rates go hand-in-hand with the percentage of the property’s value you need to borrow. It’s a bit of a chicken and egg situation as to the interest rate you’d get. However, you can change these details later on, once you’ve shortlisted properties.

You’d still need to find out the best mortgage rate for the percentage you need to borrow by checking the best deals using a site like moneyfacts.co.uk, or by checking a lender’s rates directly.

In summary…

Smartphones have revolutionised the way we do so many things: banking, email and gaming to name just a few.

Rightmove and other apps have extended this to property buying. Halifax has taken this one step further, marrying technologies to create a home hunting app with a mortgage calculator.

When I downloaded the app, reviews and ratings on the Apple app store were very positive – with reviewers rating Halifax 4½ out of 5.

While many reviews will rave about augmented reality, for me it’s these calculators, together with the fact you can personally rate a property and add notes and photos that is the most intriguing development. However, when using the app be mindful of the limitations of the mortgage calculators and do not be over reliant on them when making your purchasing decision.

Before we begin I should warn you that we’re Norwich-based, so I can’t guarantee that this blog will be free of references to the mighty Canaries.

We love the clubs we support, giving them our hard-earned cash to watch matches and to buy merchandise – on the ball city! But did you know that you may be able to take out a savings account to help your club too?

These special savings accounts won’t pay market-leading interest rates, but can offer special benefits to you as well as making a donation to the club based on the total balances held.

This money goes straight into your club’s coffers, helping them to weather the financial whirlwind that is football. With Rangers FC recently going into administration, it’s clear that even the biggest clubs could use a little extra support.

Some savings accounts specifically give to a club’s youth development programme, so your cash is directly helping to fund the dreams of the next Frank Lampard, Stevie G or Grant Holt (for England).

But are these accounts good value?

At present the best easy access account (with the help of an introductory bonus) pays 3.15% AER. Football savings accounts don’t tend to have an introductory bonus, so a more useful comparison would be with the top no-bonus rate of 3.06% AER. In comparison, the top football accounts are offered at 1.50% AER, with an additional 1.00% of balances being paid to the club.

But, as always there are more and less competitive offerings…

Where are the Premier League teams?

But Wait! The Champions League places are taken and there’s not a Premier League team in sight!

There are currently 36 football savings accounts available.  Without exception the club will earn up to 1.00% from supporters’ savings – adding a significant chunk of income.

Some accounts say they’ll pay “up to” 1.00% to the club, as opposed to just 1.00%. So where this is the case it’s not guaranteed your team will even get the 1.00% from your savings’ support.

As well as this, depending on the provider, supporters can be receiving very different interest rates.

So while I’m not saying that you should switch allegiances to Leeds United or Doncaster Rovers, you’d do well to look at other ways to financially support your team.

If your club’s account is paying a relegation zone interest rate, the alternative could be a bog standard savings account. You could then make an annual donation from the interest you receive – and still be quids in.

And while some are cunningly (and completely legally) buying up official, unused stamps to save money; others may be tempted by online vendors on sites such as eBay who are selling cheap, un-franked stamps for re-use.

Un-franked stamps are where the stamp has passed through the postal system, without being marked as processed. The face of the stamp being clear, the temptation is to re-use it. However, this is technically a fraud.

Royal Mail, speaking to Radio 4’s Money Box programme last weekend, said that it will prosecute sellers of un-franked stamps where it is clear that the intention is for them to be re-used. And let’s be honest, you’re not going to buy 200 un-franked first class stamps for a stamp collection are you. It would be a pretty boring collection if you were…

The selling and buying of stamps is not in itself illegal. So philatelists (stamp collectors – not boxers) can breathe easy, and if you have a Penny Black to sell – go ahead, there’s no legal issue. The re-selling of never-used stamps, which may happen in the aftermath of the price rises, is legal too.

It’s only when it’s evident that used stamps are being sold to be used again, that it becomes an issue.

While Royal Mail could take action on both the buyers and sellers of un-franked stamps, it would be very hard for it to prosecute all those sending them (and to be fair, it would be a PR nightmare). That’s not me advocating doing it by the way, but as some reassurance that if you’ve used an un-franked stamp in the near past, you won’t have the police turning up for a dawn raid at your address (that’s the thing about Royal Mail: they know where you live!).

Coming on to the ethical issue…

You might feel it’s innocent enough, but using an un-franked stamp does have consequences. It puts jobs at risk and it puts prices up for everyone.

While we all love a great money-saving idea, there are real ethical issues with re-using an un-franked stamp that simply shouldn’t be swept under the carpet with the excuse “well they should’ve franked it shouldn’t they!”.

Royal Mail can solve this

It’s 2012. The price of a first class stamp will soon be 60p. The latest price increase adds an inflation-ignoring 30% to the price of first class, and nearly 40% to second class. With this revenue it would be great to see Royal Mail investing in a franking system that works.

After all, un-franked stamps only exist because they haven’t been franked in the first place…

It confirms the considerable savings slog facing anyone looking to buy for the first time.

But the interesting thing is the difference in average ages between regions in the UK, which ranges from 28 in Yorkshire, to 36 in Wales.  London – where popular myth says that you need to be an octogenarian to buy – doesn’t have the oldest first time buyers at an average of 33.

Broadly-speaking, the statistics follow regional differences in house prices. Higher house prices in the London and the South East mean that buyers need a larger deposit – so a longer time to save up.

According to the Land Registry, the average price of a property in Yorkshire (& The Humber) is £118,531, whereas in the South East it’s £209,065. In London it’s a whopping £354,300!

However, there are some anomalies. Wales has the highest first time buyer age yet, according to the latest Land Registry figures (for February 2012), it is the third cheapest region in England and Wales to buy, with an average price of £117,927.

Snakes and housing ladders

Three massive challenges face anybody trying to buy their first home: property prices, mortgage availability and mortgage affordability.

Property prices have not regained their 2007 highs, thus helping first time buyers with more modest deposits to be able to afford to buy.

However, mortgage availability has only partially recovered. While the number of mortgages that require a 10% deposit or less has increased by 330% since April 2009, even this recovery is a mere 18% of the number that were available at the height of the mortgage boom in 2007.

Mortgage availability isn’t as simple as just mortgage product numbers. Criteria is a lot more stringent now than it was, it is well-publicised that lenders are being more careful before granting loans (the recent spate of interest only criteria tightening being just one in a long line of adjustments made by mortgage lenders).

Anecdotally it looks as if the recently-ended stamp duty holiday has served to bolster first time buyer activity (new homebuyers did not have to pay stamp duty unless the property they were buying was priced higher than £250,000, not £125,000 as is now the case). And it remains to be seen whether the newly-launched NewBuy scheme will have the stimulating effect the Government is hoping for.

My hunch is that even with such stimuli, it will be increasingly the norm for first time buyers to be well into their third decade of life before taking the house buying plunge…

Stamp duty land tax is the tax you pay when you buy a new property. It’s charged as a percentage of the purchase price of a house or flat, with different percentages charged the more the property costs.

But it’s a very crude method of taxation for the 21^st century.

Buy a house at £249,999 and you’ll pay £2,499.99 duty; buy a house for £250,001 and you’ll pay £7,500.03. This is because the rate of stamp duty is charged on the full purchase price of the property – even if it’s just £1 over the threshold (the rate of stamp duty jumps from 1% to 3% when a property is priced at £250,001).

It’s archaic – and it’s damaging to the housing market. The Government seemed to agree with this when it introduced a stamp duty holiday for first time buyers in 2010 (for properties up to £250,000).

This week the initiative came to an end, against what has been hailed as a successful stimulus (Council of Mortgage Lenders’ statistics showed that first time buyers increased by 23% in January 2012 compared with a year earlier).

The Government has resisted calls to extend the holiday, and added an extra 7% tier for properties worth £2 million or more.

Stamp duty brings money in

Let’s rewind to 1997. New Labour, “Things can only get better” and the Spice Girls. The average price of a property in January 1997 was £64,918 (source: Halifax House Price Index), and stamp duty was 1% for properties of £60,000 or more. So stamp duty on the average property was just under £650.

Over the course of the Labour government (1997-2010), extra stamp duty bandings were added up to 5% for properties worth £1 million or more, cashing in on the house price explosion that took place up to 2008.

Despite these rises the average house purchase still pays 1% stamp duty. In February 2012 (the latest figures available) the average house price was £158,897 and would attract stamp duty of nearly £1,589.

With a banded system there will always be unfairness for those who are unlucky enough to stray into the more expensive tier – and this is exacerbated by the fact that the percentage is charged on the full purchase amount.

If stamp duty operated under the same tiers, but with you only paying the rate on the amount exceeding the tier, we would have a much fairer system.

But reading between the lines, this fairer way of doing things would reduce revenues. Maybe if we were on the eve of a full recovery of a housing market (with the promise of an increased number of house purchases) it would be possible.

The Government is never going to reform stamp duty until the economic climate allows it to do so without an adverse effect on revenue, or unless it can find some way to plug the sizeable loss it would make with a fairer system.

In an effort to give landlords a more accurate picture of a prospective tenant, and tenants a greater chance of building a credit history, the “Rental Exchange” looks set to divide opinion.

While some have criticised the big brother nature of this additional check, many more are coming out in praise for what could be a very positive move for both landlords and tenants alike.

Experian will depend on landlord participation in the scheme, and this could prove a considerable challenge in the months ahead. It could be the case that two tenants living next door to one another could find themselves in the situation where one is building a credit history, whilst the other is not.

However, instead of looking at this glass half empty scenario this is an important step forward – no tenants currently gain any sort of credit history from diligently (or not) paying their rent. When they come to buy their first home, or take out credit, they can often find themselves disadvantaged as a consequence.

How Experian’s “Rental Exchange” will work…

The “Rental Exchange” will allow landlords/letting agents to check whether a tenant has made rent payments on time, or at all, when renting previous properties. Experian will charge the agent/landlord a small fee for this service.

If the tenant agrees to it, this data can also go onto their main credit file – which could strengthen their hand when trying to secure a mortgage, loan, credit card, or other finance.

Clearly this will benefit landlords, who will have a new and effective way to screen prospective tenants; and of course, tenants can build a credit history where, before, they built nothing.

The devil will be in the detail…

Whilst this scheme is undoubtedly a good thing, it will be interesting to see how it is used by landlords and lenders.

The extra fee that landlords or letting agents will have to pay might present problems too. Will the landlord or letting agent be charged if they do a search on a tenant who has a rental history, just not with any landlord that uses Experian’s scheme? The tenant will not appear – which doesn’t make them a bad renter – but it does mean an extra check, and expense, for nothing.

Some landlords and letting agents may use the check in place of, or in addition to the credit check. It’s very likely that this fee will be passed on to the tenant, making just another thing to pay, in the increasingly expensive business of securing a rental property.

And how much value a finance provider or mortgage lender will attribute to the payment of rent is as yet uncertain. Would it receive the same weighting as successful payment of a mortgage over a set term?

There are a lot of questions yet to be answered – and it will be interesting to see the extent to which Experian’s “Rental Exchange” fulfils it’s promise of enfranchising tenants, and helping landlords.

But instead of solving the problem, it looks like three times as many of us will be in fuel poverty by 2016. The failure is due to ineffective policy and energy prices that have risen steeply, far in excess of inflation.

Currently the definition of fuel poverty is if you spend more than 10% of your income to pay your energy bills. In 2009 that put 4 million households in this category, or 7.6 million people.

An independent review released this week by John Hills, director of the Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion, is questioning this definition as it could include wealthy households that have high energy costs, as well as the poor that have comparatively low bills.

Hills proposes a new definition that would classify poverty on the basis of having a low income and high energy bills. Under this new methodology, 2009’s fuel poverty figures would read as 2.7 million affected households, or 7.8 million people. So fewer households, but more people.

As a country we are witnessing a fuel poverty epidemic – but why?

Poorer households tend to use more energy (if you’re unemployed or retired for instance you’re going to be at home more, using more energy).

Poorer households tend to be on more expensive, metred tariffs.

Poorer households may not have access to the discounts afforded by paying by direct debit, or by cheap online energy tariffs.

Poorer households tend to be living in properties that are less energy efficient – 75% of low income households live in homes that are graded as having an E, F or G (bad) energy efficiency rating.

The perverse result of all this is that low income households pay on average £600 per year extra in energy than the more affluent, a gap that looks set to get bigger.

It doesn’t matter how you dress it up

Changing the definition of fuel poverty isn’t solving the problem – as John Hills says in his review – only improving energy efficiency can do that.

Government, together with the energy companies, must do more to improve the plight of low income households – giving grants to those who need it, and improving accessibility to the most competitive energy tariffs. With fuel poverty set to rise (under the new definition) to 8.5 million by 2016, it’s action, not new definitions that is needed.

It’s now been three years with the Bank of England Base Rate at 0.5% and, whilst borrowers have enjoyed the reprieve, savers have seen their pots erode as inflation has consistently outstripped the best savings rates.

So what can be done to help savers?

Ahead of the forthcoming budget, the Building Societies Association (BSA) has come up with a bold, but sensible suggestion – raise the cash ISA allowance.

Cash ISAs are a way to shield your savings from the taxman, allowing you to save away a certain amount of money per tax year, without having to pay tax on the interest you earn. In 2011-12 this allowance is £5,340; in 2012-13 it will be £5,640.

However, the total amount you can put into an investment ISA is £10,680 – double the maximum you can put into a cash ISA. Aside from giving the ISA rules a level of unnecessary complication, this situation effectively penalises those who don’t want to risk their savings by investing.

To make matters worse, you can’t transfer an investment ISA to a cash ISA. This means that you can’t move your money to a cash ISA without withdrawing it.

There are two key disadvantages to this:

  The money loses its tax-efficient status as it is no longer in an ISA.
  You can only pay it back into a Cash ISA up to your annual ISA allowance. If you’d accumulated an investment pot of £20,000 for instance, it could take as long as four years to get all your money back into an ISA.

The big stumbling block is the larger economic situation. George Osborne will be struggling to balance books on 21 March when he delivers his budget.

Raising the cash ISA allowance would obviously reduce revenue – at a time the country can ill afford. In order to give with one hand, the worry is where he would have to take with the other.

The private rental sector in Newham is estimated to account for over a third of total housing in the borough and, in line with similar shifts across the UK, this slice of the pie is getting bigger (the expansion is not down to more property becoming available, but due to a decrease in home ownership).

The council is proposing to introduce licensing for two main reasons

- To combat anti-social behaviour

- To combat landlord negligence of property management and maintenance

The licensing process will involve a property inspection and give access to a “dedicated referral network for housing standards and tenancy issues”.

Critics are already blasting landlord licensing as a way for the council to generate extra revenue, and of course, licensing will boost the borough’s coffers. But it seems very clear that having a licence to let will benefit the vast majority of landlords, as well as tenants.

Firstly it will police and start to weed out the rogue element of the private rented industry. This will in turn instil confidence in the industry and raise housing standards. In some ways, licensing can be seen as much for the protection of landlords as it can for tenants.

A national licensing standard?

However, there are details that need to be thrashed out if a UK-wide system was to come into place…

- Licences must have the same minimum standards across all local authorities. For example, Newham have introduced some rules concerning how it will assess if a landlord is “fit and proper” to let a property. A good example would be the different ways local authorities treat Houses in Multiple Occupation – rules can differ on different sides of the same street, depending which authority the property falls under.

- The licence fee must be carefully monitored to make sure it is reasonable and takes into account portfolio size and regional differences in property value and rental yields.

How will mortgage lenders react?

If a landlord could take a preliminary check to confirm that they are “fit and proper” prior to making a mortgage application it would certainly be beneficial.

And from a mortgage lender’s point of view it will definitely want to check that the person applying for the mortgage will actually be able to let the property out, before making a loan. Getting a reference, or licence documentation may add additional costs to the property-buying process, particularly if that reference needs to be verified by a solicitor.

Newham’s consultation process will end on 30 April 2012. It will be interesting to see how this develops, how other local authorities implement licensing (and implement they very likely will) as well as how the mortgage industry reacts…