Don't pile into property in 2018

Britain's house prices will be at best stable this year. Merryn Somerset Webb explains why now's not the time to put your money in property.

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Now's not the time to put your money in property
(Image credit: 2016 Getty Images)

What's the best possible thing that could happen to UK house prices? Your immediate answer will depend upon your own situation. If you have recently bought with a whopping great mortgage, you will want prices to rise. If you are planning to downsize, you will also want them to rise (you are interested in the cash left over after the move). If you have a good slug of equity and plan to trade up, you'll want prices to fall. The percentage fall of the cheaper house you occupy will cost you less than you will save from the same percentage fall in the more expensive house you want.

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Merryn Somerset Webb

Merryn Somerset Webb started her career in Tokyo at public broadcaster NHK before becoming a Japanese equity broker at what was then Warburgs. She went on to work at SBC and UBS without moving from her desk in Kamiyacho (it was the age of mergers).

After five years in Japan she returned to work in the UK at Paribas. This soon became BNP Paribas. Again, no desk move was required. On leaving the City, Merryn helped The Week magazine with its City pages before becoming the launch editor of MoneyWeek in 2000 and taking on columns first in the Sunday Times and then in 2009 in the Financial Times

Twenty years on, MoneyWeek is the best-selling financial magazine in the UK. Merryn was its Editor in Chief until 2022. She is now a senior columnist at Bloomberg and host of the Merryn Talks Money podcast -  but still writes for Moneyweek monthly. 

Merryn is also is a non executive director of two investment trusts – BlackRock Throgmorton, and the Murray Income Investment Trust.