Martin Lewis was back at the helm of Good Morning Britain on Monday (October 10) to give his expert advice amidst the cost of living crisis. The MoneySavingExpert founder appeared alongside host Susanna Reid to answer questions from concerned viewers of the ITV news programme covering everything from mortgages to energy costs.
Ever since the mini budget was announced on September 23, worry has mounted amongst homeowners after predictions that the Bank of England could raise interest rates to as high as six percent. Mortgage lenders have since been pulling deals off the market and homeowners are beginning to see their mortgage repayments rise to unaffordable rates.
On Monday's programme, Martin answered several questions surrounding the mortgage crisis as well as tenants who were becoming increasingly worried about their rent costs amid the recent property news.
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Amongst the concerns Good Morning Britain viewer Sean sent a question in for Martin which was read out by Susanna Reid, which said: "If mortgages are going up, what does that mean for people who pay for their properties? Are rents going to go up too?"
As soon as Susanna said the word 'rent', the finance guru sighed and put his head in his hands.
After taking a moment, Martin responded: "Probably. You would assume that many people who own properties have mortgages on them so their costs are going up and they will want to pass them onto consumers.
"You can also assume that less people may be buying which will put more people into the rental market."
The money-saving expert then added: "On the other hand, we have a cost of living crisis where people have less money so they may be willing to pay less for rents which could drive prices down.
"I'd probably go with the first option as most prices are going up so renting prices are likely to go up but we are not in a period of certainty at the moment."
Some Good Morning Britain viewers responded on Twitter to Martin Lewis' prediction to say that they were already seeing their rent costs rise.
@rachelbyrne86 tweeted : "My council wrote to say they potentially will be raising my rent in line with inflation plus 1%, a total of 12%."
@RebeccaWebber89 said: "Rent has already gone up its not just a case of eat or heat its also how do you eat or heat when you can't afford the rent to keep the roof over your head, unfortunately this is now the case for a lot of families disabled carers etc something needs to be done to help."
@Whgenie said: "Keep up... rents have been rising drastically for the last 6 months."
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