There will likely be an interest rate

rise tomorrow. It seems everyone is forecasting a "twenty-five basis point" rise...or a quarter of one percent or around another twenty-five to thirty dollars a week on the "average" home loan. Rent will rise too.

I am told there will be people who "go under" or "default" or "go to just paying the interest" on the loan. This includes "first home buyers" who have a "package". 

House values have also dropped. There are now people who owe more than their house would fetch on the open market. That is likely to send even more spiralling downwards.

It is a complex mess and it has largely been created by a demand for something we have never been able to afford. Not everyone will agree with me over that but I still feel it is likely.

There is a "satellite city" north of this one. It was "planned" and it was thought it would be a success. The late and much missed Queen Elizabeth allowed it to be named after her, opened some of it when she was here and almost certainly watched in despair at what happened. 

A great many people were moved into cheap housing all at the same time. Many of them were "working class". They worked at the sort of jobs which have now largely disappeared. Qualifications for alternative employment are low. The unemployment rate in that area is high, very high. There are high numbers of single mothers. Many of them were very young when they had their first child. The majority of them now rent. Social welfare housing is high. It always was.

As an experiment in social engineering it was a failure. Now it seems the government is attempting to repeat the experiment but add in "home ownership". People are being told their dream of a solid construction home with a minimum of three bedrooms on an individual block is still possible.  They are being told that this is not just what they should aspire to but what they should expect, what they have some sort of "right" to own.

It is unrealistic. In the twenty-five or more years before a mortgage is paid off many of these people will be unemployed. Their jobs will no longer exist. 

Many of these same people will be living in social isolation, isolation brought on by working conditions and "work from home" policies. It will be isolation increased by the "entertainment" available at the price of a television set and a remote control. Yes, some of them will have played sport when young but will those team friendships last? Like it or not "sport" friendships are not the same as those developed over active participation in other common interests.

That likely interest rate hike is going to isolate many people even more. We do not seem to be learning from past mistakes.