I have know Richard Berridge since I was a nipper, he grew up in property and I grew up in pensions. He was my cricket captain, he could play, I couldn’t. His family have known mine for nearly forty years, since we met in a pub in rural Suffolk.

In all the time I’ve written this blog, he’s been in my mind and mostly when I think about the cross-over between pensions and property. He has posted on that subject and I’m very pleased to be able to re- post it on my blog!

Richard and I are of an age and have lived through a sustained inflation in housing prices since the dark days of the eighties when interest rates were high and the Government took away MIRAS.

Over this time, we have , as Richard says, made our house our everything to a point we have forgotten balance.

Now house prices are no longer booming and leasehold prices in some parts of the country are collapsing. If we have no liquid investments to fall back, if we do not have an income promised us in later life , if we have not paid off our mortgage, the generation that Richard and I are in will be f@cked.

We are a nation that believes success is marked by the house we live in, more even than the car we drive. Beyond it, it must be our house not a house we rent from someone else. We want more even than a long-lease which is part of the problem we are having with flats.

Follow or connect with Richard Berridge. He is a fine fellow and an older version of Harry Scoffin. They are the bookends of experience but great fun both!