With 19,000 home repossessions expected in 2007, rising to 20,000 in 2008, the figures presented by the Council of Mortgage Lenders yesterday don't make for the most optimistic property report of 2007. The rise in repossessions in UK have now tripled in 2 years, yet despite this they are still some way from 1991's figures when a massive 75,540 homes were repossessed in a single year.

Unlike in 1991 when the single biggest contributor to property repossessions was the ever spiraling interest rate increases which topped at a lofty 15%, it seems this time around that the primary cause is more likely a case of people overstretching their finances borrowing far greater multiples of their income and being far more susceptible to even the smallest changes in interest rate changes or personal financial and cost of living changes.

Lenders eagerness to increase the income multiples for mortgages now reaching 5 times joint income with some lenders and property buyers desperation to get onto the property market one way or another does seem to have resulted in far more property buyers starting out their life on the property ladder with absolutely no slack built into their financial arrangements for any changes whatsoever.

In a property market that is described by many leading property experts as a bubble about to burst this latest CML report can't bode well, a flexible and understanding approach will be needed from lenders to avoid the personal trauma and economic impact of the devastating figures of the early 90s.