MinceBalls

Interestingly, from my old neck of the woods, prices went UP 80-100% 2010 - 2016. That's after the agreed 40% on stress tests. So shouldn't they now be stress testing something like 60-70% falls for their London properties? IMO, 40% is next to nothing in London, doesn't even take most places back to 2012.

I would agree, it certainly shouldn't derail the process, it's just a shame that this is now happening - I feel so sorry for those people who are suffering abuse.

My view for what it's worth is that we won't be leaving the EU. It's just based on a hunch, the same way as I had a hunch that Leave would just about win. If it adds anything to this discussion, I live in a very polarised area - Thanet South - and I am being told by friends - one black and one Asian - that since the vote, and for the first time in their lives, strangers are coming up to them in the street and telling them to leave the country. This must be truly awful for them. Additionally, the head teacher of a local school has had to issue a plea for calm to parents because since last Thursday, children of ethnic minorities have been coming under attack from other children. I do not subscribe to vote exit = being a racist, but there is certainly something going on (in a bad way) that wasn't happening before. I have no idea if this is temporary or the start of something. The referendum hasn't made people racist, there have always been racists. But it has certainly legitimised their voice - or at least THEY think it has. I'm pretty sure you'd agree, whether you voted leave or remain, this sort of behaviour is unacceptable.

Note that I actually said 'friends of family'. Subtle difference Agreed with your sentiment, as I've posted before, I'm pretty sure it'll end in tears. But when this happens and what will happen I have no f*cking clue.

But how about the Knight Frank/markit House Price Sentiment Index?

I thought stuff was overpriced from 2002ish. A couple who are a friend of the family mortgaged themselves to the hilt to spend 1/2 million on a townhouse in Islington. They are the smuggest g*ts ever - sitting on a valuation of 3.2 Million quid for doing feck all. What's that all about? I mean really, if we take a step back and look at this sort of stuff with any objectivity it just looks completely insane.

'Average folks who own outright' So not average then? Will ppl's lives be impacted if we have another banking collapse? If they fear they can't make claims on what they think is their money when in fact 32 other people have claims on the same money? Will their lives be the same when they have no job or little job security? Will their lives be the same when year after year what they see their pension diminishes in value? Or when the government seizes their pension fund? Of course, we could carry on this charade for years (or decades) to come. But the heath of the economy is so intrinsically linked to the health of our financial system which is in turn almost entirely derived from debt fuelled by mortgages that when one thing blows, so does the other. Unless I've missed some amazing bit of policy making that's changed things since 2008? Has the housing market now been successfully decoupled from the health of our economy? These sorts of economic dysfunctions impact everyone. No-one escapes.

Erm, I think you better go back and re-read (or read for the first time?) the thread. It appears you've got the wrong end of the stick. My comment had absolutely nothing to do with 'no crash will happen because they won't let it' and everything to do with 'a crash is baked in but those with a vested interest will not let go of their interest without pulling the whole damn show down on our heads'. By this I mean, as we witnessed in 2008-2010, it is difficult to see how a collapse in the housing market can possibly be decoupled from a collapse of greater proportions of the banking system and the economy. The powers that be - those that also happen to be land owners and vested interests - will not throw their wealth away without a fight - attempting to implement policy to assuage their wealth destruction. As a consequence, as opposed to solving the root cause of the problem, their very policy implementation will result in a significantly worse situation leading to a pretty shitty situation for all concerned including those who don't currently own property. By that I mean significant rises in poverty, unemployment and social unrest. It's very difficult to be concerned about 'getting on the ladder' when you no don't know if you'll be in work next week.

Ultimately I think you might be right. It will probably be a case of 'if I can't have it no one can' akin to a child ruining something as opposed to letting someone else have a go.

Looking at Zoopla sold data for 3 areas I know well (where I grew up in the Cotswolds, where I lived in London and where I live in the South East now), whilst the % price increases in the last few years have varied quite considerably, it looks like they all follow a very similar same pattern and that sold prices peaked in the Autumn 2015 and have been drifting down since. Of course, if this continues, it will be blamed on BREXIT for a long time yet (I expect it will be used as an excuse for the rest of the year).

I literally just spat my coffee out when the sister in law sent me an email to say our old flat in Seven Sisters had sold last July for 405K (we sold in 2011 for £231K). Looking at the Zoopla data, in 5 years it's increased by..... 73.6% And looking at the pictures, they've done NOTHING to it - same wallpaper, kitchen, bathroom, albeit looking a bit warn out and a bit less well kept. I'm not sure any of this is going to end well

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/apr/14/rbs-close-32-natwest-branches-axe-600-jobs

Direct experience of a couple of these banks, most are getting rid of staff to meet ever changing short term targets. Said banks are hiring 'consultants' at quite a rate and paying them 700-1500 a DAY contract rates for what are affectively permanent positions. If you've already made it into the 1% 'consultancy' network then most of your time and daily effort will involve networking, protecting and increasing your already inflated salary at the expense of the people that take care of the day-to-day running of the institution. We're not far from a massive banking IT failure because these systems are creaking and the people who support them are being replaced by idiots. House of cards.

I don't post on here too much any more: young kids, commuting and running a small business all leave me rather time poor. But I was pretty active before we moved out of London in 2011. Fast-forward 5 years and it's pretty depressing to see the current state of the housing market. I'm personally OK, I have a nice house for my family and pretty small mortgage. I am fortuitous simply for being born at a certain point in time (I'm in my fourties). But I'm depressed all the same because I work with a younger generation, a generation locked out of the opportunities I have had. And it's even more depressing to say that in the last 4.5 years, almost all of my friends and close relatives, all those who are fortuitous because of when they were born, have turned to BTL. These are people who consider themselves to be socialist, left leaning, even some Corbyn supporters. We've reached a point where people no longer consider the harm of BTL. It's become a blind spot for the UK population and we're in the midst of something that will leave scars on our country for years to come. I go to the pub with these people and they are all at it. I remember the dot.com boom and it's a similar situation as with shares in technology at the time. Everyone's an 'expert', everyone seemingly making money from shrewd business decisions as opposed to being in the right place at the right time - luck. People with above average incomes but not rich (comfortable middle class) who have made more money on capital gains on their propertie(s) than they could dream to make in a lifetime of work. When will this circus end? Who knows. All I know is that more people than ever before are exposed. It's worse than 2008. Small shifts in interest rates (+1-2%) will bankrupt a nation.

I wasn't defending Vince Cable and agree with much of what you say but the point I was raising wasn't about his integrity but instead it seems that rather than government policy implicitly triggering HPI, that government policy has been explicitly aimed at creating HPI. Important difference. But I haven't heard Mr Osborn or any of his cohorts come out and say that it is a Conservative policy to make sure house prices rise and I didn't see it in any manifesto either this time round or last time round. I did read and hear a lot about solving the 'housing crisis' and making homes 'affordable' which is at complete odds with policies designed explicitly to increase house prices. Just another example of modern day political duplicity. It simply won't end well.