B B C Radio 5 Live 15.04.08

[swhiteley]

For those of you who like to download and keep these recordings, it's available from the HPC servers. Right click and save as on the link below

BBC Radio 5 Live Breakfast discussion (MP3, 1.9MB)

[abharrisson]

Demand = Desire to own your own home and, in 25 (possibly 40 or 50 ) years, you no longer have to worry about this portion of your living costs.

Affordability = Demand + Ability to raise finance + ability to service finance raised.

Demand is still there. As posted on various threads the main reason is security of tenure (if the Tenancy laws were addressed then demand would fall off sharply).

Ability to raise finance. Break open that piggy bank and count the pennies inside. If the piggy doesn't contain 10% of the agreed purchase price then you can go no further. Grab your superglue and stick your stash back.

Ability to service finance. If your raison d'etre is "must buy house, must buy house" then the banks are now doing you a huge favour by cutting credit lending. Why would anybody put a huge chunk of their take home pay into servicing a mortgage? You end up with nothing else at the end of every month so you just sit in your "slave box" (cheers, RFD) and let your life pass you by, all the while worrying about money.

As for your first line you are quite right. It is the instability (rampant HPI) over the last few years that has put me off buying.

The second line I have highlighted is just plain wrong, the financing situation IS solely about affordability. You are just viewing it from the wrong perspective (you need to look at it from the lender's POV rather than the buyer's POV)

On the financing point my point was all about the effect the financing problems is having on buyers, and my point simply was that from a buyers perspective the financing crisis is stalling sales not simply because the price of mortgages has risen.... the financing crisis has stalled sales also because of the uncertainty of product availibility, limited choice of financing types and also limitations on borrower acceptability by type.... in other words the points not wrong, or even plain wrong. In fact its right or rather plain right.

[eastleighfan]

How is it that the BBC on 5 live allow idiots like that Jonathan commenting on a house price crash quoting a 40% crash it is totally irresponsible and Journalists banging the drum every day is completely against the well being of millions of home owners.

I view this uncontrolled irresponsible reporting dangerous to Britain’s economy and much more serious than insider trading the Government should step in to stop uninformed unqualified reporting to what is people’s largest investment. As a property expert I am sick to the back teeth listening to the twaddle the BBC churn out every day.

There is only one reason why people are starting to panic and that stems from uninformed Journalists banging the drum every day. In the last recession pockets all over the country were affected and many pockets not. As like topics on Europe on other subjects no balance. If you take London the prime areas of Knightsbridge, Belgravia, Marylebone, Soho and Covent Garden were unaffected in the last recession.

BBC have like so many companies Journalists that have not got a clue and entertain a hypothetical line that has no bearing in the current prime London market with 5% interest rates and low unemployment, people should not believe all they hear from uninformed Journalists. In the last month I have seen five closed bid situations with prices ranging from 1M-4M

Agitated

Of course ,it's perfectly acceptable to talk a market "up" (IE "Krusty" ) ,so home prices to rocket and be beyond the reach of most youngsters forcing them into short term rental accomodation where they are at the mercy of private landlords !!!

[abharrisson]

Of course ,it's perfectly acceptable to talk a market "up" (IE "Krusty" ) ,so home prices to rocket and be beyond the reach of most youngsters forcing them into short term rental accomodation where they are at the mercy of private landlords !!!

Unfortunately we have the doom and gloomers and the talker uppers and neither is right. It's not likely I feel the drop is going to be anything like the nasty headlines, nor I think are those who talk the market up going to be right.

The answer of course is somewhere in the middle.... my betting is for something like a three or four year slowdown, with falls in actual prices dependent on when the financing pressures ease. If they ease within 12 months then I would go for overall actual price falls from peak of about 10% with another say 16% in inflation adjustment.

I'd also say some areas will badly effected and others not... so it won't necessarilly be a national cut in the true sense.

But of course the middle ground however right and sensible holds no water with the media who need a headline. Equally some on HPC and other sites love to talk up big numbers and feed the fear. At the moment I really think those VI's who see their role as talking up the market are pretty quiet... in fact whoever was on the radio before the HPC chap this morning did I think make a valid point that there will be a difference between some areas slumping a lot and others not (although I wouldn't go as far as she did and predict some areas will be unaffected).

[The Generation Game]

On the financing point my point was all about the effect the financing problems is having on buyers, and my point simply was that from a buyers perspective the financing crisis is stalling sales not simply because the price of mortgages has risen.... the financing crisis has stalled sales also because of the uncertainty of product availibility, limited choice of financing types and also limitations on borrower acceptability by type.... in other words the points not wrong, or even plain wrong. In fact its right or rather plain right.

This is the banks factoring in "affordability". If they can't shift the risk from their balance sheets onto the markets (ie the markets do not want to buy their consolidated financial instruments) then guess what, that product stops being economically viable at that price and either the rate goes up or the product is pulled.

[Michael]

That's an important point - Miras. What would real interest payable including Miras have been for the average earner, then?

The basic raTE OF INcome tax was 25% in the early 90s so 15% was effectively 11.25%

[bobthe~]

Hi abh, Sorry I didn't check back for an answer. Very rude of me.

And I apologise in advance if it is not coherent. I have been busy and keep coming back to this and then leaving it again.

Bobthe...... don't quite get the point you are making.... do you think the reduction in prices is going to be worse nationally (drops aggregated up) than last time ?, do you think its going to worse than 20% in price and 20% in inflation related falls. Do you not think that the downturn (like the last one) will be characterised by some massive falls in certain parts with others only seeing price easing. if you look in depth at the current stats most of it is down to repossessions increasing in some areas, new build flats coming onto the market at a discount, a scew in some of the statistics towards lower than average priced housing coming up for sale etc etc.... looking only at a National figure I really don't feel helps understand the nature of any market correction. The media appear fascinated with the national number, as I have to say did the HPC rep this morning. To me its largely meaningless as it reveals very little about where or why prices fall.

Although it may sound silly to many prices are not falling solely becasue properties are overpiced, there are other stronger drivers out there.

Last time, not everwhere went up very much. The bubble and the crash was focussed mainly in London and the South East. This time the bubble has been everywhere, although again London, The Home Counties and strangely enough Northern Ireland will be worse hit, but everywhere will be affected. This time there won't be the wage inflation to bail us out like th

However the global and UK finances are much worse off than in 1989. They should have taken the recession in 2003, but instead they blew the bubble up one last time and made everything much worse.

The point about the new builds is that those prices will be hit hardest... anyone who has bought one to actually live in in the last say four years is likely to catch a cold... a lot have been sold to investors.. but some unfortunates have also been hoodwinked by the " free carpets, part -exchange, 5% deposit etc " marketing of these places, many didn't even bother negotiating much..... like the more savvy investors they should have pushed for 30% off the starting price... even then they'd be in trouble, just less trouble. These people will definately be in negative equity for quite a number of years. so the answer is they won't be able to get up a rung as you say unless they have more cash. Mnay will have their finances damaged for the next decade.

Flats will be hit hardest, not just new builds. They are all in competition with each other for buyers. The OOs will have to compete with the bankrupt BTL landlords for buyers. If a new build flat halves in value then so will an OO flat.

If there is a significant fall in prices it will however help people trade up, although in recognising that we are also recognising that prices are likely to canter away again pretty quickly once the drop has finished( becasue like most drops it risks being overdone if allowed to run forward unchecked)

People won't want to trade up for fear of losing even more money. People won't come back until prices stop falling and probably won't come back until they have gone up for a couple of years. It's human nature. Did people pile back into tulips? South See Trading Company? Florida Land in the 20s? Wall street after 1932?. These are sea changes in people's psyche. If property goes down 15% it will go down more because people will see it has dropped and will be scared of losing more money. On the way up people are afraid of losing out. On the way down they see people who have been badly burnt and shy away.

Like many on here I share the view that prices will fall, but don't share the view that it will be national, and don't share the view that it will be anything like 40% in actual prices... I would argue even 20% in actual price and 20% in inflation would be extreme over the next four or five years.

Just to pose a point I just wonder what will happen if the credit crunch related financing issues are resolved in the next 6 to twelve months and some competitveness returns to the mortgage market. Personally I don't think it will trigger a bounce in house prices but I do believe it may well cut off much by the way of further falls. if the financing issues do disappear then in my view we could see whatever is going to happen this year 5/7/10 followed by say three years of stagnation........ I base this on the belief that without the financing crisis prices would have stopped rising and maybe dropped a little but not much more than that. I know that runs counter to some of the vested interests here but there we go thats my view. Its a balanced view.... and would in any event equate to say 26% in total with 10 being in actual price and 16% being inflation related.

Who said there will be any inflation. Deflation normally follows these kind of events, although the inflation force is strong on this site.

Show me a "soft landing" in property and I will show you high inflation, which apparently we don't have.

I think the view here is that credit tightening is not going to be a short term thing.

Bubbles in credit just don't behave like that, they cause recessions, recessions don't cause collapse in credit.

I think there have been enough bubbles and collapses in the last 300 or so years to work out what is going to happen in this one.

Humanity never learns from the financial excesses of the past. If they did, we wouldn't be at this point, and we wouldn't have a PM who believed he had abolished the economic cycle.

Properties will fall because the means of overpricing them have all disappeared.

There is no demand (in the economic sense) as the approval figures testify.

I have never seen lenders this desperate not to lend in my lifetime.

Stagnation is not an option for estate agents, they will come to their senses soon and play their part (as they did last time) in bringing the market down. They need volumes and can't talk the market up for any length of time if it means there are no buyers.

[abharrisson]

This is the banks factoring in "affordability". If they can't shift the risk from their balance sheets onto the markets (ie the markets do not want to buy their consolidated financial instruments) then guess what, that product stops being economically viable at that price and either the rate goes up or the product is pulled.

Er, actually its more complicated than this ... let me try and explain... some banks or mortgage providers have withdrawn from the market becasue they cannot access funding.... no money to lend... no mortgage business.

Others have buckets of money to lend using their own balance sheets... mainly the high street lenders. As these guys have large deposit bases they are not nearly so reliant on wholesale funding.

As the market has contracted in terms of the number of players then these banks have seen a massive rise in demand (eg C and G lent 200% more in the firts qtr, First Direct 500% etc). Their operations are unders stress so they have raised the price to limit demand... nothing to do with how much they have to lend or indeed "affordability" as you say.

In fact from a lenders perspective "affordability" has pretty much nothing to do with where we are now. all those still in operation will lend pretty much exactly the same to a normal mainstream client as they always used to even though the price of their mortgages have gone up.

When lenders talk about affordability in the market, they exclusively mean what the consumer can afford to pay, I can assure that none of the changes in product availablity is down to affordability... it is down to money supply and the cost of those funds, and it is down to lender risk assessments (which by the by are more concerned with credit score and LTV than they are affordability). Affordability in the mortgage market never means anything other than an assessment of whether an individual can afford to repay the loan they are taking out.

[Tonkers]

Not true. I was there. People did not get into the levels of negative equity people in newly gentrified areas did but it was hard to sell and recent gains were wiped out.

Chelsea tanked.

[abharrisson]

Hi abh, Sorry I didn't check back for an answer. Very rude of me.

And I apologise in advance if it is not coherent. I have been busy and keep coming back to this and then leaving it again.

Last time, not everwhere went up very much. The bubble and the crash was focussed mainly in London and the South East. This time the bubble has been everywhere, although again London, The Home Counties and strangely enough Northern Ireland will be worse hit, but everywhere will be affected. This time there won't be the wage inflation to bail us out like th

However the global and UK finances are much worse off than in 1989. They should have taken the recession in 2003, but instead they blew the bubble up one last time and made everything much worse.

Flats will be hit hardest, not just new builds. They are all in competition with each other for buyers. The OOs will have to compete with the bankrupt BTL landlords for buyers. If a new build flat halves in value then so will an OO flat.

People won't want to trade up for fear of losing even more money. People won't come back until prices stop falling and probably won't come back until they have gone up for a couple of years. It's human nature. Did people pile back into tulips? South See Trading Company? Florida Land in the 20s? Wall street after 1932?. These are sea changes in people's psyche. If property goes down 15% it will go down more because people will see it has dropped and will be scared of losing more money. On the way up people are afraid of losing out. On the way down they see people who have been badly burnt and shy away.

Who said there will be any inflation. Deflation normally follows these kind of events, although the inflation force is strong on this site.

Show me a "soft landing" in property and I will show you high inflation, which apparently we don't have.

I think the view here is that credit tightening is not going to be a short term thing.

Bubbles in credit just don't behave like that, they cause recessions, recessions don't cause collapse in credit.

I think there have been enough bubbles and collapses in the last 300 or so years to work out what is going to happen in this one.

Humanity never learns from the financial excesses of the past. If they did, we wouldn't be at this point, and we wouldn't have a PM who believed he had abolished the economic cycle.

Properties will fall because the means of overpricing them have all disappeared.

There is no demand (in the economic sense) as the approval figures testify.

I have never seen lenders this desperate not to lend in my lifetime.

Stagnation is not an option for estate agents, they will come to their senses soon and play their part (as they did last time) in bringing the market down. They need volumes and can't talk the market up for any length of time if it means there are no buyers.

Bobthe... afraid I am not clever enough to segment the quotes.

Actually I think new build flats will be much much harder hit.... why? because people overpaid of the originally (to a much greater extent than a normal second hand flat), becasue very many have been built in "regeneration areas, becasue there will be greater repossessions in the sector, becasue lending is tougher on these than on existing flats, and because where they have been built they have gone up in overly large numbers to fuel the bTL demand for the areas.

I agree with you that the "trade up " factor will only return once the bottom is in sight, but after that I do think they'll canter away again (on a ten year view, inflation adjusted it wouldn't surprise me if prices are where they are today in real terms)

Personally I think the credit tightening issues may well ease in 12 months and go within 18.... simply on the basis that there is a huge amount of political pressure, all the bad news related to CFD's etc will be done and gone, we'll know who the winners and losers are the banks will therefore feel better about lending to one another.

I'd agree with you about the UK taking the recession in 2003, or indeed going for a softer landing in house prices in 2005.

Personally I am hoping its not going to be as bad as the doom mongers seem to be saying. It'll be terrible for loads of unfortunate individuals if it is... lives ruined , hopes dashed etc...... I am sitting here hoping for say 10% fall in actual prices, inflation adjusted 26%... the bottom in 18 months with the bumping along over inside four to five years. That I think might mean the best of all worlds... the bubble deflates and we all get out of it without an immensely damaging recession.

Sadly we have no manufacturing base any more.... this would have been the time for it shine and help the UK thorugh the coming maelstrom.

[abharrisson]

Chelsea tanked.

Quite right I bought a flat in K and C at the end of the last crash... I bought at £120 ish, and the previous price was something like £175.... so in other words about 30% off what they thought they might get even three years into the fall

[Slumpmonkey Returns]

How is it that the BBC on 5 live allow idiots like that Jonathan commenting on a house price crash quoting a 40% crash it is totally irresponsible and Journalists banging the drum every day is completely against the well being of millions of home owners.

I view this uncontrolled irresponsible reporting dangerous to Britain’s economy and much more serious than insider trading the Government should step in to stop uninformed unqualified reporting to what is people’s largest investment. As a property expert I am sick to the back teeth listening to the twaddle the BBC churn out every day.

There is only one reason why people are starting to panic and that stems from uninformed Journalists banging the drum every day. In the last recession pockets all over the country were affected and many pockets not. As like topics on Europe on other subjects no balance. If you take London the prime areas of Knightsbridge, Belgravia, Marylebone, Soho and Covent Garden were unaffected in the last recession.

BBC have like so many companies Journalists that have not got a clue and entertain a hypothetical line that has no bearing in the current prime London market with 5% interest rates and low unemployment, people should not believe all they hear from uninformed Journalists. In the last month I have seen five closed bid situations with prices ranging from 1M-4M

Agitated

It's a bit rich Mr Dominic Littlewood for you to start moaning now about the BBC being biased. You had it your way for so long and the Beeb even peddled your pathetic property ramping programme "To Buy or Not to Buy" for years.

I saw you on the One show a few weeks back and you were pathetic then. You must be really sh@tting it now mate! How many BTL's do you own? Are you worried that the Beeb won't commission any more of your Property Porn shows in the future???

[Crashman Begins]

How is it that the BBC on 5 live allow idiots like that Jonathan commenting on a house price crash quoting a 40% crash it is totally irresponsible and Journalists banging the drum every day is completely against the well being of millions of home owners.

What about the non home owners like 1st time buyers you greedy *****

I will sing and dance in the street after the crash just to piss people like you off.

Edited April 15, 2008 by Crashman Begins

[Stanley]

How is it that the BBC on 5 live allow idiots like that Jonathan commenting on a house price crash quoting a 40% crash it is totally irresponsible and Journalists banging the drum every day is completely against the well being of millions of home owners.

I view this uncontrolled irresponsible reporting dangerous to Britain’s economy and much more serious than insider trading the Government should step in to stop uninformed unqualified reporting to what is people’s largest investment. As a property expert I am sick to the back teeth listening to the twaddle the BBC churn out every day.

There is only one reason why people are starting to panic and that stems from uninformed Journalists banging the drum every day. In the last recession pockets all over the country were affected and many pockets not. As like topics on Europe on other subjects no balance. If you take London the prime areas of Knightsbridge, Belgravia, Marylebone, Soho and Covent Garden were unaffected in the last recession.

BBC have like so many companies Journalists that have not got a clue and entertain a hypothetical line that has no bearing in the current prime London market with 5% interest rates and low unemployment, people should not believe all they hear from uninformed Journalists. In the last month I have seen five closed bid situations with prices ranging from 1M-4M

Agitated

BALDYYYY!!!!!!!

[I Told You So]

I'm sure he was originally an ex 2nd hand car dealer on something like 5th Gear, thats how he got his break in TV

Oh hang on a minute he's a property expert now

[Stanley]

I view this uncontrolled irresponsible reporting dangerous to Britain’s economy and much more serious than insider trading the Government should step in to stop uninformed unqualified reporting to what is people’s largest investment. As a property expert I am sick to the back teeth listening to the twaddle the BBC churn out every day.

You really are taking the pi@# now aren't you. You view this uninformed reporting as dangerous to the economy. Well please tell me how the last 8 years of property ramping by so called 'experts' (yourself included) as not been equally dangerous to the economy......Encouraged people into taking on vast debts, excluded honest, hard working young people from having a stake in their society....Rising property prices should not be greeted with glee, it is like all price inflation; a dilution of our collective buying power.

Ramping property like you do is ultimately anti-social and devisive. Please remember this before your ego forces you back onto tv to deliver another of your increasingly bitter rants....

[Guest anorthosite]

How is it that the BBC on 5 live allow idiots like that Jonathan commenting on a house price crash quoting a 40% crash it is totally irresponsible and Journalists banging the drum every day is completely against the well being of millions of home owners.

I view this uncontrolled irresponsible reporting dangerous to Britain’s economy and much more serious than insider trading the Government should step in to stop uninformed unqualified reporting to what is people’s largest investment. As a property expert I am sick to the back teeth listening to the twaddle the BBC churn out every day.

There is only one reason why people are starting to panic and that stems from uninformed Journalists banging the drum every day. In the last recession pockets all over the country were affected and many pockets not. As like topics on Europe on other subjects no balance. If you take London the prime areas of Knightsbridge, Belgravia, Marylebone, Soho and Covent Garden were unaffected in the last recession.

BBC have like so many companies Journalists that have not got a clue and entertain a hypothetical line that has no bearing in the current prime London market with 5% interest rates and low unemployment, people should not believe all they hear from uninformed Journalists. In the last month I have seen five closed bid situations with prices ranging from 1M-4M

Agitated

For the sake of a balanced discussion, can you confirm the details of any property portfolio you have?

[Freeholder]

Is this the same Dominic who made his TV debut teaching a Vicar to be a second hand car salesman on something called 'Faking It'? We should be told.

[Goat]

How is it that the BBC on 5 live allow idiots like that Jonathan commenting on a house price crash quoting a 40% crash it is totally irresponsible and Journalists banging the drum every day is completely against the well being of millions of home owners.

I view this uncontrolled irresponsible reporting dangerous to Britain’s economy and much more serious than insider trading the Government should step in to stop uninformed unqualified reporting to what is people’s largest investment. As a property expert I am sick to the back teeth listening to the twaddle the BBC churn out every day.

There is only one reason why people are starting to panic and that stems from uninformed Journalists banging the drum every day. In the last recession pockets all over the country were affected and many pockets not. As like topics on Europe on other subjects no balance. If you take London the prime areas of Knightsbridge, Belgravia, Marylebone, Soho and Covent Garden were unaffected in the last recession.

BBC have like so many companies Journalists that have not got a clue and entertain a hypothetical line that has no bearing in the current prime London market with 5% interest rates and low unemployment, people should not believe all they hear from uninformed Journalists. In the last month I have seen five closed bid situations with prices ranging from 1M-4M

Agitated

Surely this is a wind up

[Killer Bunny]

Last time, not everwhere went up very much. The bubble and the crash was focussed mainly in London and the South East. This time the bubble has been everywhere, although again London, The Home Counties and strangely enough Northern Ireland will be worse hit, but everywhere will be affected. This time there won't be the wage inflation to bail us out like th

However the global and UK finances are much worse off than in 1989. They should have taken the recession in 2003, but instead they blew the bubble up one last time and made everything much worse.

Flats will be hit hardest, not just new builds. They are all in competition with each other for buyers. The OOs will have to compete with the bankrupt BTL landlords for buyers. If a new build flat halves in value then so will an OO flat.

People won't want to trade up for fear of losing even more money. People won't come back until prices stop falling and probably won't come back until they have gone up for a couple of years. It's human nature. Did people pile back into tulips? South See Trading Company? Florida Land in the 20s? Wall street after 1932?. These are sea changes in people's psyche. If property goes down 15% it will go down more because people will see it has dropped and will be scared of losing more money. On the way up people are afraid of losing out. On the way down they see people who have been badly burnt and shy away.

Show me a "soft landing" in property and I will show you high inflation, which apparently we don't have.

I think the view here is that credit tightening is not going to be a short term thing.

Bubbles in credit just don't behave like that, they cause recessions, recessions don't cause collapse in credit.

I think there have been enough bubbles and collapses in the last 300 or so years to work out what is going to happen in this one.

Humanity never learns from the financial excesses of the past. If they did, we wouldn't be at this point, and we wouldn't have a PM who believed he had abolished the economic cycle.

Properties will fall because the means of overpricing them have all disappeared.

There is no demand (in the economic sense) as the approval figures testify.

I have never seen lenders this desperate not to lend in my lifetime.

Stagnation is not an option for estate agents, they will come to their senses soon and play their part (as they did last time) in bringing the market down. They need volumes and can't talk the market up for any length of time if it means there are no buyers.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner.

[bobthe~]

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner.

Oh I don't know I think it lacks ambition.

It also lacks an end to one of the sentences.

Still I would like to thank everyone on the HPC web site for making this possible, my cat and everyone else who knows me.

[buzzardo]

How is it that the BBC on 5 live allow idiots like that Jonathan commenting on a house price crash quoting a 40% crash it is totally irresponsible and Journalists banging the drum every day is completely against the well being of millions of home owners.

I view this uncontrolled irresponsible reporting dangerous to Britain?s economy and much more serious than insider trading the Government should step in to stop uninformed unqualified reporting to what is people?s largest investment. As a property expert I am sick to the back teeth listening to the twaddle the BBC churn out every day.

There is only one reason why people are starting to panic and that stems from uninformed Journalists banging the drum every day. In the last recession pockets all over the country were affected and many pockets not. As like topics on Europe on other subjects no balance. If you take London the prime areas of Knightsbridge, Belgravia, Marylebone, Soho and Covent Garden were unaffected in the last recession.

BBC have like so many companies Journalists that have not got a clue and entertain a hypothetical line that has no bearing in the current prime London market with 5% interest rates and low unemployment, people should not believe all they hear from uninformed Journalists. In the last month I have seen five closed bid situations with prices ranging from 1M-4M

Agitated

By crikey FP - you seem to have hit a nerve...

Isn't it lovely to witness the spectacle of EA's and other VI's cacking themselves, and signing up as (even newer than me) Newbies to slag you off.

Now you know you've REALLY arrived in the mainstream - good on you, and long may you reign triumphant against the trolls!!

Cheers.

B

[symo]

Had to laugh listening to that FP. I have the same problem dealing with non-UK engineers. The way to keep calm and deal with idiots like this; is to imagine you are explaining your point to a six year old who was born with learning difficulties and dropped on their head repeatedly as a baby. Honestly it really works.

Edited April 15, 2008 by symo

[scuuzeme]

is to imagine you are explaining your point to a six year old who was born with learning difficulties and dropped on their head repeatedly as a baby. Honestly it really works.

Unfortunately that seems to be how brown/darling are treating us when they continue to state that we have a "sound economy", "fundamentals" "low inflation" BLAH BLAH BLAH.

It's seriously hacking me off now

[Bearfacts]

Jonathon, just heard your piece with Ruth Lee --- well done - ignore those who say you lost it, you were showing passion and by crikey it came across . Is it it any bloody wonder that we all feel so passionate about this - peoples lives and livelihoods are being affected by all of this ? I am sick and tired, as I am sure you are, of so called experts in this instance Ruth Lee ( who really should know better ) spouting the usual old ****** about unemployment and recession causing the house price crash when if you just took five minutes to do your research you will see it is the other way round. Not only that, you only need to look at Ireland, Spain and the US to see that that is the case right now.

Jonathon , speaking as someone who has spoken on live radio, I know it takes a lot courage and especially when you are saying something that teh majority do not want to hear.

I'm not sure I would volunteer to do what you have done, you are a hero , if I ever get to meet you I will be buying you a very large beer.

You should also take solace from the fact that in one or two years time people will be looking back and saying 'you know what - that Jonathon Davies was spot on, he was one of the few who could see what was going to happen.'

P.S Next time someone mentions the comparisson between the US and UK house markets it might be worth pointing out that UK houses are twice the price and half the size of the US, on average.

WELL DONE KEEP IT UP and DONT LET THE BASTARDS GRIND YOU DOWN.