the_patient_bear

+ £5 [apologies beerhunter: I never saw the donate button before...]

Hi all first post after a few months reading your posts. If I may say, some of the posts are really good, others are just "noise"... As my not-so-clever nickmane suggests I am a priced-out FTB looking in disbelief at what has been going on in the housing market and trying very hard not to follow my elders advice to step onto the property ladder as soon as possible as property always goes up and I have waisted too much time just "waiting". (It does not cease to amaze me how hot/angry they can get with me for daring to say that the market is overpriced - after all they are house owners and they feel "secure" with their unexpected "wealth"- and each time I ask them to just look back and analyze their own experiences they just omit, time and again, the lows in their properties - "ah, but this time is different" they intone...). Anyway, rightly or wrongly I am in no doubt that the property market will correct itself as it has done so many times in the past, just don't ask me when ... I have two simple questions, and I would be extremely grateful if any of you could signpost me in the right direction: 1) Why whilsts inflation is bad for your savings is extremely good to repay your mortgage? I have read it a few times, but never understood it. Paranoid thought: is this why the remit of the Central Banks is to keep inflation low?? 2) After the crash: all FTB dream in flooding the market once property prices go down. It is not going to happen, is it? The wider economy will suffer and all of us with average salaries will be priced out of the market again for different reasons (unemployment, credit tightening...). Any posts about this in this website or the internet? and an extra question: 3) Was the Barker report the one that stated that although house price hyper-inflation can be explained by raising population and more employment at least 1/3 of it is due to speculation? I don't seem to be able to find this report on the net. Can anybody signpost me in the right direction? Thank you very much to you all, cheers !