Friday, Apr 13, 2007

WOW! a mentinon from the BBC

BBC: What will happen next to house prices?

Whether the UK housing market booms or goes bust is as about as hot a conversation topic as you can get.

!In the past ten years a global bubble in house prices has developed and it is now bursting," Jonathan Davis, a certified financial planner and spokesman for website housepricecrash.co.uk, said.

Posted by george monsoon @ 08:26 AM (174 views) Add Comment

16 Comments

1. The Capitalist said...

Well done JD. Your arguments are sound. What you can add next time is that markets are irrational, all the major banks are printing far too money (so all assets are inflating - from homes to wine to stamps to celebrity 3-wheelers) People do stupid things en masse! I always take comfort by looking at the graph.

Friday, April 13, 2007 09:11AM Report Comment
 

2. paul said...

Well straight off the bat,

1. Will Jonathan Davis please step forward?
2. They continue to peddle the housing shortage myth which has been discredited by a number of factors.

Friday, April 13, 2007 09:31AM Report Comment
 

3. Wsn03 said...

There is no housing shortage. Still, interesting to see the word bust being mentioned as a possibility by the same journalists who 12 months earlier were only publishing tripe about house prices going up forever..........oh how I wish the missus would let us sell up now!

Friday, April 13, 2007 09:42AM Report Comment
 

4. doomwatch said...

Unbelievably the BBC let Mr Davis have the last worrd, rather than the unsual final paragraph of VI guff.

There won't be a housing shortage when most sensible non-bonus skilled professionals decide the re-locate out of London, and/or the UK.

Friday, April 13, 2007 09:57AM Report Comment
 

5. Chillilizard said...

yeah - the UK may be smaller when compared to other european countries, but the real limitation on urban growth is infrastructure, not available land. There is plenty of land available for building on. Although, planning permissions place an unnatural limitation on available land in the UK.

Friday, April 13, 2007 09:59AM Report Comment
 

6. Fahrenheit451 said...

Well done Jonathan, but what's your handle, I hope y'r posting here as well. I (possibly we !!!) would like to hear it straight from the heart.

But later in the article, Mr Stansfield, says that rates would have to head above 7% to cause any problems.
Durr ... anyone who bought 3 yrs ago will have seen their mortgage payments nearly double now its "only 5.25%" base rate, that sounds like trouble to me. And what about all those low-start mortgages, no doubt sold to sub-prime buyers. Now, their mortgages will have at least tripled (that's 3x ...) and if that's not trouble sombody needs their head examining.

And of course it is going up again and just because there's a sub-prime mortgage problem doesn't mean that the economy wont pick up "post war" (+ Olympic Fever), so interest rates are going to have go up anyway, sod the housing market, it's the whole economy that sets the base rate.

Whey Hey ... 7% here we come, (and 8% is lurking in the corner ... Boom Bust Boom Tra L' La L' La)

Friday, April 13, 2007 10:23AM Report Comment
 

7. taffee said...

there are 623,000 empty properties in the uk

you can still buy a 3 bed house in middlesborough for £30-£50,000

there is plenty of unused land in the uk

proper pre-fab diy houses are finally coming along

58%of property sales in 2006 were subprime/non-status/buy-to-let

there is massive mortgage fraud that will unwind

Friday, April 13, 2007 11:14AM Report Comment
 

8. Shipbuilder said...

Check out the in-depth analysis of bears-turned-bulls Capital Economics -

We predicted a crash, but saying there would be a crash didn't make it happen, so now we're saying no crash, until there is a crash.

These are the people that make up our much-lauded service economy, the 'powerhouse of Europe' and the 'capital of finance.'
Would you pay them for their 'services'?

Friday, April 13, 2007 11:27AM Report Comment
 

9. confused76 said...

there is a lot of debate in the press today on house price crash (mainstream papers are clearly saying "crash? no way!")
emphasis is on affordability and - as usual - the tune is set by the Halifax press release, meant to influence our bright politicians to give subsidies to key workers on low income to step on the now famous "property ladder":

http://money.independent.co.uk/property/mortgages/article2444417.ece
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/555bf61c-e8f8-11db-a162-000b5df10621.html
http://www.londonstockexchange.com/en-gb/pricesnews/investnews/article.htm?WBCMODE=PresentationUnpublished?ArticleID=18116676

Friday, April 13, 2007 11:37AM Report Comment
 

10. Scott said...

I agree with Taffee and I am already planning to take Doomwatch's advise. I think I will emigrate as opposed to moving out of London to somewhere else in the UK.

Friday, April 13, 2007 11:42AM Report Comment
 

11. The Baldman said...

Japan has a large population and is a relatively overcroded place but look at what happened to house prices there!!!

As for the economy in the UK it is only good becasue of house prices. Any let up in inflating the bubble will see an immediate downturn in the economy.

Friday, April 13, 2007 12:00PM Report Comment
 

12. Shipbuilder said...

The last bit of the Independent article is hilarious -

A crash is highly unlikely - yet in the next paragraph they advise downsizers to sell, because prices are 'near their peak'.

The general consensus amongst 'experts' is just a slowdown, apart from a few doom-mongers - At this point you expect the article to name a few cowboys you've never heard of - except.... PWC and Morgan Stanley - who are they? Obviously not 'experts'.

Buyers with large mortgages are unlikely to be able to sell themselves out of trouble - why in a rising market with a housing shortage?

Interest rates are expected to come down next year - well, they weren't 'expected' to rise in the first place, were they?

Now is not a good time to buy because HIPs will make buying more expensive - right, so buy later, when HIPs go away again? Errr...

Astoundingly bad journalism.

Friday, April 13, 2007 12:04PM Report Comment
 

13. nearly30 said...

I think for a fair and balanced debate - HPC should send Glorius Sunshine next time.

Friday, April 13, 2007 12:41PM Report Comment
 

14. royston said...

One point on the 'shortage of land' argument: Every time I drive out through the M25, I am struck by the large fields and woodland surrounding London. Each could easily accommodate several housing estates. So where is the shortage of land - maybe the French and Americans have bigger farms - so what? Agriculture is not a big part of our economy!

Friday, April 13, 2007 01:36PM Report Comment
 

15. David20040_0 said...

"Interest rates are expected to start coming down again next year, reducing payments for those taking out a variable-rate mortgage"

OH GOD NO!!!!!!! THIS WILL JUST MAKE PRICES GO UP EVEN FURTHER!!!!!!!!!!!!!

RAISE RATES!!!!!!!!!

Friday, April 13, 2007 01:55PM Report Comment
 

16. millard said...

Fahrenheit451: re J Davis, yep he's a regular on here and in the media, mostly on the forum rather than the news pages, aka Financial Planner.

Friday, April 13, 2007 03:54PM Report Comment
 

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