Sunday, Sep 23, 2007
Apparently you could tell the crash last time because estate agent offices suddently went silent.
Guardian: Wary buyers drop plans for moving house
Estate agents see inquiries DROP by a QUARTER! as Northern Rock bail-out makes buyers more wary
Posted by planning4acrash @ 04:17 AM (1013 views) Add Comment
15 Comments
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1. Davidr said...
Lots of emphasis on the proposed deposits guarantee system. Just a smoke screen to divert attention from the crisis to allow a snap election? At the same time, they've decided to Guarantee the number of pounds in your account but set in train inflation to rob you of ten per cent of their value every year. A great plan.
2. Davidr said...
Saw an advert on tv last night for Prime Location. Is this a new campaign? Are they panicking?
3. su said...
I guess EAs will be starting to get worried about their jobs if this continues. I've already had an EA phoning me to see if I'm still interested in buying a property. I've also noticed that some EAs are opening on Sundays now.
I had some bumff come throught my letterbox informing me of a free course where I can "discover how to purchase properties at up to 20% below market value..Inside Track can give (me) entree to an 'inner circle' of property investors - that elite group that has access to poperties at well below market value. That's because they have not yet been built."
Guess anyone involved in selling property is finding it hard to get customers and are having to resort to actively searching for them.
4. confused76 said...
"This flattening out needs to be kept in context. House prices have risen by 227 per cent nationwide since 1996, according to government data, and barely paused for breath, barring a brief wobble in 2005.
The real risk of a more material downturn in the market lies in the possibility of an extended credit crunch which gradually begins to impact on the real economy."
No, the real risk is the burst of the bubble
5. planning4acrash said...
Confused, the article I posted just before this one suggests that the credit crunch lasts at least 18months (that may as well mean that it will be permanent). This article says that the bubble will burst if that happens, budabm, ching!
6. littledeb said...
Most of the EA's round our way are reducing prices now. I have been watching a vast list of properties sitting doing nothing for months and suddenly they've all dropped in price by a few grand here and there. Something's afoot!
7. paul said...
"We do not believe it is a coincidence that our quietest weekend of the year occurred immediately after the Northern Rock share crisis"
Muddling up cause and effect there I think - quite deliberately.
8. paul said...
"But today, when a Florida householder defaults on his mortgage, the effects are felt not just in America but across the world."
This is psuedo-attributed to the chancellor Alistair Darling, but it's utter bunkum. Northern Rock had very little to do directly with US subprime.
9. planning4acrash said...
I think that blaming Northern Rock is a bit like blaming HIPS. The factors that caused the Northern Rock crisis are capable of causing a crash, because a lack of money will reduce prices. So yes Paul, I think there has been a muddling of cause and effect. Its amazing that the general public will not see the secular cycle and will blame particular organisations, possibly individuals. Whilst this can seem banal, it is inflact highly malignant, it is the reason why EA's and brokers have been able to mis-sell, and it is how they will get off the hook. Blaming individuals rather than seeing the broader picture is also how Nazi Germany maintained its Fascism. As Bhuddists say, dillusion is a root to all evil, the darkness of dillusion and the evil it causes surrounds us at all times, sometimes its fascism, sometimes its bubbles and mis-selling (ripping off people saving up for pensions), sometimes its a justification for destroying Iraq and Mugabe detroying Zimbabwe, its definitely a tool for destroying the environment with globabl warming. Have we really progressed as a society? Or do we just have more things?
10. enuii said...
P4C, I like the bit in forest gump when his mother advises him 'people only need so much money, then the rest is just for showing off', that is the crux of the problem. People are quite happy to borrow way beyond their means to satisfy their insecurity hence the emergence of terms such as 'retail therapy' and 'property ladder' inferring you are somehow a more superior person if your blinged out on shiny new stuff or have a 'better' property than your peers. Maybe as a nation we need to become more like Buddhists and seek the middle way to enlightenment and line in neither luxury nor poverty but be happy with middle of the road sort of lifestyle unburdened by large debt.
11. Mark said...
maybe they are quiet quite simply because people now realise a crash is looming, prices are too high...
12. Scott said...
I agree with enuii completely. I am better than my neighbour because I am very good at what I do for a living and I have a few other skills as well and I have good manners, etc. He is not better than me just because he has a better car.
13. shipbuilder said...
I agree totally P4C - we've already seen months of the media talking heads setting up HIPs as the 'fall guy' for the housing slump/recession and now Northern Rock, as if either of these could trouble a supposedly sound and stable banking system. We are now being told that the 'credit crunch' will be the villain, as if this is something completely out of thin air that could not have been anticipated and completely out of the control of Gordon, Mervyn or anyone else. It's a symptom of our society now that there must be personal blame for anything that happens, thereby taking responsibility away from the rotten system as a whole.
14. Jackdaw said...
The EA's are finally having to publicly admit the downturn in prices - which in reality started months ago.
Hopefully - any new regulations to control irresponsible banks will also be extended to EA's - who at present - and unlike buyers and lenders - are not subject to any risk. Perhaps a good start will be looking into applying penalties for the overvaluation of property. Maybe at least a reimbursment of fees to buyers. Or perhaps also - a fine pro rata to the amount of overvaluation.
15. paul said...
In a circuitous way though, Mervyn King's remit at least is responsible for the current slump in confidence in the property market, and by association the money markets.
Remember, it was his predecessor Eddie George who knowingly engineered the long run of unsustainably low interest rates.