Tuesday, Oct 30, 2007
VI Rubbish???????
Times: Property price crisis? Excuse my yawn
Are we living in a housebound society? Such is our property obsession that a Briton's home can now be his or her pension, passion or pet cause. The classical philosophical question — “How should a man live?” — has been bulldozed and replaced by a new, smaller one: “Where should we live, and how much can we make on it?” No wonder the prospect of falling house prices fills many with dread.
Posted by david20040_0 @ 05:42 PM (958 views) Add Comment
11 Comments
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1. paul said...
It all read so well until the last paragraph when they said "the chronic housing shortage that fuelled the boom in paper prices while construction fell farther behind need".
Oh please. So the five successive interest rate rises and removal of cheap credit have been coincidental to the ensuing crash at the moment?
This article would have had far more credibility if it a) actually mentioned the real cause of the boom and bust and b) if the author published the article during the boom, as opposed to now when he's decided that he doesn't want to talk about property any more.
2. shipbuilder said...
Just what I was thinking, Paul - if only he'd left off that last paragraph......
3. enuii said...
Strangely enough my 1/2 mile around rightmove search has just hit another record high for the number of properties for sale (115 and counting) up 38.6% since the 1st of April with the previous high being 99 properties on the 24th May (prime house flogging period).
The only shortage is for nice normal houses at reasonable prices because of all the garbage apartments that are being built instead to line the pockets of profit hungry developers.
4. Sherlock Homes said...
what do you expect, an englishmans home is his castle.
5. alan said...
Prices will start to slip downwards in the published statistics, very soon. My area was noted for very fast sales, but I've seen a few signboards and the houses for sale within 3 miles have almost doubled in number since mid August (Rightmove).
I'll be interested in Rightmove's results in November telling us how many properties are stuck on EA's books awaiting a buyer!
6. drewster said...
I walk past the same estate agents every day. Two years ago there were no "REDUCED" signs in the windows. Today nearly every property has such a sign!
7. inflation is eating my savings said...
Gentlemen, ladies.
A full blown crash takes 5 or more years.
Are you going to sit and watch it?
Ride a bike. Plant a tree. Cook vegetable soup. Cook beef soup- I have a very good recipe. Go for a walk in a wood. Make love. Paint a picture. Read a poem. Even better write one.
But don't waste your time on this savings account advertising space.
8. Slappyrick said...
Can we have the recipe?
9. drewster said...
@inflation - Of course we should all try to get on with our lives and not worry about the housing market. Nothing we say on here will change what happens in the market.
For your next trick, perhaps you could walk into a crowded pub on the afternoon of the FA final and tell the punters that there's no point in shouting at the tv, it won't change the outcome of the match. The people on here are shouting at the tv too, telling the politicians and the public not to be so stupid and reckless.
On your other point..... I am not sure that a crash would take five years. Stock markets tend to rise slowly and crash suddenly - there have been many occasions where a market has fallen 10% or 20% in a day, but never has a market risen 10-20% in a day. Under the old theories, housing is "sticky downwards" and different to purely financial instruments, because people need a place to live and they have a stronger emotional attachment to a house than to a share portfolio. However the arrival of so many BTL investors has changed both these ideas. Thanks to BTL, housing is now just another financial product like shares or commodities futures. Furthermore, BTL investors are highly geared so they can fall into negative equity quickly and be forced to sell. If the BTL investors panic and liquidate their assets, this would cause a much sharper slump than we have seen in housing markets in the past.
There is probably a recession looming and our futures look bleaker than at any point in the last ten years. I for one prefer to read this website and inform myself, rather than mindlessly watch football.
10. planning4acrash said...
Inflation, look at the homepage graph, the majority of falls last time took 1.5 - 2 yrs, then falls halved and softened for a few years. There will be many buying opportunities 1.5yrs after a crash, if you look carefully you will find houses in auction houses at bottomed out prices. If its beneath 3.5X local salaries then buy it!
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