Wednesday, Apr 23, 2008
No silver bullet for the liquidity crisis
Citywire: Mortgage lending sinks 46% in 12 months, BBA says
Mortgage lending sank further into the doldrums with mortgage approvals to buy houses falling by 18% in March, according to the British Bankers Association. The figures from high street lenders show a 46.2% slump in approvals for house purchase mortgages from March 2007. Approvals to buy house fell to 35,417 in March form 43,147 in February, a dramatic decline from 65,841 in March last year. Even remortgages have been hit with a 13.6% fall in approvals in March to 60,503 from 69,997 in February.
Posted by jack c @ 12:15 PM (623 views) Add Comment
14 Comments
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1. mark wadsworth said...
Good find. Nice bit of special pleading by the BBA! These ba5tards, shouldn't they all just be forced to do huge rights issues like RBS?
2. jack c said...
Can't remember from previous posts if it was uncle tom or japanese uncle who was talking about a potential 80% price correction but if the trends outlined in the article continue then it is (IMO) becoming a distinct possibility
3. Herbie said...
Same story is on the BBC
4. hpwatcher said...
80% price correction
Probably a little too much...I would say 50-60%. But I'd be very happy to be proved wrong.
5. afrobaggie said...
It might correct to 50-60% but surely it will overshoot, probably to 70-80% before it finds a happy medium.
6. sold 2 rent 1 said...
How about 100pc price reduction and the end of money.
If the age of materialism gives way to the age of spiritualism then this might be the case.
7. dohousescrashinthewoods said...
My most straightforward analysis:
The long-term, sustainable level for house prices is 3 to 3.5 x salary.
Current average salary: 25K
Sustainable average price: 75 - 87.5K
Peak average price: 200K (last Summer)
Therefore, from peak to trend:
56 - 63%
The undershoot is anyone's guess, but it seems reasonable to assume it will be big.
If it undershoots by half of the peak-to-trend distance (a wild guess) then 80% looks conservative.
Taking an average of the numbers above, we'd be looking at 20 - 25K average price - nearly 90% peak to trough.
8. Ijjhall said...
I sincerely hope some of these predictions are true but guys you have seen the this govt's reaction to the reported Halifax monthly drop of 3 per cent. It has been as though the world has ended and blatant attempts have already been made - liquidity injection, halted repossession suggestion - to stall a correction. 50-60 per cent drops ? Someone says 90 per cent ? I just don't think it is possible in a functioning democracy. You would need armed riot police out there to quell the resulting unrest...on C4 news the other week even JD stopped at 35-40 per cent over 5 years. Isn't that figure about right if things go as we hope ?
9. Dohousescrashinthewoods said...
Actually, I just can't see that happening. Doing a pencil-against-screen analysis of the graph on the front page suggests that 75 - 85K (in today's money) would be the trough. Then again' it's never been this big and this global, so it could be worse.
Ultimately, if you're in it for the long term and not looking to make money, just step in when it's between 3 and 3.5. The important thing is not to look at the numbers themselves, because inflation will distort them. Instead, check the proportions:
If the average house hits 3.2 million and average wage hits 1 million (and we all feel poorer because bread costs 50 quid and we're being taxed to the eyeballs), that is a reasonable time to buy a house you can afford by borrowing 3 - 3.5 x whatever you are earning at that time.
Simple really.
10. mark wadsworth said...
Jack C, it was "Japanese Uncle Tom".
My guess is house price falls between one-third and one-half, I won't bore you with the workings. We can argue who was right or wrong in three years' time.
11. jack c said...
Mark W - it's all simply a matter of opinion - one thing is a certainty prices are on the slide - only Stuart Law of Assetz now stands apart on this. It will be interesting to see how it all eventually plays out.
12. hpwatcher said...
you have seen the this govt's reaction to the reported Halifax monthly drop of 3 per cent. It has been as though the world has ended and blatant attempts have already been made - liquidity injection, halted repossession suggestion - to stall a correction.
Yes, but this is only the start. It's only natural at this point, for them to try to fix everything....but at time goes on, just watch what happens.
13. afrobaggie said...
The real question is, What does Kirsty's hat taste like?
14. Ijjhall said...
@hp watcher
Hear what you say but I think we have a lot more interfering from Govt to put up with to stall any significant correction certainly of the type mooted here. The following is from a press release from Hilary Clinton commenting on the US housing crisis.Gordon Brown recently called her views/remedies on the crisis as 'imaginative'. it was one of the reasons he was cited as choosing Hilary as his preference over Obama..it reads :
'Senator Clinton has been speaking out for over a year on the need to take action to address our housing crisis, and has been out in front in calling for major reforms: from cracking down on unscrupulous mortgage lenders to establishing moratoriums on foreclosures and a five-year interest rate freeze on at risk mortgages'.
Shows the way the thinking is going...