Sunday, Dec 14, 2008
Country by country investigation of the house price crash
MENA FM.COM: The world House price Crash
House prices also fell in Austria, Japan, Luxembourg, Israel, Norway, Malta, New Zealand, and Portugal. Although the latest figures are not yet available, house price falls are also expected in economic powerhouses such as France, Italy, Germany
Posted by gone-to-colombia @ 05:14 PM (686 views) Add Comment
9 Comments
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1. amjidk said...
sigh....it's been an amazing 8 years, in 2003 i thought house prices MUST have reached their peak, but the bubble continued to inflate, we had all sorts of people telling us that "the the fundamentals were strong, unemployment and interest rates were low, it's different this time, there will be no crash," anyone (like myself) who argued otherwise were ridiculed, propert programs and vested interest kept up with the propaganda and then at last the pop, it had to end in tears and it has, the problem is that the ones who didn't indulge in this madness must also suffer the consequences...
i,m still amazed that, Nulab, the FSA and loads of highly paid so called expert economics didn't see this coming, i wander why?
2. S2r2005 said...
they did see it coming, it was allowed to happen as it benefitted a large number of people in a position to profit from it.
the crash will also benefit those able to buy cheap and sell for lots when the inevitable reinflation occurs.
3. paul said...
I wonder why too.
There are people who are paid to offer insight and analysis - they are ostensibly independent from the property advertising business and really should have seen it when it was so obvious what was going on for some. There are some obvious muppets such as The Times David Smith, who denied the crash's existence right up to the point when he would have looked really stupid had he not acknowledged it, but then there are more intelligent and informed commentators who should have said "this is crazy" - bank leaders, politicians (although they were too incompetent and too much in awe of the city and the tax revenue to notice) and more respectable media writers.
Over the years, my views on the coming "credit crunch" were ridiculed in the pub, at work or at social gatherings (I never mentioned it incessantly though) as a little bit nutty and conspiracist. It is for this reason that I can never completely ignore people branded conspiracists now. The same people who ignored me now treat me very differently - almost like a sage of sorts, believe it or not. When they ask me "how did you see it coming?" I always reply "How didn't you see it coming?"
4. crash bandicoot said...
The problem was with people finding theories to support their own beliefs. It is always easier to adopt something that supports your own view. In all circustances you need to be doubly sure that what you follow is correct and not just what you want to hear.
5. gone-to-colombia said...
I agree with both these comments. When I read this article to my wife I asked her the same question - 'how could it be that so few saw it coming?'
I spent a few months in the UK late last year and into January, it was as if even then the expectation was that property would continue to rise in value.
Reasons given ranged from Polish plumbers to demographics. All I needed to confirm my views was to look at the graph that heads this web site.
Here I am in the Caribbean, the same views are expressed here as a year ago over there, few seem to understand that the world has moved on.
The has to be some kind of psychological dynamic that make the majority accept a paradigm without question, while others are able to peep outside of 'the box'.
6. crash bandicoot said...
gone-to, it's the herd mentality. I have seen footage of experiments on TV where a group of supposed volunteers are asked to answer simple questions about pictures they are shown. Except there is only one volunteer, and the others are stooges who deliberately keep giving the wrong answer. After several attempts at going against the grain, most people give up and just go with the concensus in the room. I'm sure that the more knowlegeable on here will be able to tell you who's experiment this is, but it is quite disturbing to watch.
7. Doghouse said...
Crash B - there's loads of similar social psychology experiements like the one you mentioned. I think that particular one was first done by Ascher.
8. gone-to-colombia said...
Crash Bandicoot, you're right, I've seen similar experiments, the famous torture experiment from the USA show the same kind of collective inclination.
I do believe that there is something different about the average crash predictor as seen on this site, a different personality type.
This could make an interesting study, perhaps, a PhD student might like to take it on?
9. amjidk said...
yes it would be interesting to see the personality type, also i think your average crash predictor will probably have a relatively high IQ... (not that intelligent people don't get sucked into bubbles, Newton & south sea come to mind!)