Aidan Ap Word

That comment would only be reasonable if the "index" included the state of existing on-market offerings. Which it doesn't.

The delusion is a national religion. And pointing out to anyone who might be new to these threads: these are asking prices AND are asking prices for new-to-market properties only. But the key point holds: the delusion is almost palpable.

In amongst the 1000s of GBP in the very very many other things they have to do to make that into a home ... buy a 3000k house and spend 50 to 80k making it livable! And terraces in that road sold for 300k in 2019 ... and i expect those would be places you could actually live in. They must think the buyers are complete mugs .. and the banks/valuations even more so. Mind you, countless similar stories (not with loo in the kitchen mind) all over TN6! Horley is outside Gatwick ... it's not even London!

Happiness for whom, exactly. Ah yes - you're on a 160k salary (apparently) and bought your (northern) house for cash (allegedly) ... yeah ... alrigth for you Jack. Screw my kids, ofc, I should be happy with the HPI froeva set because ... ummm ... reasons ... I am told.

+1 and for Boomers it is about 25 against 1 salary ... it is now 45 against 2 (or approaching 2) salaries ... it's not like all FTBers are single applicatn mortgages either!

This forum has consistently said "not this time", year after year, yet here we are. Personally I don't care about hpi - already own house, no mortgage, no debt, not planning to move, but it has to be acknowledged that a lot of wealth will always be tied up in housing in the UK whether people like it or not. OK, so ... actually - it's: "Not this time, unless there is a other global bail out of the scale of 2008->2022" - the folks on this forum (including myself) didn't see the colossal bailout (bailouts!) coming ... And, I really don't think you want to be living with the impact of another global bailout. I know sure as anything I don't want my children living with that. And establishing 40 year mortgages as a norm is a chip inthe wrong direction wrt actually resolving the inequity of british society.

And a 40 year mortgage for a FTB - bearing in mindthat the average age of a FTB in the UK is in their mid 30s ... will have them paying into their mortgage well into their retirement. The only hope they have is that house prices will rise (beyond inflation and beyond whatever interest rates they will be paying in 15 years time (or the 'average' over the lifetime of the mortgage)) so that they can fund their late-life crae from the MEW.

I am not denying anyone anything. If the bank is prepared to lend it and if the borrower is prepared to accept the terms - then caveat subscriptor. But many borrowers (the majority maybe even) don't understand risk, and the cost of finance. And the papers will hail this as as a good thing despite it being little more than Help to Sell (called, formally, "Help to Buy") - and it will, if it has the intended consequences, enable people to sign up for ever greater servitude. And if it works then it will boulster prices (just like HTB/HTS did) and screw my children over further in the race to the servitude-bottom. So I don't deny people the opportunity to sign their lives away ... but I sure as heck don't have to like it. We do agree on these points. But "innovative" products that apppear to lower the cost of money for borrowers (buyers of debt) will not help. Bearing in mind that a 40 year mortgage carries - for the borrower - twice the risk of a 20 year mortgage because of the nature of time. So even if the price of the money is the same, the risk the borrower accepts is significantly higher ... this is the under-the-counter cost of debt that people don't understand.

What's not servitude then - building your own house in the woods?! I'm not sure what kind of situation you think is practical or normal. Mortgage for me to pay for a house is servitude for me. Finding ever more "innovative" ways to stoke the "HPI foreva" engines is servitude for my children. I accept the inevitability of the first one as the pain of living in the UK. I do not think it would be right or good for me to accept the second as an ineivtable thing. To think we hre having this conversation at a time when house prices are well in excess of what could reasonably be afforded (including the price of money) is somehow not distasteful to you ... says a lot about you.

Say "I don't understand the price of money" without saying it.

40 years to become rent free is servitude. Renting your propoerty all your life is servitude. Even 20 or 25 years of mortgage payments is servitude (but at least at that level to which you could hope to pay it off early). These are all servitude. To suggest 40 years of rent-to-the-bank is materially 'less' servitude than 30 years of servitude to a landlord is to entrench the rentier class' position - and little more than discussing the arrangement of the deck chairs on the Titanic. And if you think the bank will lend you the same amount of money over 40 years at - effectively - half the price (4% is half the price of 8%) is just naive.

Except people have a finite lifetime. 25 years on a 47 year career (age 20 to 67 retirement) is a very different kettle of fish next to 40 years mortgage on a 47 year career. Ah yes, also: compounding interest.

"some" ... maybe. That said - if there were some *really* expensive new builds this could have skewed the numbers. But it would have to be a (very?) small number (and, thus, **very** expensive) new builds because the transactions volumes are at (almost?) historic-low levels? But I thought all the slicing out of "exceptions" woul dhave those removed from the "16% change in the 'national' (and thus meaningless) number"?

OK, what exactly did you mean wrt "target" here: ... because Angry Capitalist means the BoE inflation target of 2%. The BoE doesn't have a target (in terms of it's organisational mandate) for what interest rates are - it has a target for inflation - the 2% that Angry Capitalist means. And "They'll be savaging rates/QEasing before that point" ... whcih 'point' did you mean exactly? If being precise in what I say makes me an example of male genitalia then so be it.

When did they change their mandate/their mandate get changed for them? I remember circa 2006/2007 when there was talk about BoE not needing to pay heed to thier 2% target and politicians started getting worried for their jobs.