TheOverLord

This is a good result when you take into account the "Adam Posen" effect. With gentle declines, the Powers that be and the people in general get a chance to see that lower prices aren't such a disaster and monetary policy can slowly return to normal. Big MoM falls at this delicate time and Posen will convince his chums at the the BOE to under act / overreact.

Icesave savers got their money back quickly. I got back all my easy access money in 6 weeks with Interest paid up to the default date (so lost 6 weeks interest). I also had £ 30000 in a one year bond at 6.25 %. I was offered a choice of getting my money back straight away or leaving it with the FSA until the maturity date of the bond and getting the Interest. I chose the latter and was repaid in full with all the interest on the day the bond matured. So quids in ! Sorry.

A commodity is only worth whatever someone is willing AND ABLE to pay for it. If someone is willing but needs a a big mortgage then I would hope that the mortgagers might spot the 2007 sale price and say no.

But it's a wonderful "pied a terre" !

My mother is trying to steal my wallet.

Whatever the reason for low IRs they have helped to ease negative equity particularly for those on trackers. I don't believe the HaliWide indices either but I think we're in denial if we don't accept that prices have generally gone up a bit in the last year.

This article appeared in Feb 09. A year of low interest rates and house price rises will have lowered the number of mortages in negative equity considerably.

What happened with IceSave shows the FS Compensenation scheme is good. The fact the Treasury covered the flacky Icelandic compensation scheme shows that there is an implicit guarantee on all UK residents deposits. If your deposit is less that 50K after interest is added you have nothing to worry about (other than the taunts from those around you about your fecklessness).

Do you already have a mortgage with HSBC ? Is this a remortgage or for moving house (up or down) ?

Bail em out now. And no silly caps on player bonuses. If we can't pay them squillions they'll all be off somewhere else !

Agreed. Greed was the cause. So instead of fixating on identifying and fixing the precise cause of the last crisis we should concentrate on making sure that whatevever the "cause" of the next one (which we are powerless to predict in detail) we must make sure that those who took the wrong position are allowed to fail. I appauld the Obama plan but (like healthcare) doubt that he has the b**s to follow it through.

I had a very vivid dream back during the height of the crisis in Sept/Oct 08. There was a human in a helicopter shouting over his megaphone "The economy has gone into total meltdown. Total sysytem failure. STAY in your houses ! I repeat - STAY in your houses". The apes with guns outside took no notice. They were just waiting patiently to take over when system failure was complete. We (homeowners) were going to be escorted out of our houses and the apes would take over. No "For Sale" signs though - we were all holding out for the full price. Too much cheese. That and visiting this site.

Not necessarily a contradiction in logic. It's mathematically (though not realistic) for every borough to go down but yet the average for London as a whole to go up. For example, if all the sales were in K&C the London average would shoot up even though K&C fell. The London figures are consistent with low volumes from cash rich buyers and buyers with lots of equity in existing homes trading up. FTBs who would typically be looking at lower price brackets don't get a look in.

Even some "I'm all right Jack"s who've been persuaded over time that it really would be better to have sensible house prices even though in the same time they've gone from "mostly owning" to "very almost outright owning". It's a broad church although it does seem at times that there is a resentful undercurrent. However, this thread doesn't seem to be debating what I thought was the main point in Boulger's piece which for me was about whether to quote seasonally adjusted or raw figures. "Hence my view that it makes more sense to report just the real figures and allow everyone to make their own interpretation as to how much of an influence the season is. " - RB. Although the timing and motivation for such comment is suspicious perhaps he has a point ? The market is certainly not normal in terms of volume and mortgage finance. Might it not be better to quote the raw numbers providing you stick to doing that when it doesn't suit you ?