hpc-craig

No Worries. Thanks for putting up the link to the audio. It's just a shame you cant see his face when he says 'We have kept interest rates low'.

Dammit, I wish I had've recorded this now. It was a live interview on BBC news channel which happened to be on in the background, so I rewound it (Sky+) and typed it up, nearly word for word. I skipped bits about stamp duty being reduced and got to the point when he was blabbering on about something, but other than that it is word for word. He really did say WE kept interest rates low rather than the totally independent Bank of England kept rates low. I've had a look on iPlayer, but they don't allow you to watch previous news bulletins, it must have been just after 11 o'clock. I would have thought that Bloomberg would have but a bit more detail in to their report. They quoted him "We didn’t overbuild houses and in some cases, we haven’t built enough houses for the demand that is there and so I would expect property prices to stabilize. I would also expect young buyers to get relatively low interest rates" The next words out of his mouth were "because we are keeping Interest rates low" It still makes me mad. The whole attituted to housing in this country stinks. And many peoples parents are the worst as they encourage their kids to take on massive loans to buy an overpriced asset.

EDIT: Audio from the interview on Red Dragon (Thanks to timebandit for hunting this down): http://mediaweb.musicradio.com/player/default.asp?s=49&e=129021 Just watching our unelected leader being interviewed on BBC News in Cardiff. He is aked a question about house prices: "After the boom of a few years ago and more importantly the credit crunch, what will you do to kick start the housing market for FTB's in Wales and help them get a foot on the ladder, and improve funding and mortgage availablility". (talk about missing the point completely - mentions the boom but seems more disgruntled at the lack of mortgages. He did have an uncanny resemblence to an estate agent though.) Gordon Brown replies: "I agree with you. There is a pent up demand for housing. Lots of young people want to get a first step on the ladder and are being prevented from doing so. The first thing we have done is [carries on with something about no stamp duty upto £250,000 - as if it matters in the welsh valleys]. The second thing we have done is shared equity which will become more popular. That is where you can't buy 100% of the house but can buy 60,70 or even 50% of a house by partering with a building society or builder. Take the 2 and you have got a chance to get into the market when FTB's couldn't have done otherwise." Brown continues (and i love this): "I'd also say that in America they built too many houses and one of the reasons why house prices have KEPT DOWN is because they built too many houses. This is also the case in Spain where house prices will continue to fall for some time. But in Britain we have high demand and we haven't built enough houses so house prices have stabilised FTB's will also be able to get low interest rates because we are keeping Interest rates low (smu grin on his face as he says this - I imagine Mr estate agent who asked the question was also smiling smugly as they were looking at each other)." Presenter then says: "This must come down to banks in the end, banks must be willing to lend more money and take a gamble?!" Brown harps on about forcing banks to lend to businesses and anyone with a pulse. You really had to watch it to believe it, but hopefully you get the jist from my post. What amazes is me is that no one steps up and says "In America with low house prices, FTB's can buy 100% of their home, why on earth should we have to buy 50% of their houses" and "if we have such pent up demand why are people in London and the big cities allowed to come and buy houses in Cornwall/Devon/Pembroke to live in for 2 weeks of the year when locals cannot afford to buy a 1 bed flat outright?" The presenter then blaming banks makes me sick too. Why on earth does everyone belive in this high house price mantra. It's mad.

She was putting some major VI spin on it - "The Stamp duty waiver for first time buyers will really help to get the market moving". She failed to point out that with the 0.7% rise that the stamp duty relief now only equates to about 0.3%. Sadly though most people are able to see past this.

I would imagine because it is easier to draw in potential vendors. Rightmove is the biggest property portal, you need to be listed on there if you are selling your house. Tesco know what they are doing. I expect they will try and build up a big enough vendor base that the isold site attracts similar numbers to Rightmove. Then they can pull out from advertising on Rightmove. Then (as they will have put a lot of agents out of business) they can charge the remaing agents to advertise on the isold site as Rightmove do now. Tesco will no doubt offer somethign in store over time too. Be it an actual in store agent or simply a computer where you can browse local properties.

Good god.

As others have said, there are too many samey shops selling the same. Games are usually cheaper in Supermarkets (although they only sell the latest blockbusters) and cheaper still online. In fact you can often buy a game from eBay, play it, complete it and resell it and only lose a bob or 2. Within 2 generations of Games consoles, I am sure they will be 'Download only'. This will wipe out Game shops and probably HMV etc with it. Once faster broadband is rolled out, people will simply download music and games (legally or otherwise), taking out swathes of shops with it. As a kid I loved a trip to town to go to the Games shops, but these days, I have to pay petrol there and back, parking and they overpay for the game anyway. I also have to wait for a day off. Or I could order from Amazon, delivered to door for free within a couple of days and will cost me less anyway. Before long, i'll be able to press a button, have it within a couple of hours and not have to move my **** off the sofa at all. Can't wait.

The article says: "as the market became flooded by so-called accidental landlords who had been unable to sell their home, forcing rents down" I've heard this term 'accidental landlord' before. There is nothing accidental about it, they choose to let their properties out. And are they accidental because they are UNABLE to sell their home, or UNWILLING to sell at a price that the market is willing to pay?

So are we having a mass withdrawal of savings from a High Street branch of a bank or not? I was kinda looking froward to it.

Once Rightmove offer a flat fee for an individual to sell a property it will kill most of them off anyway, website or not. Why pay an EA 2% when you can give Rightmove £100 for a listing on their website and stick a sign up outside your house. There will not be enough EA's to support RM in a few years, so this is something they will HAVE to do to survive.

Good news as far as I'm concerned. We need more property on the market and this 'good news' will help to deliver. I've certainly seen more property coming on since last months figures were released. I overheard a local EA talking to my boss the other day - "more people looking to sell, but most of the buyers have gone or are no longer interested". We were looking during this 'bounce' but gave up because of the amount of dross, all overpriced, on the market. The funny thing is that people are saying - "you should of bought something whilst you had the chance". SO there we have it. Buy a house, any house, it doesn't really matter so that you have the pleasure of a huge debt for the next 25 years. Clearly i am wasting money renting my house in the country where the landlord mows the lawn. I should do what everyone else says and rent from the bank on an ex-council estate.

I was reading a thread on MSE the other day and A LOT of people were talking about taking up either the Homebuy scheme or the Ownhome scheme (something to do with co-op). I am sure that these schemes are propping up the lower end of the market with out them transactions and prices would still be declining fast. The thing that annoys me more than the government trying to prop up the market though are the fools taking up the schemes. They can't see that without the scheme house prices would come down enough to enable them to buy 100% and not just 70% They can't rent and save for a deposit at the ssame time, so how do they propose to pay a mortgage and save to buy the remaining 30% from the government? When it comes to sell up they will have to repay the 30% anyway and if house prices have risen they will be in a worse situation than now and will not be able to upsize. A lot of them have taken out trackers, many are 1%+ over the base rate, they will get stung A few of them think that there was nothing wrong with 100%+ mortagages. Are people really so financially inept? It's no wonder we are in the mess we are in.

These Homebuy schemes are a big scam and are stopping the builders lowering their prices. We went and looked at a new build a few weeks ago. It was on the market at £170,000. The salesman instantly tells us about how we can have it for about £120,000 on a 70/30 shared equity. I say I'm not interested and would rather try and negotiate on 100% of the property. He effectively tells me not to waste his time as if I'm not prepared to pay full asking price there will soon be someone in who is willing to buy the house on the Homebuy Scam. Sure enough the property has now been removed from Rightmove and the developers website, so I'm guessing they have it resevered.

I personally think this could work in our advantage (after being initially very annoyed). Around my way, the number of properties on the market has nearly halve in the last 18 months. Judging by what other posters have said, this is happening across the country. We need to entice sellers back into the market and a well reported jump in asking prices may just do that. Additionally, the properties that are left on at the moment are over priced or just plain shit (many are both). Assuming the recent bounce of sales holds up and all the SSTC's actually complet, then EA's are goign to be struggling to sell anything. They will have to drive down the prices of the overpriced, plain shit and both properties in order to sell anything. I think we are entering a new stage of the crash (although I doubt wewill get back to the glory days of -2%+ per month again).

I agree there has been a Spring bounce, but I think it may have ended already. I have seen reasonably pronouced rise in activity, but can't say for how much they have been going for, hopefully a substantial discount on the asking price. Unfortunately the only property on the market is substandard and very over priced. I'm hoping potential vendors will think that it is now a good time to sell and will flood the market with new reduced price houses. The estate agents I have been talking to are very confident, so I wouldn't be surprised to see new properties come on higher than previous asking prices.

I dont know an awful lot about this type of thing, but if I were you I would ask the Lettings agent to see proof that the landlord has a BTL mortgage and that all multiple occupancy legislation is in place. The fact that it is a 'very good price' implies to me that the landlord probably hasn't got a BTL mortgage or doen't have to pay extra costs to comply with the legislation. And remember although you may save a few quid now, 4 of you will struggle to even open a bank account by not being on the electoral roll and it will definately affect you when try to get a mortgage in the future. Oh and if the Lettings agent doesn't play ball, the grass him and the landlord up to the relevant authorities. Thevy've wasted your time, so make them sweat.

Jack, I live in Newent, but looking to move to Tewkesbury. I'm not sure whether Newent is dropping quicker, but Tewkesbury certainly represents better value for money in my opinion (keeping out of the flood affected areas of course), although a lot of houses are going SSTC in both. May I ask what you mean by 'basket cases' is that simply referring to the speed of price drops, which I know have been quite severe in the Forest. As for Cheltenham, it is certianly not 'unaffected'. I have an 'aspirational' friend who is looking to buy there (I think that word sums the town up quite nicely btw - not in a bad way either) and she is talking of substantial drops, and not just in the bad areas, but across the town.

Is it just me, or is anyone else wondering why people are buying a house at the moment? I monitor a few small towns and there has been a worryingly high amount of Sold STC over the past few weeks (and one estate agent seems to have relisted recent Sold STC after taking them down, must be trying to scare people into buying). I know we need to have some ttransactions to feed into the indexes and if people are getting good discounts then fair enough, but houses are still insanely overpriced. As an example, in one town, a 2 bed stater home in an area where you won't get killed is about £135000. Assuming they get £5000 off and have a 10% deposit, that still leaves them with £718 a month (assume a 10 year fix at 5.5%) to pay. Maybe it's the good weather or the fact that Halliwide have reported a few rises over the last few months that I am seeing this 'mini bounce', but why are people so prepared to pay over the odds for a house? Is it a status thing? Sorry if this sounds like a bit of a rant (although it kinda is). It's just getting a bit irksome to come home and find a properties selling like this. I hope that it will be short lived and we'll be back to good old fashioned 'Market deadlock' over the summer/autumn/winter

Forget yields and asking prices, Indices and what year we are back too and offer what YOU THINK it would be worth. Don't pay more than you are prepared too.

Activity is up in my area (I'm not an EA either before someone starts). My Area is Gloucestershire, South and East Herefordshire and southern Worcestershire Prices are certainly not up, but the amount of properties going SSTC increased a lot over the last few weeks almost to the point where there are actually no houses that I would be interested in. However 2 of these have come back on the market in the last few days. I would not say that everyone posting that activity is rising is an estate agent either. My guess is people have seen the weather getting better/are fed up with waiting for the crash or something of that ilk. They are either being refused finance or thinking better of it and pulling out. I think we have had our 'spring bounce' and sales will trickle along slowly dragging prices down with them. I do not think we will see 20% falls this year, more like 12-14%. This is all in my opinion of course

COuld they have bought it from parents who sold it at BMV to give their kids a start? Even if the EA tells you the hosue is in good shape, I would still have a survey done.

I would say we are in the bottom of the denial stage according to that graph. I don't know if we will have a full blown bounce like it suggests, but we will have a longer denial stage. I think we need at least another 3 months worth of falls before people forget about this months rise. I can't see people rapidly dropping their prices anymore. The news reported an 83% rise in buyer enquiries in December and with the banks seemingly stopping repossesions, maybe we are near a bottom. TBH, I feel pretty down this morning and have this horrible feeling the VI's are going to get their way. I don't know how, but I just think they will.

I am also waiting for 35% to 45% falls. That doesn't mean we'll be buying when the Haliwide are showing house prices have dropped by 35%. I hope to buy sooner and get the 35% (from sold prices and not asking prices) before then

You could always put in some offers and see what the sellers say. We have a budget of about £140k and looking at properties in the region of 180 - 200k. ALthough many asking prices aren't dropping, people are accepting a great deal less. An EA showed me a property at £130k and he is convinced the vendors will take £105k. We will be looking at putting in offers over the coming months, but my main concern is Job security. if I get made redundant as soon as we buy, we will be in a very bad Position.

I work in a shop selling bulbs. As Moosetea points out, fluorescent tubes are already energy saving, that is the point. We use daylight tubes in our shop, they brighten the place up, but I wouldn't want to be doing a lot of computer work or writing under them. Bayonet fitting is far, far more common than screw cap by a long way. Lastly, we have sold thousands of incandescant bulbs (the old type) since last monday (we are a small shop in a town of 5000). People clearly do not want these new mercury filled bulbs and until the technology is available (LED's not fluorescent), then people shouldn't be forced to switch.