abharrisson

Nonsense poll with no background... prices vary massively area to area... in some places prices are already roughly in the middle of your scales in others they'll never get there in a gazilion years..... as for the multiples of salary argument thats hopelessly simplistic and anyone hoping for prices reverting longer term to 3 times average salary is barking mad I feel.

I suppose time will tell. I'd agree that a deep recession and job losses leading to very large falls in house prices is possible but equally we are not yet definately heading in that direction. I still think this could go either way and a limited recession of minor falls over the next year and limited job losses could well see the whole thing petering out as we enter 2010. Even if my best case does happen we would still have seen falls of 20-25% by then in real terms and probably nearer 30-35% inflation adjusted.... that will bring prices well below trend which of course will then fuel the next boom when the economy does start to pick up again. Personally I think it would be better for all of us if prices levelled out to trend over a longer period but I think dreams of that are long gone.

I think we will see and are seeing exactly that solution... apart from the usual IVA's , voluntary agreements, banruptcies.... the latest "out" is slightly more dastardly... under the CCA unsecured lenders issue loans either personally or for cars or white goods etc... whats now happening is that lawyers are challenging these agreements for all sorts of reasons from APR minor mistakes to wrongly selling insurance etc.... currently 85% of cases are meeting with success apparently... the result.. if you have £10k car loan and the bank is proven to be in breach.. you keep the car, the bank has to write off the debt and pssibly refund past payments to you and they then have to pay the lawyers fees.... don't need too many of these to happen to put some big pressure on.. its potentially a far bigger risk for the banks than the whole current account charges thing. As you say cancelling the debts is how it happens and if the recession is deep enough then thats what will happen... although quite what financial system we would have as a result I don't know.

Personally I don't really put much faith in these figures as apart from the differences between the various indices theres also precious little volume on which to base the data... prices are certainly falling but at what rate and by how much is very difficult to discern... it could be more than they say in some areas and less in others etc etc.... jouranlists alos of course spin the figures looking for the most eye catching headline... next year if the figures show a mom slowdown but still falls which I am sure they will the journos might well start running stuff saying the bottom is in sight... which will probably also be wrong. Personally I prefer the FT report as its more multi-source than the others but I'd still take it with a large pinch of salt when it came to deciding what my house has fallen by... theres no indices yet invented which can accurately tell you that. One thing I am sure of is that the further and faster prices do fall the further and faster they will rise when the dust has settled...... the people I feel sorry for are those who bought into property when they really could not afford to do so and those FTB's who are waiting for the falls to stop before buying.. I fear a lot of them will get caught out by the need for larger and larger deposits and may well get beaten to the punch by any investors who are left who'll pile into that sort of property in double quick time..... the trail of destruction these crashes leave with ruined lives or lives put on hold is really sad.

I am surprised houses taking longer to shift counts as news.... with all the indicators at rock bottom.. time to sell, properties per agent etc etc its going to seem like ground hog day for a while yet. I expect though as people take their homes off the market , estate agents close and those keen to sell actually drop their prices we'll start to see headlines like... houses sell more quickly, agents can't keep up with demand and need more stock to sell etc etc..... The reallity though will be just the same... house prices are falling although by how much no one knows becasue there isn't really a market anymore.

I'm not convinced as you say that everything will go down if housing does... farmland (good qaulity arable) now at around £6,000 an acre... 2 years ago it would have been around £2500.... bubble you say.... maybe not as it had hardly gone up at all in the previous decade. Fuel prices, crop demand, and tax are the more likely drivers of farm demand. I don't think they'll rise much more but as sales of land are reported to be brisk I would bet a virtual fiver that of properties sink by 50%, land values will not follow.

I disagree, the point being as you have said they can manage as they are for the next few years...... and if push came to shove they could indeed manage... if they didn't want the boy and the girl to share then the father could be with the son and mother with the daughter... not ideal but its hardly a victorian existance.... we all have to sell at some stage... but theres is clearly not a have to sell situation, its a would like to sell situation. I've got some friends who feel they need to sell becasue they only have a patio garden and two young energetic boys... again they don't HAVE to sell but would like to ... in reallity its discretionary..... In the smiths case if they have convinced themselves that they have to sell now then the only way of doing it for sure is to stick it in the auction... if they are not willing to do that then they don't genuinely HAVE to sell.

Personally I'm not a big fan of this whole state support malarkey... everyone should be responsible for themselves would be my (unlikely) ideal..... if the state however continues through means testing to effectively punish those who have saved then I shall give eveything I have to my kids early and let the state pay to have a nurse poke stewed apples threw my toothless gums.... means testing like this does real damage to the whole idea of encouraging people to save... spend ,borrow,spendand spend some more and you'll get every bit of state assistance going , but save successfully and you are on your own........At least the new pension initiatives will at least make the more irresponsible members of society who save nothing do something about it in a way that means they'll be less of burden in future years (becasue they'll have an income).

I think you'll find its about as attractive as Barratts offering 10% deposit on one of their new builds at full price.... there'll always be loads of people to fall for these marketing tactics... why I don't know... it just amazes. I also find it strange that with all the talk on here about not buying depreicating assets etc why on earth anyone ever considers buying a new car... %age wise its about the fastest depreciating thing there is... even when compared to a house currently. I always buy three year old cars, with low miles but in not perfect condition (eg small dent or scratch)... the latest was a just over 3 year old diesel x-trail with 30,000 on the clock for £5,500 from an auction.... new three years ago £23,000.... and these days low miles three years old cars run as new anyway... can't see the point myself but there we go I suppose some are addicted to the latest this that or the other..... whats the saying... a car is used the moment you drive it off the forecourt.

In most cases the gifted deposit would have been declared as the conveyancing solicitor would have know about it and the customer would have had to declare it... so that type of "benefit" will still be OK and was never the source of the damage... lenders though I feel will be less likely to accept it... actually very few would have accepted a 10% builders deposit with no customer cash down anyway. the real damage was done by the behind the scenes deals... eg cashback, pay your mortgage, freebies, rental guarantee, free cars, free holidays etc etc.... in these items it was real money/goods changing hands. In both cases though damage was done to house prices becasue the surveyor was not aware always of the 10% builders deposit and definately wouldn't have been aware of the freebies.

As far as I can work out not much is selling anywhere at any price... it wouldn't surprise me if the divorce, death, debt (repossession), relocation market doesn't make up 90% of the house sales currently. Ie Normal people are neither buying or selling. Personally I think the Agents to some degree have their advice right at the moment... and mostly to me it appears to be as follows... lets take a house that might have reached £480k at the peak where the owwners would like to but don't have to sell... lets say optimistically it went onto the market in Jan at £495... its subsequently come down to £485k, then £470k then to £450k and now sits at £430k.... its now broadly in line with where prices are supposed to be (eg 12% off peak) but it continues to sit there unviewed and unoffered on..... realistically it wouldn't surprise me if the Agents said to the clients... nothings shifting, its so bad you could cut the price to £300k and still no one buy and they may well be right that even a 38% reduction wouldn't be enough to shift something... becasue there are hundreds of thousands of buyers out there wanting to buy but who are just so spooked at the moment that they won't buy even at 40% off peak. Tough to call... but I suspect sellers who don't have to move will simply either leave their properties on the market at the current level until the dust settles or take them off the market for now.... as always seems to happen just when prices do reach the bottom I suspect there may well be a lack of nice properties on the market which lo and behold will trigger the next boom..... a big boom will surely follow this big bust, but for some there won't be the property available that they wanted.

I'd share that view... its of course possible but very very unlikely that LTSB would become unstuck... but if they do come under pressure we can expect them and the other banks in unison (What cartel, us, surely not gov) to stick fees on current accounts, credit cards, overdrafts (higher), add higher fees to loans, tighten their score cards, recduce their savings rates, abolish current acount interest etc etc... if they all do it once (which bizarely would be bound happen.. after all it is a cartel) then there'd be no competitive fall out and the good old UK customer could pay for all the bad debts through charges... from what I recall its exactly what happened last time.

Lenders have been aware of this for ages as have valuers... valuers should have been and could have been noting on their valuation reports that xyz development is known to be offering "deals", lenders have also known some devlopers used "special" solicitors to ensure the mortgage transaction and the "deal" were treated seperately. In most cases where mortgage companies were informed they would simply say the "deal" surpresses the price therefore they worked it out of the calculations.... this will happen again.... and in effect take away from builders their ability to use marketing gimmiks... free carpets, toasters, white goods etc will now become "included" therefore escaping any revelation. But I suspect there will be ways round this that developers will find..... eg for off plan sales they might well market the properties at 40% off but then when the balance of units are sold it turns out its only 10% off..... decent no... legal yes... equally they'll find someway of selling whole developments to companies who then market them at a different price and then find someway of setting up access to a special mortgage scheme totally seperately from the purchase in a legal sense that then does need declaring or some such. The FSA I suspect are just trying to be seen doing something they and lenders and the law society and RCIS should have done something about years ago..... but I suspect it won't work and developers will find a way of getting round it in a manner that still allows them to sell at a premium to the real market price while also "persuading" customers that they have got a good deal............ simplistically for instance I think this only applies to new property... its pretty easy to "sell" it to a third party and therefore then sell it on to consumers as a "second hand deal" shortly afterwards.... developers build the shell, sell to another company who the "furbish" it.. its then not new and therefore declarations can be avoided.... much as I wish there weren't loopholes someone will find a legal way through it that maintains developers "marketing" weapons..... new build housing has been overpriced and will continue to be in my view.... thats why I'd never ever buy new build especially not a flat.

Lloyds TSB from the mortgage front have been pretty safe in terms of lending policy... no sub-prime, no self-cert, and were late into BTL, income checked etc Most would say they are safe but I suppose that depends a little... consider this: 1/ They have the second biggest credit card book all owned in house. 2/ They have the largets personal (unsecured) loan book. 3/ They have the largest overdaft book. So if these things start to see much higher levels of bad debt that may cause problems. Now also consider: 1/ They have the largest vehicle finance business in the UK.... unfortunately it appears a lot of these loans fall foul of the consumer credit act (eg inaccurate APRS or oversold ASU insurance)... its only just started but solicitors seem to be saying they are having an 85% success rate cancelling these agreements.... the same risk may apply to their personal loan book, and their balck horse loan book. 2/ They have no rapidly expanding emerging market business to ring fence them as a group from UK difficulties... if the UK takes a bath then so do they.... and rising credit card, personal loan, hire purchase or overdraft defaults might well be felt most strongly by them as they have the biggest shares.... off the top of my head their C Card book is something like £5bn, personal loans £ 12bn, Overdrafts £4bn, Car finance £11bn, Black horse £1.5Bn..... thats a lot of Bn's..... and the exposure makes slightly raised repossession levels on mortgages look like a walk in the park. Personally I think they'll be fine and are one of the stronger banks but the risks are there and could well cause problems in certain situations... I suppose if LTSB goes then barclays, RBS, HBOS, etc would have gone long before it.

I had a similar tale of woe while away last year... used my debit card to top up a phone (not something I'd done before) whizzed through the £20 max they had allowed and then tried to top it up again... refused... reason, I hadn't done this before and was abroad. having worked for a number of banks previously I can tell you this is really just a roll out of similar statistical models they use to better target their direct mail and they've been on the march with it for years... it works in that environment where being 92% wrong is better than being 94% wrong..... but when they apply it to actual transactions and real customer relationships it never works.... unfortunately though I don't think theres much of a way to stop it... I now at least especially when abroad use Amex and pre-inform them I'm off and likely to spending freely and I don't seem to have any problems... costs more but its worth it as being on holiday the last thing I want is to up the blood pressure by having transactions rejected. The more data that govt and banks etc have the more they appear to mis-use it... I suspect I'll probably get forced into an expensive but personal relationship with a genuinely small private bank soon just to avoid computers and numpties denying me access to my money. The only bright point in this whole sorry mess is that at least the Govt is begining to get the message that it doesn't do databases very well so hopefully they won't intrude further than they do already.

I don't really see this as the case if an FTB buys a flat then (unless its been inherited) they pay the deposit out of taxed income (unless that is they have other assets they can sell and use)... the BTL is in the same situation, deposit needs to come either from taxed income , from inheritance or other assets... both of course then borrow the difference with the BTL'er paying higher rates and fees. Whatever... actually the point you make as regards FTB being out bid is quite right they will be in any given scenario now that prices have fallen from peak... as soon as prices fall enough for BTL's to be "in the money" so to speak you can expect incvestors to increasingly enter the market.... it may be the case in some parts of the country that as a result FTB type properties don't fall in price as much as they might have..... and theres the double wammy that while BTL'ers can buy at 85% almost regardless of personal income levels the combination of higher rates and higher deposit requirements are going to mean those FTB's who might have entered the market might find it more difficult to do so untilt he market is well off the bottom again........ I don't think FTB's found it particulalry easy to buy when properties were at their most expensive, but equally its not going to plain sailing for them when properties have come down in value either.

Couldn't agree more ... the systems some of these guys are operating though beggar belief in their complexity.... quite how they get away with it I don't know as its not exactly an unkown fact in the industry that its going on big style at the moment..... I think what a lot of the guys who do it rely on is that the actual deceit in these new cases doesn't need to be declared on the application... so in short they don't have to lie although of course in principle it runs against the mortgage companies regulations..... Once again many of these schemes rely on using tame solicitors for both the vendor and the purchaser.

On that we can agree.. horse and bolted always spring to mind when they are involved.

If this is the plan.. £150 extra to families and pensioners then I think its bonkers..... reason being there are plenty of families and plenty of pensioners out there who aren't struggling and don't need the money so a large portion of it will be wasted... or maybe he assumes that those that don't need it for fuel will simply spend it on other goods and services which will provide a very tiny boost to the economy... I thought the 10p "fix" was bonkers... this is in the same camp. I am not a great believer in wealth distribution but it does help to be able to target these payments a little if you are going to get some value and achieve what you want.

Fair point that if he sells then the others will also have to drop .... and it does illustrate the point that in a market like this simply dropping the price by a reasonable amount doesn't seem to be working for those who need to sell.... in other words there is no effective market... I think we'll only really see the shape of the market once we have some volume back and or some stability in transaction levels.... which reallistically may not now be until the new year.

Problem being that the original poster is right there is no bottom to the market ... one seller changing their price to a reallistic level won't necessarilly result in a sale.... because the buyer probably or possibly needs to sell his place and still has it advertised at a high price or simply becasue with all the doom and gloom people want to see where things will end up before making any decisions. I have heard some agents are telling their clients that dropping the price won't make a difference and individually they may well be right as the market is not condusive to successful chains forming and without those transaction levels will always be low. Equally of course I find it surprising that house price data is still being viewed as robust with such low transactions levels there must surely be much greater error margins especially when some of these things are split out by postcode or city or region. What the correct price is for the moment only a buyer knows...... everyone else I strongly suspect is in the dark.

I don't know but I wonder if there has ever been a case of a party slotting in a replacement PM (brown) and then ousting him and slotting in another with no general election.... Not sure there is. There seems to be a unwritten rule that (despite the fact PM's aren't directly elected as such) parties only switch horses once between elections when in government.... Maybe labour will be the first although somehow I doubt it... I for one would doubt ANY successors chance of success and for that reason I think those with ambitions of one day being PM won't want to stand against brown.... let him lose the election then take over I should think will be view.

I'd agree with you that the securitization/debt market is still in bust mode, although maybe we'll see with the commodity bubble having a little air taken out and stock markets down that some money will go into buying some of these debt tranches especially as they are being offered at steep discounts currently. Indeed this has already started to happen with some private equity houses buying some traches of these debts at 80p or 70p to the pound, obviously some sectors are unsalable but maybe the debt that is being bought coupled with some govt intervention will unstick things to a degree, although I don't for one minute think this will lead to the kind of lending practices we saw recently and neither do I think the toxic US sub prime debt is anywhere near being saleable which is clearly a large chunk of it. The securitisation market will return but hopefully without the excess of before.

I would agree with you about the current routes to 100% funding BTL's being fraudulent...... however you do realise don't you that the FSA does not regulate the buy to let market... borrowers, lenders or brokers.....not an excuse for doing it of course, but clearly what they have fear is not what you think they have to fear.

I'd agree its far too easy to blame others ...... nearly everything you read or watch or hear has an influening role... its down to you to personally make your own decisions and be responsible for them...... people from all walks of life have been influenced by easy money for as long as history goes back.... and its not only those from the poorer end of life who are affected.... probably countless thousands of supposedly well educated doctors, accountants and solicitors have bought new build flats as BTL investments.... thousands of previously well to do people got caught in the Llyds insurance crash .... the dot com boom caught millions out etc etc ..... this is no different ... and in the same way people should stop trying to make it looked like they were unfortunate victims of external influence... everyone makes their own decisions and has to live with them.