BelfastVI

Has to be a good buy

Location may play a part. Many houses are in a poorer location than here, but many are in a better location, as many of the posters here have indicated.

Can you not give credit where credit is due

Profit is irrelivant, its cash. Heard 15 of them sold last night [ to FFT's]. They hadn't planned to release until Thursday

I think this topic should stop here. I heard this story and it has no place on this or any forum.

I do know the company and they would be one of the most financially sound companies in Northern Ireland.

So are you saying these houses wont sell

You should tell Margaret Ritchie that as that is exactly what she has in mind for the future.

Thats correct, so I dont think this is a push by the bank as suggested above.

The Goverment has 45,000 people on its waiting list for houses (figures released today) - Why dos'nt the Goverment buy these houses at that price, or lower for a job lot. It has a duty to house the people on the waiting list at some stage. It sold off most of its housing land during the boom. Now's the chance to buy it back with a house on it.

fair play to Fraser

If the News Letter wants a story on purchasing, at inflated prices during a boom, realisation that income was not as expected, and the prospect of a serious devalued asset. It should speak to its new boss. http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/busi...icle4596855.ece

I am just saying the Revenue has benefited well out of the boom. I don't think we can argue with that. PAYE; if you take an industry that employs 10% of the workforce out of the equation you cannot expect the job market to soak that up. If 50 new jobs are created somewhere that is front page news. 30,000 to 50,000 just wont be absorbed. Don't get me wrong, building will start again and these people, or most of them will get jobs again but there is no escaping or denying the hit this will have on the economy. No developer will be bailed out. Don't worry the banks will see to that. They will clean them. So don't get over concerned about them. Its the work force who will suffer.

I am not an economist but There was approximately 10,000 new houses build a year at say an average of £200k (for ease of counting) Assume (again for ease of counting) 30% = Land (£600m) [historical land will be cheaper and adjustment will be added onto profit. Later land will be dearer and taken off profit.] 10% = Interest & Fees (£200m) This will go up 20% = Profit (£400m - Tax = £280m) 40% = Build Cost (£800) (80% of which was labour) Total turnover was £2bn Government/Taxpayer obtains: Purchaser Stamp duty (1%) £20m Land Purchase Stamp (4%) £24m Corporation Tax (30%) £120m PAYE (Average 25%) £160m Total £324m (16% of turnover) You could also add; if there was not this employment the benefit system would have to pay out, lets say 50% of the wages in benefits of one sort or another = £320m. But I would imagine that there is always other work these people could find, that perhaps wouldn't in turn push someone else out of a job. So we will not include this. (I am just saying this before someone else does, I don't believe it) Not bad for the Revenue/taxpayer, and much needed to fund the country. If my figures are anywhere near right we could see that the Revenue/Taxpayer earned more that the industry (Unfortunately this doesn't go back to the taxpayer). The Revenue/Taxpayer invested this money into much needed services and the industry reinvested their earnings (after tax) into more land (and the odd range rover etc.) So when people ask where will the help from the Revenue come from. You can say that the Revenue benefited as much, if not more than the industry did. (I think I will hide for the rest of the day )

I agree, all those benefited on the way up. But you need to add to the list of those who gained the Revenue/taxpayer who pocketed 30% of the profit on every deal plus 5% on stamp duty. Add to that a average of 25% of every pay cheque that went to the tens of thousands of workers. All this for no risk. The Revenue/taxpayer benefited immensely by the whole operation. Whilst there was a lot of 'Johnny come lately', who thought they were going to make their fortune. They have been caught and will probably loose their own houses. Whilst this is tragic they will get little sympathy I guess. But the builder who built houses, paid tax on the uplift, reinvested and built again, etc., never really made allot of money as the new land cost allot more than the land for the houses he had just sold. The uplift, less tax rarely covered this. He could have made money if he got out just when the game, for once was looking easy. But in here he will get no sympathy either, but five years ago he was just turning over, employing a few people and ironically the boom has finished him. Its people like that, rather than the 'Johnny come lately' that I would like to see the government help. Not by taking over his debt or God forbid, giving him profit but my allowing him as an employer to in some way survive. The government has subsidised other industries in the past. I am not asking for that now, as they would be getting something back in return.

That article is spot on the money.

Too late, they cant back date tax reforms, and these 'killings' will never be repeated. The builders who ended up buying this inflated land will have to pay 30% tax on their profits ( but I don't think there is any of them currently worried about that).

This has to be somebody having a laugh. The people who made the most out of the boom, apart from the Revenue/tax payer was the farmers who were able to offload their land to developers for £m per acre. This land cost them a max of £10k per acre. They were usually able to do this and only pay 10% tax. Fair play to them. Although if, in the future we try to look at where all the profit from the boom went we will see that the land owners and those ‘land flippers’ (who never built a house) pocketed it. Developers were never interested in 99% of farming land and only looked at the land that was zoned or had the potential to be zoned. The Farmers are only disappointed that they have stopped knocking. One of the last sales in the boom was a 75 acre farm in Lisburn that sold for over £100m. The farmers have got plenty of subsidies over the years, the biggest problem they have is their largest client, the government won’t buy British/Irish beef for its schools, offices, army etc and would rather buy poorer Brazilian products whilst strangling them with red tape and quality control.

In my statement I never suggested propping up prices where they were or even where they are now for that matter. I suggested £180k, which is well below the current average and went on to say that the Government could set the cap on the Co-Ownership scheme where it sees fit. This will then set the market and bringabout a faster adjustment, which should have the desired effect without the mass unimployment.

Just wondering did anyone complain when the government handed over £150m, last year to Shorts to help them win a bid. Did anybody know about this? I understand a US agency is taking them to the EU. I am not saying the gov was right or wrong here. These builders can forget about demands to the banks. The banks are moneylenders and will do as moneylenders have always done - look their money back. They run business, just like the builders and have equal, if not greater cash flow problems of their own. There are 30,000 people on the housing waiting list. The programme for Government shows funds towards housing these people over five years. Why not allow co-ownership to go again, but with a sensible cap of say £180,000. (25% below peek average & 20% below the current alleged average). This is unlikely to give any profit to the "wealthy builders", because of the price they paid for the land, but it would allow them to keep employing their workforce and suppliers, thereby saving the taxpayer from paying out more benefit and would relieve the long waiting housing list. This could all be done for substantially less than budgeted for in the program for government, therefore saving the tax payer more. This is not a handout as the government would be getting cheaper houses in return. In fact they could set the cap at what they see fit and this will, to some extent set the market. Please remember these "wealthy builders" are few. The vast majority of the thousands of people employed in the industry are ordinary Joe's with mortgages, families and dreams of their own. They went to work with little or no knowledge of the storm that was building. The industry is the largest employer outside the civil service. The cost to the tax payer and to the economy will be massive if the government just stands by as many on this board wish. We can’t allow any jealousy/loathing of the few to allow us to support the crisis facing the many. If this was any other industry, be that textile, electronics (Seagate), banking (Northing Rock & and the rest £50bn) or anything close to our shipyard the government would have stepped in long ago. There is no way it would have stood back or even exasperated (freezing co-ownership) and allow tens of thousands to go unemployed. Especially when it has in its plans the construction of 30,000 new houses. This website is influential, there is a lot of informed opinion from different quarters and all this is welcome. I am sure reporters read this and it will help to inform opinions. We need to be careful with our knee jerk reactions and be conscious of whom our readers may be. What is the goals of this website. Is it to see anyone who ever dared to invest, employ, take a risk to be public humiliated and ruined so you can have glad pickings over the remainder. Or do we want a normal, stable housing industry with affordable housing and employment for all. Remember everyone wants houses to lower in price until the minute they own one. At that moment every one of you, and I don’t care what you have said in here in the past, everyone of you will feel a warm satisfaction and contentment of seeing a similar house to yours selling for more in the future. Many of you hope to be in that position some day. Many of you may decide never to buy after what we have seen and that is fine. When do you buy. I have always said you buy first of all when you need a home, and secondly when you can afford the home. I guess I will how have to add to that a thirn. When you are sure that that home will not fall in value any more. The first two are straight forward, the third, now there’s a question and I'm sure 90% of you could step forward to answer it, with good facts to back it, I'm sure. What I will say it this. All builders have stopped building new houses for some time (excavating new foundations). Some are building out what they have and discounting and selling. Some are down 40%. What I have seen is good houses are selling (at a good discount). The houses with poorer layouts, parking, gardens etc., are not. The builder discounts again and the better of these sell. And it goes on and on. Now the builder, if he is still there, will not start new builds until it bottoms out (this is important). And at that moment you, been so well informed, will obviously swoop. But you will be getting what the builder couldn’t sell at 10% above bottom. So my advice is look now and watch. The bottom is just like the top, very easy to miss. That’s new build. Resale’s - they will be like letting air out of a tyre. They will keep falling for years. They are already away behind the newbuild values. In Lisburn they are £60 to £80k above where new-build prices now are. They will continue to fall for years. And as they represent 60% of housing sales they will mask the figures and hide what's happening to newbuild. We can see that already as we all know new build has fallen more than the reports show. Sorry for the length of this, for also posting it elsewhers and no doubt the quality of the English.

Just wondering did anyone complain when the government handed over £150m, last year to Shorts to help them win a bid. Did anybody know about this? I understand a US agency is taking them to the EU. I am not saying the gov was right or wrong here. These builders can forget about demands to the banks. The banks are moneylenders and will do as moneylenders have always done - look their money back. They run business, just like the builders and have equal, if not greater cash flow problems of their own. There are 30,000 people on the housing waiting list. The programme for Government shows funds towards housing these people over five years. Why not allow co-ownership to go again, but with a sensible cap of say £180,000. (25% below peek average & 20% below the current alleged average). This is unlikely to give any profit to the "wealthy builders", because of the price they paid for the land, but it would allow them to keep employing their workforce and suppliers, thereby saving the taxpayer from paying out more benefit and would relieve the long waiting housing list. This could all be done for substantially less than budgeted for in the program for government, therefore saving the tax payer more. This is not a handout as the government would be getting cheaper houses in return. In fact they could set the cap at what they see fit and this will, to some extent set the market. Please remember these "wealthy builders" are few. The vast majority of the thousands of people employed in the industry are ordinary Joe's with mortgages, families and dreams of their own. They went to work with little or no knowledge of the storm that was building. The industry is the largest employer outside the civil service. The cost to the tax payer and to the economy will be massive if the government just stands by as many on this board wish. We can’t allow any jealousy/loathing of the few to allow us to support the crisis facing the many. If this was any other industry, be that textile, electronics (Seagate), banking (Northing Rock & and the rest £50bn) or anything close to our shipyard the government would have stepped in long ago. There is no way it would have stood back or even exasperated (freezing co-ownership) and allow tens of thousands to go unemployed. Especially when it has in its plans the construction of 30,000 new houses. This website is influential, there is a lot of informed opinion from different quarters and all this is welcome. I am sure reporters read this and it will help to inform opinions. We need to be careful with our knee jerk reactions and be conscious of whom our readers may be. What is the goals of this website. Is it to see anyone who ever dared to invest, employ, take a risk to be public humiliated and ruined so you can have glad pickings over the remainder. Or do we want a normal, stable housing industry with affordable housing and employment for all. Remember everyone wants houses to lower in price until the minute they own one. At that moment every one of you, and I don’t care what you have said in here in the past, everyone of you will feel a warm satisfaction and contentment of seeing a similar house to yours selling for more in the future. Many of you hope to be in that position some day. Many of you may decide never to buy after what we have seen and that is fine. When do you buy. I have always said you buy first of all when you need a home, and secondly when you can afford the home. I guess I will how have to add to that a thirn. When you are sure that that home will not fall in value any more. The first two are straight forward, the third, now there’s a question and I'm sure 90% of you could step forward to answer it, with good facts to back it, I'm sure. What I will say it this. All builders have stopped building new houses for some time (excavating new foundations). Some are building out what they have and discounting and selling. Some are down 40%. What I have seen is good houses are selling (at a good discount). The houses with poorer layouts, parking, gardens etc., are not. The builder discounts again and the better of these sell. And it goes on and on. Now the builder, if he is still there, will not start new builds until it bottoms out (this is important). And at that moment you, been so well informed, will obviously swoop. But you will be getting what the builder couldn’t sell at 10% above bottom. So my advice is look now and watch. The bottom is just like the top, very easy to miss. That’s new build. Resale’s - they will be like letting air out of a tyre. they will keep falling for years. They are already away behind the newbuild. In Lisburn they are £60 to £80k above where new-build is. They will continue to fall for years. And as they represent 60% of housing sales they will mask the figures and hide what's happening in newbuild. We can see that already as we all know new build has fallen more than the reports show. Sorry for the length of this, and no doubt the quality of the English.

Should we start a new forum to warn the people!

When the market was booming people believed it would never fall, and keep on rising. Problem is now that prices have fallen the same people believe they will never rise again; they need to stay in line with earnings etc., etc. What’s the view here, will history repeat itself?

This is exactly why the government wants to control inflation. It feeds on itself.