Randall Herbert
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Posts posted by Randall Herbert
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Can't possibly work.....
The expected yields from these loans in their original form, has already been sold on and leveraged (by a huge factor) to finance all sorts of other financial trickery and corrupt practices. You can't ignor that.
This will blow up sooner rather than later.
All the past years raft of M&A's are financed with what kind of structured debt exactly?
1929 with knobs on guaranteed.
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I disagree- it is quoted widely in the public domain as the INFLATION RATE: everyone knows its the inflation rate that the BoE has to control.
If this is NOT the inflation rate, then the Government obvously enjoy the ridicule it receives because peoples weekly shop is going through the roof.
Exactly!
Even RPI is a load of old crap too!!
WE ARE ALL BING CONNED! plain and simple
How long will we all put up with these dangerous NU LAbour tossers? Can't be anyone with any intelligence left who would actually vote for these cut throat murderers again?
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On the 3rd of December 2006, I sent a food parcel to my daughter at UNI
It consisted of a few basic foods to keep her at her studies, no alcohol or ipods
The December 2006 figure for the food was £30.86 @ a large national chain supermarket
Here is exactly the same basket of food of today
November 2007 £34.98 Thats up 13.36% for a full 12 months- this is a full actual YOY figure
THAT IS NEARLY 8 TIMES THE CPI
If you add 50 litres of 4 star to the same comparison (same supermarket) the % increase rose to 14.59%
And Vis are asking for interest rate cuts!
Its no surprise that your figure of 14% is almost exactly the same level as the continuing scandalous money supply growth at 13%.
Inflation is not 1.7%!!!!
Thats NU LAbout tossers for you
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The scary thing is, the latest HP CRASH upon us is going to be even worse than the last one!
And still the VI's will try to pretend its not happening.
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UK House Prices: Past CrashesUK House Prices: Past Crashes
1988 - HISTORICAL NEWS REPORTS ON HOUSE PRICES
1988
The Times
TUE 05 JAN 1988
Big house price increases on way out, says Woolwich
The Woolwich Building Society said yesterday that this year could be the last
year of excessive house price increases as the growth of real disposable income
begins to fall. The society said that there was plenty of mortgage money about
to help buyer...
The Times
SAT 09 JAN 1988
First time buyers hold key: House prices
A fall in demand by first time buyers because they cannot afford the price of
London property could lead to a slowing down in house price inflation towards
the end of the year, the Halifax Building Society said yesterday. In London the
number of firs...
The Sunday Times
SUN 10 JAN 1988
Property: New moves set for the home front - Prices will sit quietly at t he eye
of a housing storm set to rampage through 1988
THE YEAR ahead will reveal some of the most sweeping changes in the field of
housing that the country has seen since the end of the first world war when the
Homes For Heroes ideal was born and slum clearance and council housing began to
spread across...
The Times
TUE 19 JAN 1988
Slow sellers push up house prices
The reluctance of house owners to sell is causing a shortgage of supply which
could push up property prices, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors says
in its survey for the quarter to the end of December, published today. There is
a general s...
The Sunday Times
SUN 07 FEB 1988
Travel (Cruising): Tips that add to the price tag - House rules
AMERICANS just love to tip; the British hate the whole embarrassing procedure.
Of all the cultural differences between us, this one comes closest to explaining
why Americans have taken to cruising holidays so enthusiastically while the
British regard...
The Sunday Times
SUN 07 FEB 1988
Property: When pay can't tip the house price scale
MORE THAN half the men working full-time and 80% of full-time working women in
London earn less than the amount needed to buy the cheapest houses in the
capital, according to a report from the London Research Centre. Using government
earnings figures...
The Times
FRI 12 FEB 1988
Business Roundup: Rising house prices push Ward up 49
Ward Holdings, the Kent property developer which has benefited from booming
house prices, the completion of the M25 and the prospect that the Channel Tunnel
will swell demand for property in Kent, has reported another sharp rise in
profits, with last...
The Times
WED 17 FEB 1988
Special Report on Thetford (7): Built-in problems of house-price rises
The boom has brought rising house prices, by Norfolk standards. Prices rose by
30 per cent last year and as more and more people want to live in the town,
including those wishing to retire there, the forecast for this year is a further
25 per cent. ...
The Times
SAT 05 MAR 1988
House prices increase by 16.9 percent
House prices increased by 16.9 per cent in the year to the end of February,
compared with 16.3 per cent to the end of January, the Halifax Building Society
announced yesterday. It said this increase, which shows the property market
generally has not ...
The Times
THU 10 MAR 1988
Rising house prices lift property group to 4 million pounds
An improving sales mix combined with rising house prices boosted pretax profits
at Federated Housing from Pounds 2.5 million to Pounds 4.4 million in the year
to December 1987. Average selling prices were Pounds 60,000, compared with
Pounds 47, 000 d...
The Times
SAT 19 MAR 1988
Out and About: Elegance at a price - Bristol's Georgian House Museum
Bristol's Georgian House Museum gives a fascinating glimpse of life in England's
most elegant era. Despite the best endeavours of the Luftwaffe and the planning
authorities, Bristol still has a great deal of its history above ground, in the
form of a...
The Times
TUE 05 APR 1988
House price rises slow in London
Rising house prices in areas surrounding London appear to have helped to take
the pressure off prices in the capital, which last year rose by 28.9 per cent.
In the past three months the rise in Greater London was only 3.5 per cent, less
than the nati...
The Sunday Times
SUN 10 APR 1988
Personal Finance: House price gap widens
THE house-price boom has boosted wealth in London and southeast England by
Pounds 39 billion since 1984, while the northwest and Scotland are poorer by
Pounds 18 billion, according to a recent study by Tom McRae, professor of
finance at the Universit...
The Times
FRI 06 MAY 1988
North-South gap on house prices 'is set to narrow'
The North-South gap on house prices has reached its peak and will begin to
narrow as towns in the North catch up with their expensive counterparts in the
South, a report published yesterday by Black Horse Relocation said. One of the
main reasons is t...
The Sunday Times
SUN 08 MAY 1988
Poll tax will boost house prices
A POLL tax will sent house prices rocketing by an average of 20% across the
country, according to two new independent studies, write David Hughes and
Christopher Smallwood. The forecast, which is four times higher than the
government's own prediction...
The Times
FRI 20 MAY 1988
House prices up 50%; Norwich; Focus
One inevitable side-effect of Norwich's having joined the south-east economic
boom is a sharp rise in house prices. According to Arnold Son & Hockley, a firm
of chartered surveyors, there have been increases of up to 50 per cent in the
last year alo...
The Times
TUE 24 MAY 1988
Prices boom as property 'cauldron' bubbles; House price rises
House prices increased by up to 50per cent in the Hereford area in the past 12
months and are rising by 40per cent a year in East Anglia, estate agents report
in a survey published today by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.
They are examp...
The Times
SAT 28 MAY 1988
30m pound house price surprises agents; The Holme in Regent's Park
The Kuwaiti owner of The Holme in Regent's Park, London, one of the most
expensive houses in the country, is intending to sell the house quietly, having
spent three years restoring it under the supervision of the Crown Estate
Commissioners and making...
The Times
MON 13 JUN 1988
Poll tax may lift house prices 20%
The Government's planned community charge will push up house prices sharply,
according to a report published today. The report, written by Mr Peter Spencer,
a former Treasury economist now with the securities house Credit Suisse First
Boston, says th...
The Times
TUE 28 JUN 1988
Builders appeal for more land as house prices soar again
Britain's housebuilders appealed yesterday for more land to be released as
estate agents and council planners provided yet more evidence of a booming
market. Mr Alan Cherry, president of the House-Builders Federation, expressed
``grave concern'' that...
The Times
SAT 02 JUL 1988
House-rich;House prices;Family Money
Soon no area of the country will be immune from ``rampaging'' house-price
increases, says the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. The institution
says that more than half of the 188 estate agents who contributed to its survey
of prices for the...
The Times
THU 07 JUL 1988
Rising house prices may send inflation through the roof
If the weather or the prospect of in terminable delays at airports are not
enough to depress you, you might like to try the balance of payments (in
deepening deficit) or the rate of inflation (rising). I would choose inflation
because it is more top...
The Times
FRI 29 JUL 1988
Action on gazumping;House prices
The professions involved in house transfer have set up their own working party
to consider estate agency and issues including gazumping. The working party,
initiated by Mr Michael Clark, former president of the Royal Institution of
Chartered Surveyor...
The Times
MON 01 AUG 1988
House price boom `to end next year'
The house price boom will end next year after peaking on increases of 25 to 30
per cent this year, but prices are unlikely to fall in real terms. The strongest
influence in dampening prices will be the gradual slowing of real personal
disposable inc...
The Times
FRI 05 AUG 1988
House price rises may be past peak
House price rises may have peaked after increasing by 28per cent throughout
Britain in a year, the Halifax Building Society said yesterday. Many regions had
seen prices rise by more than 40per cent in the year to last month, with
property in East An...
The Times
THU 11 AUG 1988
English rushing to buy Scots homes;House prices in Scotland are soaring
House prices in many parts of Scotland are soaring with so-called ``blue chip''
properties in Edinburgh and country houses in Perthshire and the Borders
recording spectacular rises. Many houses, such as Georgian apartments in
Edinburgh's New Town, ar...
The Times
FRI 12 AUG 1988
Rising house prices `holding back firms in the South-east'
Rising house prices and a lack of rented accommodation in London and the
South-east is retarding companies' growth, according to the Confederation of
British Industry. Many companies are spending big sums to attract workers from
regions where housing...
The Times
SAT 20 AUG 1988
Hebden Bridge riding high thanks to trains
The little town of Hebden Bridge in West Yorkshire, which achieved an unhappy
prominence in the 1970s, is now enjoying a housing price boom. Long-distance
commuters to London have been lured by relatively near fast rail links to the
South. The town ...
The Sunday Times
SUN 21 AUG 1988
Let the nation retire to Dungloation;House Prices
''I DON'T give a damn how much your house is worth'' is one of the more graphic
T-shirts now doing the rounds. I sympathise. The house-price spiral must be
outright winner as most tedious conversation topic of 1988. Throughout the land,
people ar...
The Times
TUE 06 SEP 1988
House price inflation 'is likely to fall sharply' next year
House price inflation will fall sharply next year, the Halifax Building Society
predicted in its latest survey published yesterday. Figures from the Halifax
last month showed house prices had risen nationally by an annual 30.7 per cent.
However, it ...
The Times
SAT 17 SEP 1988
Country house prices `to rise further'
Country house prices in Britain have risen by 33 per cent so far this year and
are likely to increase further this autumn, according to Savills, the estate
agents. A report on country properties at the middle and top end of the market
shows that fore...
The Sunday Times
SUN 18 SEP 1988
Place your bets on house prices
DINNER-PARTY pundits who like to predict house prices can now back their
forecasts without buying a single property. IG Index, a specialist financial
bookmaker which takes bets on everything from pork-belly futures to the FT-SE
100 index, tomorrow i...
The Times
SAT 24 SEP 1988
Jitters on house prices
If you have your minds on higher things such as a 13 per cent mortgage rate I
bring tidings of great joy. Interest rates will be down by January, private
investors will be venturing back into the stock market in 18 months, and we
shall all be wonderi...
The Times
SAT 24 SEP 1988
Jitters on house prices;Fall on the way, say the experts
House prices in London and the South-East are actually about to fall. After
months in which the pundits have been warning of a slow-down in house price
rises, the latest round of mortgage increases that has boosted loan rates to
12.75 per cent, 13 p...
The Sunday Times
SUN 25 SEP 1988
House prices slow rapidly
RISING mortgage rates are bad news for the property market. Many sellers a re
not going to get the prices they would have got for their homes a few months
ago. ``For sale'' boards are reappearing in areas where they had almost become
museum pieces....
The Times
TUE 27 SEP 1988
House prices
House prices are a deeply religious issue, estate agents greedy and sinful, and
building bungalows should be banned, according to a Devon rector . The Rev Barry
Swift, of Axminster, says pensioners buying retirement homes at inflated prices
are drivi...
The Times
TUE 11 OCT 1988
Pilgrim share price leaps on confirmation of offer
Williams Holdings yesterday confirmed stock market speculation by launching an
agreed Pounds 330 million bid for Pilgrim House, the electrical, electronic and
fire protection group. The fast-growing industrial conglomerate, built up by Mr
Nigel Rudd ...
The Times
WED 19 OCT 1988
Students pay price of housing shortage
A corner where Mr Stuart Cromer keeps his high-fi was used until last summer by
a number of dipsomaniacs, glue sniffers and punk rockers of no fixed abode as a
lavatory. ``When we started disinfecting the walls and pulling up the carpet we
found that...
The Times
SAT 29 OCT 1988
Long distance season tickets go up by 21%
The increase in fares is bound to have a dampening effect on house price
increases in the middle distance commuter areas, according to local estate
agents . Ipswich has become increasingly popular as a commuter town recently,
and by early this year p...
The Sunday Times
SUN 30 OCT 1988
Holding the key to cut-price pleasure
JENNY BUDDEN, her husband Alan and two children have been swapping their
400-year-old cottage near Haslemere in Surrey for the past 10 years. ``I
wouldn't consider going on holiday any other way. Instead of going to resorts,
where everyone's a tour...
The Times
SAT 05 NOV 1988
House prices crumble
The great house-price halt is under way and London and the South-East are in the
vanguard. The Halifax Building society reports that prices in these regions did
not rise during October, although house prices in other areas continued to rise.
The ave...
The Sunday Times
SUN 06 NOV 1988
House prices will languish until incomes catch up
THE house-price boom is over and that's official. Statistics published by the
Halifax building society last week reveal that price rises throughout the
southern half of England have come to a halt. Indeed, with an average zero
increase during Octobe...
The Times
SAT 03 DEC 1988
Prices subside as Nigel puts his house in order
The first ``success'' of the tight monetary policy of the Chancellor, Mr Nigel
Lawson, is in the housing market where the boom in prices is already passing
into history. Mortgage rates will go up again in January in response to the
latest increase i...
The Times
WED 07 DEC 1988
Housing slows
The rise in house prices is likely to slow to less than 5per cent by the end of
next year, the Halifax Building Society forecast in its latest survey, published
yesterday. The Halifax house price index showed prices increased nationally by
1.7 per ce...
The Sunday Times
SUN 11 DEC 1988
Exodus as Londoners are blitzed by house prices
RECORD house prices are encouraging people to leave London and the southea st at
a rate not seen since the blitz of the second world war. About 100,000 more
people will leave the southeast this year than will move into the region,
according to a stud... 1989 - HISTORICAL NEWS REPORTS ON HOUSE PRICES
1989
The Sunday Times
SUN 01 JAN 1989
Falling prices put couples in two-home trap;House-buying;North-south divided
BARRIE and Sandra Grossman bought the house of their dreams in June. But six
months later they are thinking about selling it, having never moved in, their
hopes shattered by the slump in the property market. Their old home remains
unsold, while inte...
The Times
TUE 03 JAN 1989
Agents optimistic about house prices
A leading national firm of estate agents believes a collapse in the property
market in 1989 is highly unlikely. Strutt and Parker has completed a review of
1988 trends, dominated by panic buying in the summer, then a London-led slowdown
in the last q...
The Times
FRI 06 JAN 1989
Shortage of teachers in Essex linked to soaring house prices
Essex faces a chronic shortages of teachers because of soaring house prices,
according to a survey by the National Association of Schoolmasters/Union of
Women Teachers. Eight per cent of teachers are moving from the Basildon and
mid-Essex area to ot...
The Times
WED 11 JAN 1989
A realistic new year;House prices;Residential Property
The owner of a two-bedroom flat in St John's Wood, London, was advised by an
estate agent last summer to offer it at Pounds 170,000. After five months of
frustration he has asked Roy Brooks to find a buyer at the considerably lower
price of Pounds 1...
The Times
WED 08 FEB 1989
House prices `set to fall everywhere'
House prices will fall by between 10 and 20 per cent over the next two years,
and the housing market may remain weak for some time after that, according to
two bank reports out today. Morgan Grenfell, the merchant bank, says in Housing
Slump - the Ne...
The Sunday Times
SUN 26 FEB 1989
Pounds 800,000 price on house Turner painted;Property
Living in a Turner painting may be a novel experience, but it is also rather
expensive. This magnificent Georgian house in Barnes, left, which was painted by
Turner in 1826, is little changed, though houses have mushroomed around it
and...
The Times
MON 06 MAR 1989
House prices recover
House prices, suffering from the effects of interest rate increases, showed a
slight recovery in February, rising by 1.6 per cent, compared with a fall of 0.8
per cent in January, Halifax Building Society reports today. The index shows
that over the...
The Times
WED 08 MAR 1989
Agents forecast up to 20% rise in house prices near route;Channel tunnel rail
link
Property prices in Kent in areas within reach of stations on the Channel tunnel
rail link are likely to rise by 10 to 20 per cent because of improved access to
London the line will bring, according to estate agents in the county. They
believe that th...
The Times
WED 22 MAR 1989
Marking time;House prices in Britain
House prices in Britain are likely to stagnate this year, the Halifax Building
Society said yesterday. It expects high demand in the Midlands and North but a
slowing down in the South.
The Times
FRI 24 MAR 1989
Priced-out families `need help';Housing
Increasing pressure for rural housing to be used as second, retirement and
commuter homes is destroying the fabric of traditional village life, a report
out yesterday says. The resulting conflict of interests between the local
population and the infl...
The Times
WED 29 MAR 1989
House trend bucked;Quarterly prices
Property in the north of England is showing steady price increases against the
trend elsewhere, according to the Halifax Building Society. The average
quarterly price change is zero, varying from falls of 5 per cent to rises of 5
per cent. In contra...
The Times
FRI 07 APR 1989
North booms;House prices
House prices in northern areas, including the North-west, Yorkshire and
Humberside, increased by 10 per cent in the last three months compared with a
rise of only 1 per cent in the London area, the Nationwide Anglia Building
Society's new house marke...
The Times
MON 10 APR 1989
10% house price rise forecast
House prices in Britain could rise by up to 10 per cent this year, although the
South of England will see only a modest if any increase, it is predicted in a
report published today by the House Builders' Federation. Even in the South,
however, house ...
The Times
WED 12 APR 1989
Housing reverses North-South divide;House price survey
The North-South housing divide, which favoured the South last year, has been
reversed, the Halifax Building Society reports in its house price survey
yesterday. Prices took off in the South in the first quarter of last year while
the economic boom wa...
The Sunday Times
SUN 16 APR 1989
House prices still rise in the north;Personal Finance
HOUSE PRICES in London and southeast England have fallen during the last
quarter, according to figures published by both the Halifax and the Nationwide
building societies. But the fall has been tiny. Nationwide's figures show a 0.2%
decrease for old...
The Times
TUE 25 APR 1989
House owners have to cut prices to secure sale
House owners in many parts of the country are lowering the price of their homes
in order to sell them, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS)
states in its survey for the quarter ending in March, published today. Of 155
agents contributi...
The Times
TUE 23 MAY 1989
High house prices
People who ask unrealistically high prices for houses are probably the main
reason for the slow property market, Mr Peter Miller, for the Royal Institution
of Chartered Surveyors, says in a comment on its latest house price survey
published today. It...
The Times
WED 07 JUN 1989
Bigger rise;House prices
UK House prices rose by 1.7per cent last month compared with 1.2per cent in
April, in spite of stagnant or falling prices in the Midlands and South, the
Halifax Building Society said yesterday. HOME NEWS
The Times
SAT 01 JUL 1989
Owners drop house prices by 20% to encourage sales
House prices are being cut by thousands of pounds to sell properties that have
been on estate agents' books since last year. Vendors, still influenced by last
summer's prices, are having to reduce asking prices by as much as 20per cent to
sell, accor...
The Times
SAT 08 JUL 1989
Quotient warning hits price;Computer software house
Shares in Quotient, the USM-quoted financial computer software house formerly
known as the CCF Group, tumbled by 17p, to 80p, as the group announced its
second profits warning. At the annual meeting in May, Mr Tim Simon, the
chairman, gave warning of...
The Times
TUE 11 JUL 1989
House prices in doldrums
House prices fell throughout the South of England in the second quarter of the
year while continuing to rise in the North and Scotland. There are signs,
however, that even there prices have reached their peak and are slowing down,
the Halifax Buildin...
The Times
TUE 25 JUL 1989
Buyers cash in by cutting their offers;House prices
Gazundering, a practice in which house-buyers put in a lower offer just before
exchanging contracts after previously agreeing a price, is becoming increasing
common, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors reports in its latest house
price surve...
The Times
WED 26 JUL 1989
Tunnel line cuts price of houses;Channel tunnel
A number of properties blighted by their closeness to the Channel tunnel
terminal at Cheriton in Kent have been put up for sale at 20 per cent below
market value. The 26 properties are in the villages of Newington, Peene and
Frogholt and are being so...
The Times
FRI 04 AUG 1989
All house prices `may fall'
House prices throughout the country could fall next year, the Halifax Building
Society says in its latest survey. It is the first Halifax price index to
forecast a fall in prices. Until now, it has said prices next year would be
flat. Prices are fla...
The Times
FRI 11 AUG 1989
House prices will not rise until 1991
House prices are unlikely to start rising again until 1991, according to Black
Horse Relocation, which published its annual report on the housing market
yesterday. The announcement came as the Building Societies Association announced
that 70 per cent...
The Times
FRI 18 AUG 1989
House prices could fall for some years, consultants predict
House prices are set for a long-term fall in real terms, followed by a slow
recovery in the 1990s, a firm of consultants concludes in its gloomy forecast of
the housing market, published today. In addition, a report published today by
the Building So...
The Times
TUE 22 AUG 1989
Sellers accept cut in asking prices;House prices
House sellers have accepted that they must reduce prices to find buyers, the
Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors says in its latest house price survey,
published today. Mr Peter Miller, for the institution, said the survey showed
more stability ...
The Times
TUE 26 SEP 1989
Falls bring buyers' market to North;Housing prices
The North has now felt the ripple effect of the fall in property prices in the
rest of England and Wales, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors' house
price survey reports today. Properties not realistically priced are sticking,
and in the Nor...
The Times
SAT 30 SEP 1989
House prices down by 3.8%
House prices in London fell by 3.8 per cent in the last three months, leaving
them 16 per cent lower than at the height of the property boom last year,
according to Barnard Marcus estate agents (Our Property Correspondent writes).
That drop was the s...
The Sunday Times
SUN 15 OCT 1989
House buyers to be scarce until prices reach bottom
'OF COURSE the price is coming down,'' snapped the estate agent trying to sell a
basement flat off Kensington High Street in London. ``The owners are desperate
to sell.'' But the customer, despite having seen the flat collapse from Pounds
170,000 t...
The Sunday Times
SUN 05 NOV 1989
House prices may rise next spring
BRITAIN'S depressed housing market could pick up much sooner than expected,
according to a forecast to be published this week. The Morgan Grenfell bank
believes the housing market has reached a point where recovery is in sight. It
says rising income...
The Times
TUE 07 NOV 1989
House prices
House prices continued to decline in October, the Halifax Building Society said
yesterday . In its latest house price survey, the society said there was a
further deceleration in the annual rate of house price inflation in October to 7
per cent, from...
The Times
THU 09 NOV 1989
House prices `to rise'
Property prices in London, the south-east and East Anglia will recover next year
and begin to increase by about 10 per cent a year, according to Morgan Grenfell,
the merchant bankers, in a report on the housing market published yesterday. The
recover...
The Times
FRI 17 NOV 1989
House prices to recover next year
House prices are expected to reach a turning point in the third quarter of next
year after a two-year decline, Charterhouse the merchant and investment banking
group said yesterday in its annual study of the housing market. A week ago
another firm of... 1990 - HISTORICAL NEWS REPORTS ON HOUSE PRICES
1990
The Times
SAT 06 JAN 1990
Recovery forecast for house prices in market awash with loan funds
In the long run, we will all be dead, said the currently unfashionable
economist, John Maynard Keynes. The same finality cannot be applied to the
housing market, a subject close to the hearts of many weary home owners. In the
short term it has been ...
The Times
SAT 06 JAN 1990
House prices in 2% year-end fall
House prices fell by 2 per cent in the last three months of 1989, the Nationwide
Anglia Building Society reported yesterday in its annual review of the property
market. The quarterly fall was the biggest recorded by the society, while the
annual incr...
The Times
SAT 20 JAN 1990
House prices in London drop by 10%
House prices in London dropped by an average 10 per cent last year, bringing the
average price down to Pounds 86,800, the lowest since the beginning of 1988, the
London Research Centre reports in its quarterly bulletin. The largest annual
fall was in...
The Sunday Times
SUN 18 FEB 1990
House prices may fall still further
ABBEY NATIONAL's decision to increase its mortgage rate shouldn't be a surprise.
Given that base rates have been 15% for three months now, the surprise in a
sensible market should have been at how long it had taken to react. The decision
to move a f...
The Times
TUE 27 FEB 1990
Price of houses `to fall 10%'
House prices could fall another 10 per cent this year as a result of higher
mortgage rates before they begin to recover, says the Amex Bank Review. Prices
are still historically high in relation to earnings. However, house prices in
different parts ...
The Times
WED 07 MAR 1990
House prices rise but trend is down
House prices rose by 0.3 per cent last month, the first increase since last
July, the Halifax Building Society reported yesterday. But, allowing for
seasonal factors, the price trend is still downwards. The Halifax, in a survey,
said that prices nor...
The Times
FRI 09 MAR 1990
Switch to poll tax `may lift house prices 15%'
The switch from rates to poll tax could add 15 per cent to house prices
nationally, according to research by the Institute for Fiscal Studies and the
London Business School. It will also change the relative prices of houses in
different areas, resea...
The Times
WED 04 APR 1990
10% fall forecast for house prices
HOUSE prices will fall by between eight and 10 per cent this year, according to
two surveys published yesterday. In London, however, the prospect was more
optimistic as prices only fell by 2.6 per cent in the first quarter. The most
depressing foreca...
The Times
WED 11 APR 1990
House prices are still falling, Halifax says
HOUSE prices are either static or still falling slightly, the Halifax Building
Society reported yesterday. The annual rate of house price inflation, which was
more than 34 per cent a year ago, fell to zero by the end of last month, with
prices unchan...
The Times
SAT 21 APR 1990
Auction houses counsel caution on art prices
AFTER disappointing sales in London this month, Sotheby's said yesterday that it
was asking sellers to be ``realistic'' in setting reserve prices for
Impressionist and modern works to be sold at auctions in New York next month.
Both Sotheby's and Chr...
The Times
FRI 04 MAY 1990
The end of house price inflation
HOUSE price inflation has finally ended nationally, nearly two years after the
market peaked, with the latest figures from the Halifax Building Society
yesterday showing that the annual rate at the end of April was minus 0.2 per
cent. It is the firs...
The Times
SAT 05 MAY 1990
Bargain house prices found under the hammer
TO BUY a house at auction can now cost 20 per cent less than finding a similar
property through an estate agent. Auctioneers are also offering loans on the
spot. Any bargains are the result of auctioneers insisting that sellers fix
realistically low...
The Times
WED 06 JUN 1990
Halifax predicts prices will keep falling;Houses
THE fall in house prices is accelerating nationally and is expected to continue
for the rest of this year, Britain's biggest building society reported
yesterday. But a firm recovery is forecast for next year. The Halifax monthly
survey showed that p...
The Times
TUE 19 JUN 1990
House prices
House prices are either static or falling in almost all of England and Wales,
the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors reports in its price survey to the
end of May. The report, confirming the continuing slump in the market, says that
45 per cent...
The Times
TUE 26 JUN 1990
Allen benefits from rise in house prices;Pre-tax profits
ALLEN, the building contractor and housebuilder, increased pre-tax profits from
Pounds 3.97 million to Pounds 4.85 million in the 12 months to April 1, its
first full year on the USM. While housebuilders further south are feeling the
pinch, Allen, ba...
The Times
WED 27 JUN 1990
Prestige houses that still exceed list price;Residential Property
The top end of the market has been a ray of hope for estate agents The Ham, a
fine house near Wantage in Oxfordshire, was given a guide price of Pounds 1.5
million when it came on to the market, through Strutt & Parker. The house sold
earlier this m...
The Sunday Times
SUN 08 JUL 1990
House prices
HOUSE PRICES over the 12 months to the end of June suffered their biggest fall
since records began in 1952, the Nationwide Anglia building society reported
last week. Prices fell on average by 5.3%, which in real (after-inflation) terms
is a drop of...
The Times
THU 12 JUL 1990
No cheer in rising house prices
There is a feeling, nothing "stronger, that the bottom of "the current house
price "cycle may have passed in the "Southeast and be fast approach"ing in the
rest of the country. The "beginnings and ends of cycles "come and go, as
unobserved as "ships...
The Times
THU 12 JUL 1990
House prices recover
SIGNS of a recovery in the housing market for the first time since the boom
ended in the summer of 1988, are charted by the Halifax Building Society in its
latest house-price survey published yesterday. For the third consecutive month
house-price inf...
The Times
THU 12 JUL 1990
Society says return of first-time buyers lifting house prices
THE return of first-time buyers, enticed partly by a wide variety of mortgage
discounts and other inducements, helped house prices to rise in June, but only
by a modest 0.3 per cent, the Halifax Building Society says in a house price
survey published...
The Times
TUE 24 JUL 1990
Housing prices static or falling
THE housing market is taking a long time to recover despite some signs of life,
the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors indicates in its survey for the
quarter to the end of June. Estate agents are continuing to report static or
falling prices a...
The Times
WED 08 AUG 1990
House prices continue to slide
House prices in the UK continued their slide in July, falling by 0.1 per cent on
the previous month, and they are now 1.7 per cent lower than a year ago,
according to a survey by the Halifax Building Society published yesterday. HOME
NEWS
The Times
WED 10 OCT 1990
Small rise for house prices
House prices in Britain rose slightly during September, their first increase for
three months, confirming that the slump in the south of England has levelled
out, according to the Halifax Building Society. Its survey, prepared before last
week's drop...
The Sunday Times
SUN 14 OCT 1990
House prices bottom out
THE long slide in house prices could be nearing its end. The Halifax's latest
quarterly survey of the property market shows that prices in general rose by
0.5% in September, and the indications are of a definite bottoming-out. Last
week's cut in the...
The Sunday Times
SUN 11 NOV 1990
Indicator of the Week;Halifax House Price Index
HOUSE PRICES remained depressed last month, even though the leading lenders
announced mortgage-rate cuts of nearly one percentage point. Average house
prices fell 0.8%, more than reversing a tentative rise of 0.5% shown in the
September figures. Af...
The Sunday Times
SUN 18 NOV 1990
House prices set to take off in spring
THE worst slump in Britain's housing market for more than a decade will end next
spring, an authoritative report will forecast this week. Prices will rise by an
average of 20% within two years, Lower interest rates and higher wages will
combine to s...
The Sunday Times
SUN 18 NOV 1990
City `slickers' raise house prices
INVERNESS and Aberdeen have proved the two bright spots in an otherwise sluggish
Scottish property market. Increased North Sea oil-related activity has meant a
steady flow of workers into the Granite City, and the desirability of living in
Inverness-...
The Times
MON 26 NOV 1990
Increase in house prices predicted
HOUSE prices in Britain will rise by 7 per cent next year and by more than 11
per cent in 1992, followed by slower growth in 1993, statistics from the
merchant and investment banking group Charterhouse suggest. That is the
conclusion from forecasts t...
The Times
THU 06 DEC 1990
House price inflation up
THE annual rate of house price inflation rose in November. The 0.2 per cent
year-on-year increase in prices was the first recorded since February by the
Halifax Building Society. In October, prices had fallen 0.4 per cent compared
with a year earli...
The Times
SAT 29 DEC 1990
Two-point cut in bank rate `could revive house prices'
A CUT in interest rates by 2 points in the next few months could signal a
recovery in the housing market and an increase in house prices of 5 per cent by
the end of 1991, the Halifax Building Society predicts today in its annual
review of the housing... 1991 - HISTORICAL NEWS REPORTS ON HOUSE PRICES
1991
The Times
FRI 04 JAN 1991
House prices;London
House prices in London could rise by 3 per cent in the next six months, the
estate agent Barnard Marcus predicted in its quarterly survey of prices. HOME
NEWS
The Times
SAT 05 JAN 1991
Record fall in house prices
HOUSE prices fell by a record 10.7 per cent last year, the Nationwide Anglia
building society reported yesterday in its end-of-year survey. The figures
showing the biggest recorded annual fall and, for the last three months of 1990,
the biggest quart...
The Times
THU 10 JAN 1991
House price rises suggest a recovery
HOUSE prices in London and southwest England showed a small increase during the
last quarter of 1990, the first rise since the slump in the property market
began in the summer of 1988, the Halifax building society said yesterday. The
society's latest...
The Times
WED 16 JAN 1991
Agent fined over house price claim
AN ESTATE agent was fined Pounds 800 yesterday over a ``grossly misleading''
advertisement claiming that the price of a house had been cut by Pounds 30,000.
The case is believed to be the first brought under section three of the Consumer
Protection A...
The Times
MON 04 FEB 1991
House prices in the late 1980s are not to blame for the recession
The increase in house prices in the late 1980s was not to blame for the present
recession, according to an article in Housing Finance, the journal of the
Council of Mortgage Lenders. The article, by Jarlath Costello and Adrian Coles,
also rejects the...
The Sunday Times
SUN 10 FEB 1991
House prices `may not recover this year'
TIME could be running out for any significant increase in house prices this
year. The Abbey National, whose house-price forecast has been developed with the
London Business School, is expected to halve its previous estimate for growth.
The figures wi...
The Times
WED 06 MAR 1991
House price rises predicted this year
HOUSE prices remained almost static between January and February, indicating
that the market has finally bottomed out, the Nationwide Anglia Building Society
reported yesterday. The society's price survey found that at the end of last
month the avera...
The Times
WED 13 MAR 1991
House prices predicted to rise 66% over five years
HOUSE prices in the UK are predicted to rise by an average of 66 per cent over
the next five years as the housing market recovers from the slump through
falling inflation and interest rates. The Housing Mortgage Corporation, in its
latest house price...
The Times
SAT 30 MAR 1991
London house prices `up 0.5%'
HOUSE prices in greater London have increased in the past three months for the
first time since September 1988, the estate agent Barnard Marcus reports in a
survey to be published on Tuesday. The agent, which has 50 offices in the
region, also report...
The Times
MON 08 APR 1991
House prices are not the problem
The cult of the ``property owning democracy'' seems to be following its
high-priestess into oblivion, especially since the Chancellor smashed the Golden
Calf by abolishing higher rate tax relief on mortgages in last month's Budget.
These days, the p...
The Sunday Times
SUN 21 APR 1991
Country houses fall 15% in price
THE biggest casualties of the property slump were country houses in the home
counties and ``other southern regions'', according to Savills, the estate agency
that buys and sells houses for the rich, writes Andrew Yates. In a research
document publish...
The Times
WED 01 MAY 1991
The price is right in the housing basement
A repossessed home's worth is measured, not by estate agents' hype, but by the
price it fetches at auction, reports Michael Horsnell The bargain basement of
Britain's property market is in the grip of a new phenomenon as thousands of
repossessed home...
The Times
THU 02 MAY 1991
Residents fear fall in house prices
BR's choice of the south London route for the Channel tunnel link has stirred
strong protests from those in its path. RESIDENTS in Peckham, southeast London
reacted angrily last night to British Rail's final decision to endorse a
southerly route for ...
The Times
MON 20 MAY 1991
House prices `to rise by 2% at most'
SOME 80,000 repossessed homes will be on the market during 1991, according to
the economics team of UBS Phillips & Drew, the securities group. It says that
the properties, equivalent to a medium-sized town, will soak up demand and, with
rising unemp...
The Times
FRI 24 MAY 1991
Bank set to act on house prices
THE Governor of the Bank of England warned the Building Societies Association
conference in Glasgow that a resurgence of house price inflation would be firmly
countered by the authorities. Robin Leigh-Pemberton, who said earlier this year
he was prep...
The Times
SAT 01 JUN 1991
House price inflation
From Mr M. R. Darke Sir, Who is kidding whom? I find Robin Leigh-Pemberton's
reported remark (``Bank set to act on house prices'', May 24) to the Building
Societies Association conference commenting on house price inflation that ``with
hindsight, th...
The Times
SAT 01 JUN 1991
House price inflation
From Mr Richard Wardrop Sir, Following Mr Leigh-Pemberton's comments on house
price inflation, I am prompted to ask what plans he has to bring bank employees'
mortgage rates into line with the rest of us poor (sic) mortals? He might also
care to comm...
The Times
SAT 01 JUN 1991
Georgian furniture attracts top prices in house sale
GOOD examples of Georgian furniture prompted keen bidding when the contents of a
cliff top house at Mevagissey, Cornwall, were sold for Pounds 224,269. The sale
at the home of the late Ronald Strauss, a retired City financier, was expected
by Phillip...
The Times
TUE 04 JUN 1991
2% house price rise is biggest for year
HOUSE prices increased by 2 per cent last month compared with the previous
month, the largest monthly rise since March 1990, the Nationwide Building
Society reported yesterday in its latest ouse price index. Nationwide said the
increase followed the ...
The Sunday Times
SUN 30 JUN 1991
House price rises boost hopes in London, but recovery to be slow
LONDON'S housing market is emerging slowly from the slump, according to two
reports to be published this week. The recovery is fragile and dogged by
economic uncertainty, but prices in some areas are beginning to rise and the
number of sales has inc...
The Times
MON 08 JUL 1991
House prices `to stay static'
HOUSE prices are forecast to remain static over the next two years despite the
expected 1 per cent drop in mortgage rates before the end of the year.
Schroders, the merchant bank, estimates in its latest Economic Perspective that
on top of an expecte...
The Times
THU 08 AUG 1991
Halifax building society revises its forecast on house prices
The Halifax building society yesterday revised its forecast of a 5 per cent
increase in house prices this year. Britain's biggest building society said it
now expected prices to rise by less than 3 per cent this year due to the
recession and soaring...
The Times
THU 22 AUG 1991
House slump narrows North-South price gap
THE housing market slump has had a savage effect in the south of the country
while leaving the north relatively unscathed, narrowing the gap in prices
between the two, the Council of Mortgage Lenders reports today. Its study of the
market shows that ...
The Sunday Times
SUN 08 SEP 1991
Weekly watch on UK house prices
THE most comprehensive weekly information service on home ownership in the
United Kingdom starts today with the launch of The Sunday Times House Price
Index, compiled with Morgan Grenfell, the merchant bank. The index combines data
from the two bigge...
The Times
WED 11 SEP 1991
House prices
From Mrs Eileen Scott Sir, You report (September 3) that council-tax bills may
be higher than predicted because of an apparent miscalculation of average house
prices. The environment department is quoted as saying: ``We stand by our
figures. They t...
The Sunday Times
SUN 29 SEP 1991
House-price surge is on the way, but wait for it
PLUMMETING prices, higher earnings and mortgage rates of less than 10% have set
the stage for a housing market revival next year, when prices are expected to
rise by more than inflation. A report due to be published next month by UBS
Phillips & Drew,...
The Sunday Times
SUN 29 SEP 1991
Sunday Times House Price Index;Property
THE Sunday Times House Price Index this week publishes figures from the Halifax
building society, comparing price movements since October 1988 in the north and
southeast of England. While the southeast has suffered falls, prices have risen
in the nor...
The Times
THU 10 OCT 1991
Fall in house prices dashes market hopes
HOUSE prices fell by 0.8 per cent last month and by 1.1 per cent in the quarter
to the end of September, dashing hopes that the market might show signs of
recovery by the end of the year, according to figures from the Halifax Building
Society yesterd...
The Sunday Times
SUN 20 OCT 1991
House prices fall by 2% despite interest rate cut
IF statistics are to be believed, the Scottish property market is still some way
from showing signs of recovery, writes Wendy Travis. A house price index,
compiled by GA Property Services, shows a decrease of over 2% in Scottish house
prices between ...
The Times
TUE 05 NOV 1991
Maverick pays price for loans that were not safe as houses;Building socie ties
As the Town & Country Building Society sees its future `with the Woolwich',
Lindsay Cook reports on the background to the merger and assesses the outlook
for the societies The Building Societies Commission has had to steady the nerves
of building soc...
The Times
THU 21 NOV 1991
Falling house prices
House prices remain static in much of England and Wales and are still falling in
parts of the South-East, according to the latest survey from the Royal
Institution of Chartered Surveyors, published today. Seven out of ten estate
agents in the South-E...
The Times
THU 05 DEC 1991
Market weak
House prices fell by almost 1 per cent last month, confirming that the market
remains ``very weak'', the Halifax Building Society said yesterday, publishing
its latest figures. For the year ending in November prices declined by 2.4 per
cent and are l...
The Times
WED 18 DEC 1991
Builders hit by fear of more house price falls;Stock Market
THE growing number of house repossessions and the government's attempts to halt
these depressed the construction industry. The prospect of house prices
continuing to fall for the foreseeable future caused the shares of the big
contractors, already k...
The Times
THU 19 DEC 1991
Record repossessions are keeping down house prices
The property market is being held back as repossessed houses are resold in some
areas at up to 30 per cent below their true value. Ray Clancy reports
REPOSSESSIONS are having a significant impact on the housing market, keeping
prices low in many par...
The Times
MON 30 DEC 1991
House prices stuck `till 1993'
THE housing market should begin to recover in the spring, but house prices are
unlikely to show real gains until 1993, the Halifax Building Society says in its
annual review published today. The review, prepared before the announcement of a
rescue pa... 1992 - HISTORICAL NEWS REPORTS ON HOUSE PRICES
1992
The Times
THU 06 FEB 1992
Prices of houses fall 3.6% in year
HOUSE prices fell by 1.2 per cent last month, the latest Halifax building
society house price index shows. It comes after a fall of 1.3 per cent in
December and means that house prices are now 3.6 per cent lower than a year ago.
``Although there are...
The Times
TUE 03 MAR 1992
No let-up in house price fall
House prices fell again last month in spite of efforts by the government and
lenders to breathe life into the market, according to a Nationwide building
society survey. Figures showed prices down 1.2 per cent on the previous month,
the third consecut...
The Sunday Times
SUN 08 MAR 1992
Budget butterflies hold off a rise in house prices
HOUSE prices are still falling, and the number of sales in January slumped The
Sunday Times House Price Index this weekend shows that prices last month were
4.2% lower than in the previous February, when the property market was still
reeling from the...
The Times
WED 08 APR 1992
House prices most at risk in South-East
A FURTHER sharp drop in house prices seems likely in London and the South-East
if Labour wins the election, but the outlook for housing in the rest of the
country may depend less on tomorrow's poll than on the state elections held in
Germany last Sun...
The Times
SAT 02 MAY 1992
House prices begin to rise
HOUSE prices rose by 0.7 per cent last month, making the average cost of a home
Pounds 55,565, the Nationwide Building Society, said yesterday. The rise comes
after four months of falling prices. The last increase, of 1 per cent, occurred
in Novembe...
The Times
THU 07 MAY 1992
Lenders split on housing trends
HOUSE prices fell by 0.4 per cent in April, according to the latest Halifax
house price index. The average price of a house is Pounds 60,534, 5.5 per cent
lower than it was a year ago. The Halifax's figure contrasts with a 0.7 rise in
prices recorde...
The Sunday Times
SUN 10 MAY 1992
House price fall takes shine off interest rate cut
The Sunday Times Green Shoots Index, launched last month, is an attempt to
monitor the state of Britain's recovery. Each week we will note the economic
news and assign it Green Shoots points, depending on its importance. Last week's
index: +13. BLO...
The Times
TUE 02 JUN 1992
Falling house prices trap 2m borrowers
AT LEAST 278,000 first-time buyers have mortgages larger than the current values
of their properties, according to official figures from the Council of Mortgage
Lenders. A report to be published next week by UBS Phillips & Drew, the
securities house,...
The Times
THU 04 JUN 1992
House prices rise 0.4%
House prices rose by 0.4 per cent last month, the Halifax building society said.
Earlier this week, the Nationwide recorded a 0.6 per cent rise. Both lenders
have cautioned against over-optimism. The Halifax said that although prices
showed a 0.4 ...
The Sunday Times
SUN 07 JUN 1992
The way out of the house price trap
In an open letter to the bosses of Britain's five biggest mortgage lenders,
Diana Wright, Personal Finance Editor, invites them to adopt her plan for
getting the housing market moving. Dear Sirs I WONDER if you read our article
last week on the mortg...
The Sunday Times
SUN 21 JUN 1992
`Boom days gone forever' as house prices still fall
THE housing market is showing no signs of recovery and will remain depressed for
the next five years as cautious buyers adjust to new economic circumstances,
says an authoritative report to be published on Tuesday. It predicts a fall this
year of 4%...
The Times
MON 29 JUN 1992
Prices fall as auction houses chase bidders
TWO years ago a painting by Van Gogh sold for Pounds 49.7 million. Tomorrow
another work by him is being offered in London with the modest estimate of
Pounds 600,000. Nature Morte, Branche d'Amandier is admittedly small, at 91/2in
by 71/2in, but it...
The Times
FRI 03 JUL 1992
Half-price house sale
Seventy houses are to be sold at nearly half-price. The former RAF homes, above,
will be priced from about Pounds 18,000 in what estate agents hope will be a
swift sale starting in the next few weeks. The houses, on the former RAF ca...
The Times
FRI 10 JUL 1992
House prices edge up
House prices rose 0.7 per cent last month, the Halifax building society said.
The rise, it added, could be a sign that prices were stabilising. ``Further
recovery remains dependent on improvement in the economy and in employment
prospects,'' a spoke...
The Sunday Times
SUN 26 JUL 1992
House prices continue to drop as Major studies rescue plans
THE cuts in interest rates have not worked; the mortgage rescue package has
failed; and the moratorium on stamp duty has done little to help. What can the
government try now to rescue a housing market that seems bent on
self-destruction? A report la...
The Times
TUE 28 JUL 1992
Buyers rush in for half-price houses;RAF houses in Lincolnshire
MORE than 700 buyers are competing for 70 former RAF houses in Lincolnshire that
are on sale at about half their market price. The detached and semi-detached
post-war houses, some with new roofs and PVC double-glazing, are being offered
at prices ran...
The Sunday Times
SUN 09 AUG 1992
House-price market spirals downward towards crisis
FAR from showing even the first flickering signs of recovery, the housing market
is plunging deeper into recession, with the situation, according to some
experts, now rapidly moving towards crisis. Prices have already fallen longer
and further in Lo...
The Times
MON 17 AUG 1992
Price mentality holds key to housing market
As this year has passed, it has become apparent that inflation is falling, if
anything, faster than expected. But it has also become clear that the high
inflation mentality is entrenched in far more parts of the economy than just the
labour market. ...
The Times
SAT 05 SEP 1992
House prices down
House prices fell by 0.7 per cent in August, following a 0.4 per cent fall in
July, according to the Halifax, the country's largest building society. Prices
are 5.4 per cent lower than they were a year ago and the society predicted no
upturn in the m...
The Times
FRI 18 SEP 1992
Council tax based on 1991 house prices;Politics & Government
THERE will be no wholesale revaluation of the 20 million homes in England liable
for the new council tax, even if property prices continue to fall, John Redwood,
the local government minister, said yesterday. Houses would be taxed on the
basis of the...
The Times
SAT 03 OCT 1992
House prices drop 1.4% in a month
HOUSE prices fell 1.4 per cent last month when would-be homebuyers were scared
off by sharp fluctuations in interest rates as the pound dropped out of the
European exchange-rate mechanism. Last month's reduction was the largest since
October 1991, wh...
The Times
FRI 09 OCT 1992
Record fall in house prices
HOUSE prices fell by at least 2.8 per cent in September, the biggest-ever
monthly fall and equivalent to a one-third cut over a year. The precise figure
will be issued today in the respected Halifax price index. It is understood to
be at least double...
The Times
SAT 10 OCT 1992
House prices soared and slumped
HOUSE prices continued to rise dramatically in the South East and East Anglia
after the Crash and more steadily in the rest of the country. In the year to
October 1987, house price inflation was put at 14.5 per cent by the Halifax. In
Greater Londo...
The Times
SAT 10 OCT 1992
House prices
House prices have now fallen an average 7.5 per cent over the past year,
according to the Halifax price index issued yesterday. House prices fell by 3.1
per cent in September, although the seasonally adjusted index figure showed a
2.7 per cent fall....
The Times
MON 12 OCT 1992
Flat prices fall more than houses
FLATS are falling faster in value than houses in the property slump, with the
greatest price falls shown by two-bedroom, two-bathroom flats. While houses have
gone down by 5.6 cent over the past year, flats have fallen by 10 per cent,
according to a ...
The Sunday Times
SUN 01 NOV 1992
Granite City house price rollercoaster takes a dip
ABERDEEN's apparent immunity to the property industry's recent maladies may be
showing signs of wearing off. House prices in the city have fallen for the first
time since 1988, and the number of properties for sale has increased
substantially. Based...
The Times
WED 04 NOV 1992
House prices drop 4% in two months
HOUSE prices fell 2.7 per cent during October, according to the Nationwide, the
second largest building society. This follows the 1.4 per cent fall in prices
reported by the society for September. The figures indicate that prices, having
fallen by m...
The Times
WED 04 NOV 1992
House prices drop 4% in two months
HOUSE prices fell by 2.7 per cent last month, according to the Nationwide
building society. Since the end of August they have dropped more than 4 per
cent, figures show. The average house price has fallen more than Pounds 13,000
since autumn 1989 to...
The Sunday Times
SUN 15 NOV 1992
What price a council house with a resident Maxwell?
IF THERE is a single house bound to attract buyers even in the property slump,
it is this one. To view it you must come to a hill overlooking the dreaming
spires of Oxford, past the lodge, round the wooded drive, through the colonnade
and into Headi...
The Times
THU 19 NOV 1992
£750m buy-out unlikely to boost house prices
THE government's Pounds 750 million plan to buy up empty property is unlikely to
have much impact on the housing market. Housing associations, which are charged
by the government to spend the money, have made it clear that they are unlikely
to buy m...
The Sunday Times
SUN 22 NOV 1992
Council tax will mean new fall in house prices
THE FALL in house prices will accelerate when the council tax replaces the poll
tax next April, according to a study published today. Morgan Grenfell, the
merchant bank, says the value of houses in London and the southeast will fall by
up to 4.5% nex...
The Times
SAT 28 NOV 1992
Bank sees further year of house price pain
HOUSE prices will continue falling next year despite lower interest rates, a new
report from Charterhouse, the merchant bank, says. But the market is due for a
strong recovery in 1994 and will continue rising for the following three years,
it predic... 1993 - HISTORICAL NEWS REPORTS ON HOUSE PRICES
1993
The Times
SAT 02 OCT 1993
Prices fall
House prices fell by 1 per cent in September, the first drop after six
successive months of increases, the Nationwide building society will report on
Monday.
The Times
WED 06 OCT 1993
Annual rise in house prices
HOUSE prices are now higher than they were a year ago, according to figures for
September from the Halifax building society which record a 1 per cent increase
on the same month last year the first annual increase in nearly three years.
Prices rose 0....
The Sunday Times
SUN 10 OCT 1993
Tax change may hit house prices
WHICH way are house prices heading? The Halifax says up, Nationwide says down
but both societies are keen to underplay the differences in their monthly
surveys of house prices. The Halifax's September figures show house prices rose
0.3% last month, ...
The Times
TUE 12 OCT 1993
Tay Homes knocked back by drop in house prices
INCREASED sales failed to prevent a drop in profits at Tay Homes, the Leeds
housebuilder, in the 12 months to end-June. The number of homes sold increased
from 1,030 to 1,107, but the average price went down from Pounds 64,900 to
Pounds 61,000, hitti...
The Times
MON 01 NOV 1993
Few houses can reach their lofty asking price
ESTATE agents cannot recall a house that has sold recently for more than Pounds
20 million. The nearest was the sale of Grove House in Regent's Park, central
London. The Regency villa was previously owned by Jane Holmes a Court, the widow
of the Aus...
The Times
WED 10 NOV 1993
Put house price changes in RPIX
From Mr Adrian Cosker Sir, For the Bank of England to start favouring RPIX, an
inflation measure ( Bank sounds hopeful note on inflation, November 3) that
omits what for many families is the largest single item in their household
budget, namely mortg...
The Sunday Times
SUN 05 DEC 1993
House prices up;In today's other papers
LEADING housing analyst John Wriglesworth, of investment bank UBS, is predicting
that house prices will rise 7% next year and transactions will increase by 10%,
The Sunday Telegraph reports.
The Times
THU 16 DEC 1993
House price boom predicted for 1994
HOUSE prices will rise by 19 per cent across the country next year, and by 25
per cent in the prime areas of London, according to the research department of
Savills estate agent. Savills accurately predicted a fall of 8 per cent for
prime central Lo...
The Times
FRI 17 DEC 1993
Experts back forecast of big rise in house prices
PROPERTY experts yesterday backed a forecast that house prices will rise sharply
next year. This week the estate agents Savills predicted rises of 19 per cent
across the country and 25 per cent in prime London areas. Yesterday other estate
agents ag...
The Times
WED 29 DEC 1993
Gap in house prices narrows
THE gap in housing prices across the regions has narrowed significantly in the
past year, according to a housing market survey published today. In its annual
review of the UK housing market, the Halifax Building Society says that price
differentials ... 1994 - HISTORICAL NEWS REPORTS ON HOUSE PRICES
1994
The Sunday Times
SUN 02 JAN 1994
Pundits agree on big rise in house prices this year
BUILDING SOCIETIES, estate agents and analysts are united in their belief that
1994 will see the first substantial rise in house prices since the property
decline began four years ago. Experts say conditions are right for a sustained
recovery, with ...
The Times
THU 06 JAN 1994
House prices fall, says Halifax
HOUSE prices fell by 0.5 per cent last month, according to the Halifax Building
Society's house price index. This contrasts with the Nationwide's experience of
an 0.8 per cent rise. The Halifax says that prices rose by just 1.2 per cent for
the yea...
The Times
WED 02 FEB 1994
House prices continue to improve
HOUSE prices rose in January, for the third month in succession, the Nationwide
Building Society said. The increase was 0.4 per cent compared with December, the
society said. Prices this January were 2.4 per cent higher than January last
year. Natio...
The Times
THU 03 FEB 1994
House prices discord
House prices fell by 0.4 per cent last month, according to the Halifax Building
Society. The figures conflict with those published earlier this week by the
Nationwide, which said that prices rose by 0.4 per cent in January. The Halifax
said yesterda...
The Times
FRI 04 FEB 1994
Virtual reality in house prices
EFFORTS to talk up the housing market with buoyant end-year forecasts have
already hit inconvenient reality. The Halifax Building Society's reputable index
records that prices have fallen by about 1 per cent in the past two months. And
this allows ...
The Times
TUE 08 FEB 1994
Bryant Group lifts house prices 16%
BRYANT, the housebuilder and construction group, has tapped returning confidence
in the housing market to boost the selling price of its average home by 16 per
cent and nearly double half-time profits. The group said yesterday pre-tax
profits rose 95...
The Times
THU 03 MAR 1994
House prices on rise
House prices rose in February by their biggest monthly increase for 5 1/2 years,
the Halifax Building Society said yesterday. Prices rose 2.2 per cent when
compared with January, taking the value of an average home to Pounds 62,498. The
increase re...
The Sunday Times
SUN 06 MAR 1994
House prices leap as more make a move
HOUSE prices jumped sharply last month according to the Halifax, Britain's
biggest building society. What pleases it even more is that volumes are up more
people are buying and selling. After so many false dawns, it really seems the
housing market ...
The Sunday Times
SUN 03 APR 1994
House-price rises cheer spring sellers
MORTGAGE lenders have filled their stalls with new and attractive offerings this
week in a bid to catch the seasonal surge in house-hunting. Prospective buyers
or more likely, sellers may also be cheered by the latest figures on the
Nationwide house...
The Times
MON 04 APR 1994
House Prices
Why German couples are the envy of the British In spring, as stately homes and
gardens reopen for visitors, other more mundane versions open their doors to
prospective buyers. And reports of a recovery in the property market are as
traditional as si...
The Times
THU 07 APR 1994
Bank figures reinforce signs of house price recovery
MORTGAGE statistics issued by the Bank of England and a statement from the
Halifax Building Society yesterday pointed to a modest revival in the housing
market. The Bank said mortgage approvals in February edged up to Pounds 4.65
billion from January...
The Times
THU 14 APR 1994
House prices show first annual rise in all areas
HOUSE prices have risen in every region during the past year, for the first time
in nearly five years, the Halifax building society said yesterday. Prices in
Northern Ireland are on average 9.1 per cent higher than they were a year ago,
average price...
The Times
THU 05 MAY 1994
Bellway warns on housing land prices
THE housing land market is starting to overheat, threatening the housebuilding
industry's recovery, according to Bellway, one of Britain's ten biggest
housebuilders. Based in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, the company participated in the
dash for land during ...
The Times
THU 26 MAY 1994
Big noise cuts house price by Pounds 200,000
A QUEEN Anne house that should be worth at least Pounds 275,000 has changed
hands for Pounds 76,000 because it is one of the most blighted properties in
Britain. Nashenden House dates from the 11th century. It was rebuilt in the
reign of Queen Anne ...
The Times
FRI 27 MAY 1994
House price cut to `bargain' £5m
ONE of London's most expensive houses has had its price reduced by half to
Pounds 5 million after being on sale for a year. Agents say that it is the
biggest price cut recorded for a London house. Number 8 Hyde Park Gardens
narrowly failed to sell f...
The Times
FRI 03 JUN 1994
Fears for housing recovery as prices fall
HOUSE prices fell unexpectedly by 1.6 per cent in May, fuelling fears that the
shaky recovery in the housing market is faltering. The Halifax Building Society,
which published its monthly house price index yesterday, said that there were
``no signs o...
The Times
TUE 14 JUN 1994
London rises above house price gloom
GLOOMY figures for the housing market issued by building societies are
``dangerously misleading'' and prices in London could grow by as much as 25 per
cent by the end of the year, according to experts in the capital. An analysis of
the housing market...
The Sunday Times
SUN 19 JUN 1994
40 House prices falter;In Today's Other Papers
THE house-price recovery is running out of steam, according to one leading
analyst, John Wriglesworth of UBS. He had forecast that prices would rise 7%
this year but now believes the increase will be only 3.5%, reports The Sunday
Telegraph BUSINESS
The Times
SAT 02 JUL 1994
House prices `stable'
House prices fell 0.7 per cent in June compared with May, according to the
Nationwide building society, which blamed April's tax rises, higher fixed rate
mortgages and lack of consumer confidence. However, the Nationwide's figures are
likely to be co...
The Times
WED 03 AUG 1994
Societies say house prices are rising
Two building societies yesterday reported rises in house prices in July. The
Nationwide recorded a 1.8 per cent increases compared to June and the Halifax a
0.2 per cent rise. But both societies stressed that the trend showed a gradual
recovery in ...
The Times
MON 08 AUG 1994
House sales may list price history
THE price paid for a property should be included in details available to the
public, according to proposals from Her Majesty's Land Registry, which records
all property transactions. Should the proposals be accepted, the public will be
able to find o...
The Times
TUE 09 AUG 1994
Woolwich predicts 3% rise in house prices
THE housing market is showing a ``gradual, slow improvement'' and house prices
should rise by 3 per cent this year, the Woolwich Building Society said
yesterday. The number of transactions is set to rise by up to 7 per cent, the
society predicted. D...
The Times
FRI 12 AUG 1994
House prices `should be published'
From the Chief Executive of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors Sir,
The RICS unequivocally supports making publicly accessible the price paid for a
property (report and leading article, August . We believe it would be helpful
for the cons...
The Times
FRI 12 AUG 1994
House prices `should be published'
From Mr J. M. Robertson Sir, In Scotland information regarding sale prices of
houses and land has been available to the public for centuries. The Registration
Act 1617 instituted the Register of Sasines, which is open to inspection by the
public. A...
The Times
FRI 12 AUG 1994
House prices `should be published'
From Mr W. E. Vaughan Sir, The price of all properties transferred is already
disclosed to the Government when the transfer document is stamped. The
information being available, why not publish it? Yours faithfully, W. E.
VAUGHAN, Chobham Farm Cotta...
The Times
FRI 12 AUG 1994
House prices `should be published'
From Mr Robert Sandall Sir, Your leading article justifies an intrusion into
what is, after all, a private matter by saying that it would help prevent
``another mad inflationary boom'' and allow Treasury economists and buyers a
proper monitoring of t...
The Times
WED 17 AUG 1994
Access to house prices
From Professor D. G. Barnsley Sir, I am surprised that the chief executive of
the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors ``unequivocally supports'' the public
accessibility of property sale prices (letter, August 12). What does Mr Michael
Pattison me...
The Times
WED 17 AUG 1994
Access to house prices
From Mr R. I. Barycz Sir, I too hope that the Lord Chancellor will accept the
recommendation of the Chief Land Registrar and make public the price at which
houses and land change price (leading article, ``Publish the price'', August .
I would go fu...
The Times
FRI 02 SEP 1994
House prices show slight increase
HOUSE prices rose by 0.6 per cent last month, pushing annual average prices 2.6
per cent higher than in August 1993, the Nationwide Building Society said
yesterday. The increase was the second in succession after a fall in June.
However, the market ...
The Times
TUE 04 OCT 1994
House prices fall 2.9%
House prices fell last month by 2.9 per cent, their biggest drop since October
1990, the Nationwide Building Society said yesterday. The average price of a
house in September was Pounds 53,918, which was Pounds 1,617 lower than in
August. But prices...
The Times
THU 20 OCT 1994
House prices `to rise 6%'
HOUSE prices are set to rise 6 per cent over the next 15 months, according to a
report published today by UBS, the broker. Housing turnover should rise from
under 1.2 million in 1992 and 1993 to 1.4 million in 1995 and peak at 1.8
million in 1997 and...
The Sunday Times
SUN 23 OCT 1994
Experts split on outlook for house prices
HOUSE PRICES will jump 6% by the end of next year and 50% by the end of the
decade, according to a bullish report from one of the City's leading investment
banks. UBS, the only City institution with a full-time housing analyst, says its
forecasts, wh...
The Times
MON 31 OCT 1994
London house prices increase by 5%
THE average price of houses sold in London rose by 5 per cent over the past
year, suggesting it has so far avoided the slowdown affecting many other parts
of the country, according to the London Research Centre. The average price of
homes sold in th...
The Sunday Times
SUN 27 NOV 1994
Paying the price for a `non-standard' house;Personal Finance
Insurance on `unusual' properties is expensive and restricted. ONE IN FIVE homes
in Britain is classified by insurers as ``non-standard''. This means that,
perhaps because of its age or way it is built, the buildings section of the
household insuranc...
The Sunday Times
SUN 27 NOV 1994
House prices rally
SALES of Britain's more expensive homes are booming. Prices have soared by more
than 20% in some areas of London and elsewhere homes with six-figure price-tags
are selling within days of going on the market. Research by Savills, the estate
agent, ha...
The Sunday Times
SUN 27 NOV 1994
Prices rally for upmarket houses
SALES of Britain's more expensive homes are booming. Prices have soared by more
than 20% in some areas of London, while across the country homes costing
six-figure sums are selling within days of going on the market. Estate agents
across Britain hav...
The Times
THU 01 DEC 1994
Wainhomes beats flat house prices
WAINHOMES, the Chester housebuilder that came to the market in the spring,
unveiled a 49 per cent advance in first-half profits in spite of little
improvement in the general level of house prices. Improved margins helped the
company lift pre-tax prof...
The Sunday Times
SUN 04 DEC 1994
House prices show rise of up to 11%
DOOM and gloom about falling house prices have been overdone. Independent
research shows that prices in nearly all regions of the United Kingdom have
increased steadily in the past year, and experts predict further growth in the
new year. Despite bu... 1995 - HISTORICAL NEWS REPORTS ON HOUSE PRICES
1995
The Sunday Times
SUN 01 JAN 1995
Ed: 1
Pg: 2/7
Word Count: 373 House prices poised for modest recovery;Personal Finance
BUILDING SOCIETIES and estate agents are predicting a slow recovery in the
housing market this year, with the most optimistic pundits forecasting price
rises of 5%. But many also fear that the forthcoming cut in mortgage-interest
relief in April, tog...
The Times
WED 11 JAN 1995
House price optimism
A FUNDAMENTAL change in the public perception of property ownership is revealed
in the latest Abbey National Housing Survey. More than two-thirds of those
surveyed said that they now believed that a house was primarily a home rather
than an investmen...
The Times
THU 02 FEB 1995
House prices
House prices in the United Kingdom fell by 0.8 per cent in January, according to
the latest monthly index published yesterday by the Nationwide. The Halifax
index, due out tomorrow, is expected to paint a similar picture of a flat
housing market. Na...
The Sunday Times
SUN 12 FEB 1995
House prices set for a `five-year freeze'
HOUSE PRICES are set for a five-year freeze, according to a new City forecast to
be published tomorrow. The report, from the investment bank Kleinwort Benson,
predicts that prices in real terms will be no higher in 1999 than they were last
year. Rea...
The Times
THU 02 MAR 1995
Manufacturing picks up but house prices stagnate
GROWTH in manufacturing industry appears to have accelerated again, after
slowing over the past six months, and price pressures, though slightly easier in
February, still give cause for concern, according to the latest report from the
Chartered Insti...
The Times
WED 05 APR 1995
House prices fall 1.5% as Halifax piles on gloom
HALIFAX, Britain's largest mortgage lender, will today add further to the misery
of 10 million people with home loans when it announces that house prices fell
1.5 per cent in the 12 months to March. As well as house price gloom, the new
tax year star...
The Times
WED 03 MAY 1995
Halifax reports further decline in house prices
HOMEOWNERS today receive more depressing news, with the Halifax Building Society
reporting that house prices fell slightly in April for the second month in a
row. This, together with figures showing weak bank mortgage lending, confirms
that there is...
The Times
WED 17 MAY 1995
Brewers cleared over prices for tied houses
BRITAIN'S big brewers have been cleared of charges that they squeezed their own
landlords to fund a battle to supply independent publicans. Although tenants of
brewery-owned pubs are obliged to pay up to 19 per cent more for a pint of
lager, the Offi...
The Times
WED 24 MAY 1995
House prices: Hamlet minus the Prince
Not another article on house prices? I'm sorry, but yes, up to a point at least:
the point being the one which all the gloomy forecasts of recent days (all of
them right, no doubt) seem to have missed. This is that the current housing
slump should ...
The Times
WED 24 MAY 1995
Relief for young in falling house prices
From Mrs Stella Lilley Sir, At last someone has dared to print what so many
people must have realised, that the tremendous boom in house prices a few years
ago was an anachronism and what is happening now, in falling prices, is simply
restoring some ...
The Sunday Times
SUN 28 MAY 1995
Boom time for north as house prices rocket
KENNY and Marina McCall are riding high. In the past seven years, while many
homeowners have been blighted by negative equity, the McCalls of Dumfries have
made more than Pounds 80,000 from rising house prices. They are not alone. A
study by the Ha...
The Times
FRI 02 JUN 1995
Major attacks `crazy house price spiral'
Row over blame for feel-good failure. THE Prime Minister sparked an outcry
yesterday when he blamed the ``crazy, almost unstoppable'' house price spiral of
the 1980s for the absence of a ``feel-good'' factor now. Opposition MPs,
charities and mortga...
The Times
SAT 03 JUN 1995
Laying blame for house price spiral
From Mr Walter Harris Sir, Mr Major may have been unwise to draw attention to
the ``crazy housing boom'' of the 1980s in which his Government played a part
(report, June 2) but he appears to have missed the opportunity of mentioning a
factor which co...
The Times
SAT 03 JUN 1995
Laying blame for house price spiral
From Mr J. B. MacGill Sir, In March 1988 the then Chancellor of the Exchequer,
Nigel Lawson, announced that as from August 1 only one income per house would be
entitled to tax relief on mortgage interest. Between those dates every unmarried
couple w...
The Times
SAT 03 JUN 1995
Fall in house prices is accelerating says Halifax
FURTHER evidence of the ailing state of the housing market was revealed
yesterday amid speculation that the Government is proposing measures to help
homebuyers in negative equity. The Halifax Building Society house price index
for May showed a third ...
The Times
MON 05 JUN 1995
House prices
Morgan Grenfell, the City merchant bank, predicts that house prices will begin
to rise again next year and begin to outstrip inflation from 1997. The bank says
housing is now undervalued and more affordable in relation to earnings than it
has been in...
The Sunday Times
SUN 02 JUL 1995
House price gloom
NEW figures from the Halifax and Nationwide building societies this week will
show that house prices continued to stagnate in June, compounding homeowners'
woes, The Observer writes. BUSINESS
The Sunday Times
SUN 02 JUL 1995
New price slump dashes hopes of housing revival
A STEEP fall in house prices was recorded last month, bringing them to a lower
level than a year ago and dashing hopes of a property market recovery. Gloom
over the economy and job insecurity contributed to an average 1% fall in June,
according to th...
The Times
TUE 04 JUL 1995
House price slump fuels lenders' fears
FEARS are growing that the housing market could buck the general upward economic
trend and slump further into recession unless the Government intervenes. Concern
among mortgage lenders was underlined yesterday when the Nationwide building
society pub...
The Times
TUE 04 JUL 1995
New plea for help as house prices stay on the slide
BRITAIN'S two biggest building societies renewed their calls for help for the
housing market yesterday as they published surveys showing that house prices are
falling further and faster. The Nationwide reported that prices dropped for the
third succe...
The Times
WED 12 JUL 1995
Bad publicity hits house prices
From Sir Nicholas Couper Sir, I am unimpressed by the constant lobbying of the
building societies about the gloomy state of the housing market, (House price
slump fuels lenders' fees fears, July 4). Marsh from the Halifax: ``It is up to
the Governmen...
The Sunday Times
SUN 30 JUL 1995
Revealed: how lenders force down house prices
BUILDING societies are jeopardising a recovery in the housing market by
undervaluing properties, resulting in the collapse of tens of thousands of
sales. The societies, which have pressed the government for special tax help for
housing, are themselv...
The Times
WED 02 AUG 1995
More gloom for housing as prices keep falling
HOUSE prices fell again in July for the fifth consecutive month and are now 3.1
per cent lower than a year ago, according to the latest Halifax index published
today. On the evidence to date, it appears unlikely that prices will recover at
all this y...
The Sunday Times
SUN 20 AUG 1995
Lower prices win quick house sales
HOMEOWNERS caught in the negative-equity trap will take small comfort from a
report by national estate-agency network Black Horse Agencies. Inflated prices
are out; realistic figures are in. If you want to sell your home quickly, you
have to put it...
The Times
SAT 02 SEP 1995
Cheaper loans as house prices fall Lenders cut rates to lift homes market
ONE of Britain's biggest mortgage lenders took the initiative to kick-start the
housing market yesterday with a surprise cut in its home loan rate. The Abbey
National, which reduced its standard mortgage rate from 8.34 to 7.99 per cent
for loans of u...
The Times
SAT 16 SEP 1995
House prices
From Mr Philip Price Sir, In your article ``Many house-sellers asking too much''
(Weekend Money, August 19), you state that house prices in Greater London have
fallen by 25.4 per cent since 1988. I have yet to read an article that fully
drives home t...
The Times
WED 11 OCT 1995
House prices falling
THE latest survey of house prices published today will paint a gloomy picture of
the housing market. Prices across all regions are now 2.6 per cent lower than
they were in the third quarter of last year, according to the Halifax. The
latest quarterl...
The Times
TUE 17 OCT 1995
House prices stable
MORE than half of the chartered surveyor estate agents taking part in the
quarterly survey by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, published
today, reported stable house prices over the past three months. Some 6 per cent
reported rises, whi...
The Sunday Times
SUN 22 OCT 1995
Assembly could govern house prices
A Scots parliament would hugely affect the property market says Vivienne Nicoll
EXPERTS who specialise in buying and selling Scotland's prestige properties
believe prices will go through the roof if a Scottish parliament is established
in Edinburgh. ...
The Times
THU 02 NOV 1995
House prices down 3.9%
THE Government must stimulate the housing market by granting special concessions
in the Budget later this month if the sector is to recover from the doldrums,
say Britain's two largest mortgage lenders. Philip Williamson, a divisional
director of the...
The Times
MON 27 NOV 1995
Negative equity `overstated'
FALLING house prices are good for the economy and the problem of negative equity
has been overstated, according to a right-wing think-tank. Lower prices and a
stable housing market are part and parcel of a low-inflation economy, says a
paper publishe...
The Times
WED 20 DEC 1995
Putting a price on houses in 1996
Experts were wide of the mark with their predictions on house prices for 1995.
For next year they are more realistic. PROPERTY IN GENERAL Gary Marsh, head of
corporate affairs at the Halifax: ``We had predicted a gradual increase of 3 to
5 per cent i...
The Times
WED 27 DEC 1995
Halifax forecasts 2% recovery in house prices next year
THE housing market will receive a much-needed boost today from a forecast by
Britain's largest mortgage lender of a 2 per cent recovery in house prices
during 1996. The Halifax Building Society, in its annual housing market paper,
predicts that next ...
The Times
THU 28 DEC 1995
Lies, statistics and house prices
WHEN surveying the blizzard of surveys, prognostications and plain guesses on
the state of the 1996 housing market now on display, it is worth keeping two
facts firmly in mind. The first is that they just don't know. House prices are
harder to forec...
The Sunday Times
SUN 31 DEC 1995
House prices set to rise, say lenders
Building societies expect a modest recovery in the market, although still behind
inflation. Report by Nick Gardner and Paul Ham HOUSE PRICES will rise by between
2% and 3% next year and by at least 5% in 1997, after a surprise fall in 1995,
accordin... 1996 - HISTORICAL NEWS REPORTS ON HOUSE PRICES
1996
The Times
WED 03 JAN 1996
House prices remain lower than a year ago
HOUSE prices are still much lower than they were a year ago in spite of five
consecutive monthly increases, according to Britain's largest mortgage lender.
The Halifax, which has more than two million borrowers, will announce today
that, on an annual...
The Times
WED 24 JAN 1996
The Nobel laureate, his wife and how expectation moves house prices
Sir, Pennington is quite right to say that house prices are harder to forecast
than virtually any other economic statistic because ``As in sub-atomic physics,
the market is weirdly affected by the presence of the observer'' (December 2 .
He is suppo...
The Sunday Times
SUN 28 JAN 1996
Lenders predict patchy rise in house prices
FIGURES from the Building Societies Association (BSA) suggest that any recovery
in the housing market will be punctuated by occasional setbacks. Individual
societies such as Halifax and Nationwide are forecasting house-price increases
of 2% in 1996 a...
The Times
FRI 02 FEB 1996
House prices rise again
HOUSE prices have risen for the sixth month in succession, according to the
monthly Halifax house price index. The small monthly rise of 0.1 per cent in
January means that house prices have risen by 1.3 per cent over the past six
months, but are stil...
The Sunday Times
SUN 10 MAR 1996
Housing market starts on the road to recovery;Prices likely to rise 2%-4% this
year
Falling unemployment, cheaper mortgages and economic recovery are the
foundations for a revival, writes Nick Gardner THE LONG nightmare could at last
be over. The housing recession, which has seen almost 400,000 homes repossessed
and a further 1.7m ...
The Sunday Times
SUN 10 MAR 1996
Housing market starts on the road to recovery;A gentle pick-up, not a boom;
David Smith, Economics Editor, looks at the factors that will limit price rises
to 2%-4% THE housing market is recovering, but you wouldn't always think so.
Last week, for example, brought the gloomy news that housing starts the number
of new proper...
The Sunday Times
SUN 10 MAR 1996
Blair's housing ideas rejected
TONY BLAIR wrote out his prescription for a healthy housing market last week,
calling on lenders to be more sympathetic to customers caught in the
negative-equity trap, writes Nick Gardner.Blair wants banks and building
societies to be more flexible,...
The Sunday Times
SUN 10 MAR 1996
Time to shop around for fee-free mortgage
As house prices seem to be hardening at last, lenders will have less need to
entice borrowers, writes Naomi Caine NOW is the time to scour the market for a
better home-loan deal. If you have not yet found yourself a discounted,
fixed-rate or ``fee-f...
The Sunday Times
SUN 10 MAR 1996
Women trapped by negative equity
SIX years ago two young women each bought a one-bedroom flat in a block in east
London. Little did they know they were walking into a hurricane, soon to reel
from the blasts of one of the worst property crashes this century, writes Paul
Ham. Vicki P...
The Times
TUE 02 APR 1996
House prices rise
BRITAIN'S biggest mortgage lender will today report a March increase of 1.2 per
cent in the Halifax house price index. On an annually adjusted basis, the rate
of house price inflation in the UK remains positive, at 1.7 per cent, compared
with just 0...
The Times
SAT 06 APR 1996
Rising prices and falling costs boost housing market
DEVELOPERS and estate agents believe this weekend could be their busiest since
the recession in the housing market began seven years ago. With more buyers in
evidence, some analysts' predictions for price rises over the whole year have
been exceeded...
The Times
FRI 12 APR 1996
Debt trap eased by housing price rise
A STEADY rise in housing prices has helped to lift nearly 300,000 people out of
negative equity in the first three months of this year, and there are signs that
the housing market is continuing to improve, according to two reports released
today. Rob...
The Times
WED 24 APR 1996
House prices in Scotland hit by sharp fall in 1995
HOMEOWNERS in Scotland saw the average value of their home fall by Pounds 2,500
in 1995, according to the new Scottish Housing Index, published yesterday. A
joint survey by the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and Scottish Homes, the
national housing age...
The Times
TUE 30 APR 1996
Putting a spin on house prices
From Dr Anthony Williams Sir, If low inflation and price stability are deemed to
be a good thing, why is house price inflation called ``recovery in house
prices'' also a good thing, and house price stability called ``stagnation in the
market'' a bad ...
The Times
THU 02 MAY 1996
House prices rise in `fragile' market
THE recovery in house prices is continuing, according to two influential surveys
published yesterday. The Nationwide Building Society reported prices at an
18-month high in April, up by 1.2 per cent over the month, while the Halifax
Building Society...
The Sunday Times
SUN 05 MAY 1996
House prices continue to rise
RISING confidence in the housing market in April helped to lift property prices
for the ninth consecutive month, pushing them back to the level of two years
ago. But cheaper mortgages mean homes are more affordable. According to the
Halifax's monthl...
The Times
THU 09 MAY 1996
UBS lifts house price forecast
HOUSING analysts at UBS yesterday raised their house price forecast for 1996
from 2 to 5 per cent. Its revised forecast follows sharp rises in the Halifax
price index over the past three months and nine successive monthly increases.
Other commentato...
The Sunday Times
SUN 30 JUN 1996
A ``mini boom'' in house prices
A ``mini boom'' in house prices is in prospect, according to a forecast to be
published by Deutsche Morgan Grenfell tomorrow. It predicts a 6% rise this year
and 8% in 1997 when, it says, London and the south will record double-figure
increases. Ne...
The Times
TUE 02 JUL 1996
House prices show signs of levelling
THE Halifax house-price index showed its first monthly fall for 10 months in
June, slipping 0.3 per cent. However, the recovery is continuing, with sales and
lending continuing to grow strongly. Prices are at their highest level since
1991. The Hal...
The Times
SAT 06 JUL 1996
How to get more than you asked;Artificially low house prices are luring buyers
into a frenzy of competitive bidding
Adramatic change in strategy by estate agents could help keep a buoyant property
market on the move. Agents in ``hot spots'' for selling are pitching prices low
to attract more potential buyers. This in turn is leading to competitive bidding
and ho...
BUY NOW - IT'S THE BOTTOM OF THE MARKET!!
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Where's the best place to stick your stash, mine at the moment is in a high st bank account. Given the dodgy nature of the financial sector where should I put it ? I've heard Swiss Government bonds are a good bet, if so, how do I invest in these ?
Energy shares (oil & gas majors not speculative wind and tidal)
Swiss Franks
Gold Coins (in your hand variety, not paper)
Silver bars bought VAT free.
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Gold is where its at.
The dollar is finished, the printing presses will not save it either.
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I doubt TTRTR is on here now. I think he had a rather sombre meeting with a chap from this company this evening:
Very busy indeed... I understand that he is having to put in a few extra shifts at his 'date' packing company to make ends meet......
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Even the BBC published stats concur that houseprices are falling in most regions of the UK, but the King and IMup just can't accept that their BTL portfolios rental receipts no longer cover their loans and their capital gains have probably turned negative......Ouch that hurts.
Why would anyone be a property bull when the market is clearly falling?
Why would the King and IMup spend so much time of the lives underpinning their false arguments of property prosperity on an online forum unless they were trying to protect their fading investments by desperately trying to buoy fading FTB sentiments??
Would you trust your future financial wellbeing on their advice to buy now or else you can never buy again ever ever?
I can't wait to hear the SHITE that they are going to spout next.
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The biggest threat to the dollar is if oil ceased to be traded exclusively in dollars.
Putin knows this, Chavez and Iran know this and a host of others who are fed up with this current US administration.
Saddam knew this to as as soon as he started trading oil in Euros, he was invaded..... just a coincidence of course, it was all about 911 wasn't it?
As soon as the dollar loses its oil trade underpinning, gold will go ballistic.
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Confirms what we all knew, that houseprices are falling in most parts of the UK, contrary to the BTL posters on this forum who are desperately trying to bolster their personal positions and falling portfolios.
Face it folks houseprices in the UK have turned and are FALLING significantly in every region.
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If the current Housing Crash depended so much on IR rises, why are houseprices falling significantly in most regions of the country, Scotland especially??
Sam, you are a very thinly disguised Troll at best.
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Mods,
This thread has nothing to do with house prices in the UK, can it be moved please?
You have the right to not read to this thread, no one asked you to open it did they.
To avoid anoying threads, simply do not open them. The title was plain enough to see.
This is more than just a HPC forum in case you hadn't noticed, there are wider issues associated with our economic futures.
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UK construction orders slump in 3-months to April
08.06.2006 11:24:29, AFX Europe Focus
LONDON (AFX) - UK construction orders in the three months to April slumped
14 pct from the previous quarter and by 4 pct compared with the same period a
year ago, the Department of Trade and Industry said.
Falls were widespread within the sector.
Private housing orders declined 1 pct from the previous quarter, and by 14
pct year-on-year. Public housing and housing association orders fell 12 pct from
the previous three months, but rose 18 pct from the same period a year earlier.
Infrastructure orders slumped 34 pct compared with the previous three
months, and by 22 pct year-on-year
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There was no terrorism in iraq until we invaded them.
EXACTLY!
And what exactly was the link between 911 and the requirement to immediately invade Iraq???? Huh?
Why are the 911 culprits still not apprehended? Why is no one looking for them and why are a significant number of the named and shamed hijackers still alive?
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You make me laugh. There is nothing good for house prices IYO as expressed here on this forum.
THAT SIMPLY PROVES YOU TO BE WRONG, STUPID, IGNORANT AND SINGLE MINDED BEYOND BELIEF as the fact that HPI continues IS THE STRONGEST POSSIBLE EVIDENCE OF YOUR MASSIVE ERROR OF JUDGEMENT.
I will admit that you actually put effort into your posting and that MAKES IT EVEN WORSE because you are WASTING PRECIOUS TIME that you could spend bettering yourself in this competetive world that we live in.
I respect your right to waste your effort though, we need people who don't mind renting for years and years.
Touch of anger creaping in perhaps??
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Why the anger I'm sure Ken Biggley wished he didn't exist in the moments before he had his head hacked off with a knife. One less fundamentalist piece of sh!t in the world has got to be a good thing, if there are thousands more then bring it on they too can have more of the same.
You have no idea whatsoever about what is going on in Iraq have you?
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If he even existed........... :angry:
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There certainly is overtones of this in some nimby/eco literature, part of the drawbridge mentality involves a 'barbarians at the gates' outlook. Nimbyism can often be construed as an acceptable form of racism in some cases, sometimes laughably so.
For example, this FoE group would like "low population growth", I'm not sure if that's a veiled way of saying "no foreigners here" or demands for forced expulsions of children once they've grown up to ensure they don't establish themselves in their home towns, a logical extension of this is to encourage sterilization to ensure no 'problems' arise in the first place, what do their demands mean in reality? Where do they want people to live, it all seems quite misanthropic, especially so given our aging demographics.
You can see this in other things, nimbies have opposed the building of a reservoir in South Oxfordshire for over a decade and we're starting to see the fall-out from this, but who gets the blame? Bloody foreigners drinking our water.
The nimbies can't have their cake and eat it, this is paralleled to economic growth, the government too must decide what's to be done.
What the heck do you do for a living BB that allows you to make an average of 14 posts a day?? You must either work for TTRTR or are a civil servant?
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'Crash' Gordon Brown will be finished once the soon to be sacked Prescott releases details of Bliar & Brown's alleged 'bi-curious' experiments with each other way back when......
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Would someone care to explain why the trading currency of a barrel of oil is of any consequence?
Surely the Iranians can sell all of their oil in USD, then convert at spot to Euros.
Net effect = big sell off of petrodollars, USD f*cked.
??
Try reading this for starters
The reason you don't hear about this in the sheeple media is the same reason that you won't hear the BBC talking about the massive houseprice bubble or how badly the economy is really doing. Don't panic the sheeple at all costs.
A New American Century? Not!
By F. William Engdahl. Posted 1/19/2004 10:40:00 PM
By: F. William Engdahl
Iraq is really the battlefield for the hidden Euro-Dollar war....a war that was inevitable given the loss of the dollar's purchasing power worldwide.
Despite the apparent swift U.S. military occupation in Iraq, the U.S. dollar has yet to benefit as a safe haven currency. This is an unexpected development, as many currency traders had expected the dollar to strengthen on the news of a U.S. presence. Capital is flowing out of the dollar, largely into the Euro. Many are beginning to ask whether the objective situation of the U.S. economy is far worse than the stock market would suggest. The future of the dollar is far from a minor issue of interest only to banks or currency traders. It stands at the heart of Pax Americana, or as it is called, The American Century, the system of arrangements on which America's role in the world rests.
Yet, even as the dollar is steadily dropping against the Euro, Washington appears to be deliberately worsening the dollar fall in public comments. What is taking place is a power game of the highest geopolitical significance, the most fateful perhaps, since the emergence of the United States in 1945 as the world's leading economic power.
The coalition of interests which converged on war against Iraq as a strategic necessity for the United States, included not only the vocal and highly visible neo-conservative hawks around Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz. It also included powerful permanent interests, on whose global role American economic influence depends, such as the influential energy sector around Halliburton, Exxon Mobil, Chevron Texaco and other giant multinationals. It also included the huge American defense industry interests around Boeing, Lockheed-Martin, Raytheon, Northrup-Grumman and others. The issue for these giant defense and energy conglomerates is not a few fat contracts from the Pentagon to rebuild Iraqi oil facilities and line the pockets of Dick Cheney or others. It is a game for the very continuance of American power in the coming decades of the new century. That is not to say that profits are [not] made in the process, but it is purely a byproduct of the global strategic issue.
In this power game, least understood is the role of preserving the dollar as the world reserve currency, as a major driving factor contributing to Washington's power calculus over Iraq in the past months. American domination in the world ultimately rests on two pillars -- its overwhelming military superiority, especially on the seas; and its control of world economic flows through the role of the dollar as the world's reserve currency. More and more it is clear that the Iraq war was more about preserving the second pillar -- the dollar role -- than the first, the military. In the dollar role, oil is a strategic factor.
American Century: the three phases
If we look back over the period since the end of World War II, we can identify several distinct phases of evolution of the American role in the world. The first phase, which began in the immediate postwar period 1945-1948 and the onset of Cold War, could be called the Bretton Woods Gold Exchange system.
Under the Bretton Woods system in the immediate aftermath of the World War, the order was relatively tranquil. The United States had emerged from the War clearly as the one sole superpower, with a strong industrial base and the largest gold reserves of any nation. The initial task was to rebuild Western Europe and to create a NATO Atlantic alliance against the Soviet Union. The role of the dollar was directly tied to that of gold. So long as America enjoyed the largest gold reserves, and the U.S. economy was far the most productive and efficient producer, the entire Bretton Woods currency structure from French Franc to British Pound Sterling and German Mark was stable. Dollar credits were extended along with Marshall Plan assistance and credits to finance the rebuilding of war-torn Europe. American companies, among them oil multinationals, gained nicely from dominating the trade at the onset of the 1950's. Washington even encouraged creation of the Treaty of Rome in 1958 in order to boost European economic stability and create larger U.S. export markets in the bargain. For the most part, this initial phase of what Time magazine publisher Henry Luce called 'The American Century', in terms of economic gains, was relatively 'benign' for both the U.S. and Europe. The United States still had the economic flexibility to move.
This was the era of American liberal foreign policy. The United States was the hegemonic power in the Western community of nations. As it commanded overwhelming gold and economic resources compared with Western Europe or Japan and South Korea, the United States could well afford to be open in its trade relations to European and Japanese exports. The tradeoff was European and Japanese support for the role of the United Sates during the Cold War. American leadership was based during the 1950's and early 1960's less on direct coercion and more on arriving at consensus, whether in GATT trade rounds or other issues. Organizations of elites, such as the Bilderberg meetings, were organized to share the evolving consensus between Europe and the United States.
This first, more benign phase of the Ameri-can Century came to an end by the early 1970's.
The Bretton Woods Gold Exchange began to break down, as Europe got on its feet economically and began to become a strong exporter by the mid-1960's. This growing economic strength in Western Europe coincided with soaring U.S. public deficits as Johnson escalated the tragic war in Vietnam. All during the 1960's, France's de Gaulle began to take its dollar export earnings and demand gold from the U.S. Federal Reserve, legal under Bretton Woods at that time. By November 1967 the drain of gold from U.S. and Bank of England vaults had become critical. The weak link in the Bretton Woods Gold Exchange arrangement was Britain, the 'sick man of Europe'. The link broke as Sterling was devalued in 1967. That merely accelerated the pressure on the U.S. dollar, as French and other central banks increased their call for U.S. gold in exchange for their dollar reserves. They calculated with the soaring war deficits from Vietnam, it was only a matter of months before the United States itself would be forced to devalue against gold, so better to get their gold out at a high price.
By May 1971 the drain of U.S. Federal Reserve gold had become alarming, and even the Bank of England joined the French in demanding U.S. gold for their dollars. That was the point where rather than risk a collapse of the gold reserves of the United States, the Nixon Administration opted to abandon gold entirely, going to a system of floating currencies in August 1971. The break with gold opened the door to an entirely new phase of the American Century. In this new phase, control over monetary policy was, in effect, privatized, with large international banks such as Citibank, Chase Manhattan or Barclays Bank assuming the role that central banks had in a gold system, but entirely without gold. 'Market forces' now could determine the dollar. And they did with a vengeance.
The free floating of the dollar, combined with the 1973 rise in OPEC oil prices by 400% after the Yom Kippur War, created the basis for a second phase of the American Century, the Petrodollar phase.
Recycling petrodollars
Beginning the mid-1970's the American Century system of global economic dominance underwent a dramatic change. An Anglo-American oil shock suddenly created enormous demand for the floating dollar. Oil importing countries from Germany to Argentina to Japan, all were faced with how to export in dollars to pay their expensive new oil import bills. OPEC oil countries were flooded with new oil dollars. A major share of these oil dollars came to London and New York banks where a new process was instituted. Henry Kissinger termed it, 'recycling petrodollars'. The recycling strategy was discussed already in May 1971 at the Bilderberger meeting in Saltsjoebaden, Sweden. It was presented by American members of Bilderberg, as detailed in the book Mit der Ölwaffe zur Weltmacht.[1]
OPEC suddenly was choking on dollars it could not use. U.S. and UK banks took the OPEC dollars and relent them as Eurodollar bonds or loans, to countries of the Third World desperate to borrow dollars to finance oil imports. The buildup of these petrodollar debts by the late 1970's laid the basis for the Third World debt crisis in the 1980's. Hundreds of billions of dollars were recycled between OPEC, the London and New York banks and back to Third World borrowing countries.
By August 1982 the chain finally broke and Mexico announced it would likely default on repaying Eurodollar loans. The Third World debt crisis began when Paul Volcker and the U.S. Federal Reserve had unilaterally hiked U.S. interest rates in late 1979 to try to save the failing dollar. After three years of record high U.S. interest rates, the dollar was 'saved', but the entire developing sector was choking economically under usurious U.S. interest rates on their petrodollar loans. To enforce debt repayment to the London and New York banks, the banks brought the IMF in to act as 'debt policeman'. Public spending for health, education, welfare was slashed on IMF orders to ensure the banks got timely debt service on their petrodollars.
The Petrodollar hegemony phase was an attempt by the United States establishment to slow down its geopolitical decline as the hegemonic center of the postwar system. The IMF 'Washington Consensus' was developed to enforce draconian debt collection on Third World countries, to force them to repay dollar debts, prevent any economic independence from the nations of the South, and keep the U.S. banks and the dollar afloat. The Trilateral Commission was created by David Rockefeller and others in 1973 in order to take account of the recent emergence of Japan as an industrial giant and try to bring Japan into the system. Japan, as a major industrial nation, was a major importer of oil. Japanese trade surpluses from export of cars and other goods was used to buy oil in dollars. The remaining surplus was invested in U.S. Treasury bonds to earn interest. The G-7 was founded to keep Japan and Western Europe inside the U.S. dollar system. From time to time into the 1980's various voices in Japan would call for three currencies -- dollar, German mark and yen -- to share the world reserve role. It never happened. The dollar remained dominant.
From a narrow standpoint, the Petrodollar phase of hegemony seemed to work. Underneath, it was based on ever-worsening economic decline in living standards across the world, as IMF policies destroyed national economic growth and broke open markets for globalizing multinationals seeking cheap production outsourcing in the 1980's and especially into the 1990's.
Yet, even in the Petrodollar phase, American foreign economic policy and military policy was dominated by the voices of the traditional liberal consensus. American power depended on negotiating periodic new arrangements in trade or other issues with its allies in Europe, Japan and East Asia.
A Petro-euro rival?
The end of the Cold War and the emergence of a new Single Europe and the European Monetary Union in the early 1990's, began to present an entirely new challenge to the American Century. It took some years, more than a decade after the 1991 Gulf War, for this new challenge to emerge full-blown. The present Iraq war is only intelligible as a major battle in the new, third phase of securing American dominance. This phase has already been called, 'democratic imperialism', a favorite term of Max Boot and other neo-conservatives. As Iraq events suggest, it is not likely to be very democratic, but definitely likely to be imperialist.
Unlike the earlier periods after 1945, in the new era, the U.S. freedom to grant concessions to other members of the G-7 is gone. Now raw power is the only vehicle to maintain American long-term dominance. The best expression of this argument comes from the neo-conservative hawks around Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, William Kristol and others.
The point to stress, however, is that the neo-conservatives enjoy such influence since September 11 because a majority in the U.S. power establishment finds their views useful to advance a new aggressive U.S. role in the world.
Rather than work out areas of agreement with European partners, Washington increasingly sees Euroland as the major strategic threat to American hegemony, especially 'Old Europe' of Germany and France. Just as Britain in decline after 1870 resorted to increasingly desperate imperial wars in South Africa and elsewhere, so the United States is using its military might to try to advance what it no longer can by economic means. Here the dollar is the Achilles heel.
With creation of the Euro over the past five years, an entirely new element has been added to the global system, one which defines what we can call a third phase of the American Century. This phase, in which the latest Iraq war plays a major role, threatens to bring a new, malignant or imperial phase to replace the earlier phases of American hegemony. The neo-conservatives are open about their imperial agenda, while more traditional U.S. policy voices try to deny it. The economic reality faced by the dollar at the start of the new Century, defines this new phase in an ominous way.
There is a qualitative difference emerging between the two initial phases of the American Century -- that of 1945-1973, and of 1973-1999 -- and the new emerging phase of continued domination in the wake of the 9.11 attacks and the Iraq War. Post-1945 American power before now was predominately that of a hegemon. While a hegemon is the dominant power, in an unequal distribution of power, its power is not generated by coercion alone, but also by consent among its allied powers. This is because the hegemon is compelled to perform certain services to the allies such as military security or regulating world markets for the benefit of the larger group, itself included. An imperial power has no such obligations to allies, and not the freedom for such, only the raw dictates of how to hold on to its declining power -- what some call 'imperial overstretch'. This is the world which neo-conservative hawks around Rumsfeld and Cheney are suggesting America has to dominate, with a policy of pre-emptive war.
A hidden war between the dollar and the new Euro currency for global hegemony is at the heart of this new phase.
To understand the importance of this unspoken battle for currency hegemony, we first must understand that since the emergence of the United States as the dominant global superpower after 1945, U.S. hegemony has rested on two unchallengeable pillars. First, the overwhelming U.S. military superiority over all other rivals. The United States today spends on defense more than three times the total for the entire European Union, some $ 396 billion versus $118 billion last year, and more than the next 15 largest nations combined. Washington plans an added $ 2.1 trillion over the coming five years on defense. No nation or group of nations can come close in defense spending. China is at least 30 years away from becoming a serious military threat. No one is serious about taking on U.S. military might.
The second pillar of American dominance in the world is the dominant role of the U.S. dollar as reserve currency. Until the advent of the Euro in late 1999, there was no potential challenge to this dollar hegemony in world trade. The Petrodollar has been at the heart of the dollar hegemony since the 1970's. The dollar hegemony is strategic to the future of American global predominance, in many respects as important if not more so, than the overwhelming military power.
Dollar fiat money
The crucial shift took place when Nixon took the dollar off a fixed gold reserve to float against other currencies. This removed the restraints on printing new dollars. The limit was only how many dollars the rest of the world would take.
By their firm agreement with Saudi Arabia, as the largest OPEC oil producer, Washington guaranteed that the world's largest commodity, oil, the essential for every nation's economy, the basis of all transport and much of the industrial economy, could only be purchased in world markets in dollars. The deal had been fixed in June 1974 by Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, establishing the U.S.-Saudi Arabian Joint Commission on Economic Cooperation. The U.S. Treasury and the New York Federal Reserve would 'allow' the Saudi central bank, SAMA, to buy U.S. Treasury bonds with Saudi petrodollars. In 1975 OPEC officially agreed to sell its oil only for dollars. A secret U.S. military agreement to arm Saudi Arabia was the quid pro quo.
Until November 2000, no OPEC country dared violate the dollar price rule. So long as the dollar was the strongest currency, there was little reason to as well. But November was when French and other Euroland members finally convinced Saddam Hussein to defy the United States by selling Iraq's oil-for-food not in dollars, 'the enemy currency' as Iraq named it, but only in euros. The euros were on deposit in a special UN account of the leading French bank, BNP Paribas. Radio Liberty of the U.S. State Department ran a short wire on the news and the story was quickly hushed.[2]
This little-noted Iraq move to defy the dollar in favor of the euro, in itself, was insignificant. Yet, if it were to spread, especially at a point the dollar was already weakening, it could create a panic selloff of dollars by foreign central banks and OPEC oil producers. In the months before the latest Iraq war, hints in this direction were heard from Russia, Iran, Indonesia and even Venezuela. An Iranian OPEC official, Javad Yarjani, delivered a detailed analysis of how OPEC at some future point might sell its oil to the EU for euros not dollars. He spoke in April, 2002 in Oviedo Spain at the invitation of the EU. All indications are that the Iraq war was seized on as the easiest way to deliver a deadly pre-emptive warning to OPEC and others, not to flirt with abandoning the Petro-dollar system in favor of one based on the euro.
Informed banking circles in the City of London and elsewhere in Europe privately confirm the significance of that little-noted Iraq move from petro-dollar to petro-euro. 'The Iraq move was a declaration of war against the dollar', one senior London banker told me recently. 'As soon as it was clear that Britain and the U.S. had taken Iraq, a great sigh of relief was heard in London City banks. They said privately, “now we don't have to worry about that damn euro threat”'.
Why would something so small be such a strategic threat to London and New York, or to the United States that an American President would apparently risk fifty years of alliance relations globally, and more to make a military attack whose justification could not even be proved to the world?
The answer is the unique role of the petro-dollar to underpin American economic hegemony.
How does it work? So long as almost 70% of world trade is done in dollars, the dollar is the currency which central banks accumulate as reserves. But central banks, whether China or Japan or Brazil or Russia, do not simply stack dollars in their vaults. Currencies have one advantage over gold. A central bank can use it to buy the state bonds of the issuer, the United States. Most countries around the world are forced to control trade deficits or face currency collapse. Not the United States. This is because of the dollar reserve currency role. And the underpinning of the reserve role is the petrodollar. Every nation needs to get dollars to import oil, some more than others. This means their trade targets dollar countries, above all the U.S.
Because oil is an essential commodity for every nation, the petrodollar system, which exists to the present, demands the buildup of huge trade surpluses in order to accumulate dollar surpluses. This is the case for every country but one -- the United States which controls the dollar and prints it at will or fiat. Because today the majority of all international trade is done in dollars, countries must go abroad to get the means of payment they cannot themselves issue. The entire global trade structure today works around this dynamic, from Russia to China, from Brazil to South Korea and Japan. Everyone aims to maximize dollar surpluses from their export trade.
To keep this process going, the United States has agreed to be 'importer of last resort' because its entire monetary hegemony depends on this dollar recycling.
The central banks of Japan, China, South Korea, Russia and the rest all buy U.S. Treasury securities with their dollars. That in turn allows the United States to have a stable dollar, far lower interest rates, and run a $ 500 billion annual balance of payments deficit with the rest of the world. The Federal Reserve controls the dollar printing presses, and the world needs its dollars. It is as simple as that.
The U.S. foreign debt threat
But, not so simple perhaps. This is a highly unstable system, as U.S. trade deficits and net debt or liabilities to foreign accounts are now well over 22% of GDP as of 2000, and climbing rapidly. The net foreign indebtedness of the United States -- public as well as private -- is beginning to explode ominously. In the past three years since the U.S. stock collapse and the re-emergence of budget deficits in Washington, the net debt position, according to a recent study by the Pestel Institute in Hanover, has almost doubled. In 1999, the peak of the dot.com bubble fury, U.S. net debt to foreigners was some $ 1.4 trillions. By the end of this year, it will exceed an estimated $ 3.7 trillion! Before 1989, the United States had been a net creditor, gaining more from its foreign investments than it paid to them in interest on Treasury bonds or other U.S. assets. Since the end of the Cold War, the United States has become a net foreign debtor nation to the tune of $3.7 trillion! This is not what Hilmar Kopper could call 'peanuts'.
It does not require much foresight to see the strategic threat of these deficits to the role of the United States. With an annual current account (mainly trade) deficit of some $500 billion, some 5% of GDP, the United States must import or attract at least $1.4 billion every day, to avoid a dollar collapse and keep its interest rates low enough to support the debt-burdened corporate economy. That net debt is getting worse at a dramatic pace. Were France, Germany, Russia and a number of OPEC oil countries to now shift even a small portion of their dollar reserves into euro to buy bonds of Germany or France or the like, the United States would face a strategic crisis beyond any of the postwar period. To pre-empt this threat, was one of the most strategic hidden reasons for the decision to go for 'regime change' as it is known, in Iraq. It is as simple and as cold as this. The future of America's sole superpower status depended on pre-empting the threat emerging from Eurasia and Euroland especially. Iraq was and is a chess piece in a far larger strategic game, one for the highest stakes.
The euro threatens the hegemony
When the euro was launched at the end of the last decade, leading EU government figures, bankers from Deutsche Bank's Norbert Walter, and French President Chirac went to major holders of dollar reserves -- China, Japan, Russia -- and tried to convince them to shift out of dollars at least a part of their reserves, and into euros. However, that clashed with the need to devalue the too-high euro, so German exports could stabilize Euroland growth. A falling euro was the case until 2002.
Then, with the debacle of the U.S. dot.com bubble bursting, the Enron and Worldcom finance scandals, and the recession in the U.S., the dollar began to lose its attraction for foreign investors. The euro gained steadily until the end of 2002. Then, as France and Germany prepared their secret diplomatic strategy to block war in the UN Security Council, rumors surfaced that the central banks of Russia and China had quietly began to dump dollars and buy euros. The result was a dollar free-fall on the eve of war. The stage was set should Washington lose the Iraq war, or it turn into a long, bloody debacle.
But Washington, leading New York banks and the higher echelons of the U.S. establishment clearly knew what was at stake. Iraq was not about ordinary chemical or even nuclear weapons of mass destruction. The 'weapon of mass destruction' was the threat that others would follow Iraq and shift to euros out of dollars, creating mass destruction of the United States' hegemonic economic role in the world. As one economist termed it, an end to the dollar reserve role would be a 'catastrophe' for the United States. Interest rates of the Federal Reserve would have to be pushed higher than in 1979 when Paul Volcker raised rates above 17% to try to stop the collapse of the dollar then. Few realize that 1979 dollar crisis was also a direct result of moves by Germany, and France, under Schmidt and Giscard, to defend Europe together with Saudi Arabia and others who began selling U.S. Treasury bonds to protest Carter Administration policy. It is also worth recalling that after the Volcker dollar rescue, the Reagan Administration, backed by many of today's neo-conservative hawks, began a huge U.S. military defense spending to challenge the Soviet Union.
Eurasia versus the Anglo-American Island Power
This fight over petro-dollars versus petro-euros, which started in Iraq, is by no means over, despite the apparent victory of the United States in Iraq. The euro was created by French geopolitical strategists for establishing a multipolar world after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The aim was to balance the overwhelming dominance of the U.S. in world affairs. Significantly, French strategists rely on a British geopolitical strategist to develop their rival power alternative to the U.S., namely Sir Halford Mackinder.
This past February, a French intelligence-connected newsletter, Intelligence Online, wrote a piece, 'The Strategy Behind Paris-Berlin-Moscow Tie'. Referring to the UN Security Council bloc of France-Germany-Russia to try to prevent the U.S.-British war moves in Iraq, the Paris report notes the recent efforts of European and other powers to create a counterpower to that of the United States. Referring to the new ties of France with Germany and more recently with Putin, they note, 'a new logic, and even dynamic seems to have emerged. An alliance between Paris, Moscow and Berlin running from the Atlantic to Asia could foreshadow a limit to U.S. power. For the first time since the beginning of the 20th Century, the notion of a world heartland -- the nightmare of British strategists -- has crept back into international relations.'[3]
Mackinder, father of British geopolitics, wrote in his remarkable paper, 'The Geographical Pivot of History' that the control of the Eurasian heartland, from Normandy France to Vladivostock, was the only possible threat to oppose the naval supremacy of Britain. British diplomacy until 1914 was based on preventing any such Eurasian threat, that time around the expansion policy of the German Kaiser eastwards with the Baghdad Railway and the Tirpitz German Navy buildup. World War I was the result. Referring to the ongoing efforts of the British and later Americans to prevent a Eurasian combination as rival, the Paris intelligence report stressed, 'That strategic approach (i.e. to create Eurasian heartland unity) lies at the origin of all clashes between Continental powers and maritime powers (UK, U.S. and Japan) ... It is Washington's supremacy over the seas that, even now, dictates London's unshakeable support for the U.S. and the alliance between Tony Blair and Bush.'
Another well-connected French journal, Reseau Voltaire.net, wrote on the eve of the Iraq war that the dollar was 'The Achilles heel of the USA'.[4] That is an understatement to put it mildly.
Iraq was planned long before
This emerging threat from a French-led Euro policy with Iraq and other countries, led some leading circles in the U.S. policy establishment to begin thinking of pre-empting threats to the Petro-dollar system well before Bush was even President. While Perle, Wolfowitz and other leading neo-conservatives played a leading role in developing a strategy to preserve the faltering system, a new consensus was shaping which included major elements of traditional Cold War establishment around figures like Rumsfeld and Cheney.
In September 2000, during the campaign, a small Washington think-tank, the Project for a New American Century, released a major policy study: 'Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategies, Forces and Resources for a New Century'. The report is useful in many areas to better understand present Administration policy. On Iraq, it states, 'The United States has sought for decades to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein.'
This PNAC paper is the essential basis for the September 2002 Presidential White Paper, 'The National Security Strategy of the United States of America'. The PNAC's paper supports a 'blueprint for maintaining global U.S. pre-eminence, precluding the rise of a great power rival, and shaping the international security order in line with American principles and interests. The American Grand Strategy must be pursued as far into the future as possible.' Further, the U.S. must, 'discourage advanced industrial nations from challenging our leadership or even aspiring to a larger regional or global role.'
The PNAC membership in 2000 reads like a roster of the Bush Administration today. It included Cheney, his wife Lynne Cheney, neo-conservative Cheney aide, Lewis Libby; Donald Rumsfeld; Rumsfeld Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz. It also included NSC Middle East head, Elliott Abrams; John Bolton of the State Department; Richard Perle, and William Kristol. As well, former Lockheed-Martin vice president, Bruce Jackson, and ex-CIA head James Woolsey were on board, along with Norman Podhoretz, another founding neo-con. Woolsey and Podhoretz speak openly of being in 'World War IV'.
It is becoming increasingly clear to many that the war in Iraq is about preserving a bankrupt American Century model of global dominance. It is also clear that Iraq is not the end. What is not yet clear and must be openly debated around the world, is how to replace the failed Petro-dollar order with a just new system for global economic prosperity and security.
Now, as Iraq threatens to explode in internal chaos, it is important to rethink the entire postwar monetary order anew. The present French-German-Russian alliance to create a counterweight to the United States requires not merely a French-led version of the Petro-dollar system, some Petro-euro system, that continues the bankrupt American Century, only with a French accent, and euros replacing dollars. That would only continue to destroy living standards across the world, adding to human waste and soaring unemployment in industrial as well as developing nations. We must entirely rethink what began briefly with some economists during the 1998 Asia crisis, the basis of a new monetary system which supports human development, and does not destroy it.
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If you vote BNP with pride then I'd say you're rather tragic. Is it the high quality candidates they put up? I mean you don't have to be a convicted criminal, an anti semite, a rabble rouser or a fruit cake, but it does seem to help. Is it the BNPs stirling contribution to local politics? They don't turn up at council meetings, don't understand how council actually work and aren't actually very good at representing anyone.
Also, before spouting crap about assylum seekers or illegal immigrants voting Labour, check on who is eligible to vote:
"Anyone legally resident in the UK who is a citizen of the UK, the Republic of Ireland, or of a Commonwealth country, and who is 18 or over on the date of the election is eligible to vote, provided they are on the electoral register, unless they are currently a member of the House of Lords, imprisoned for a criminal offence, mentally incapable of making a reasoned judgement, an undischarged bankrupt, or have been convicted of corrupt or illegal practices in connection with an election within the previous five years. Members of the House of Lords may, however, vote in local and European Elections as well as elections to the Scottish Parliament and National Assembly for Wales. Voting is not compulsory. In addition, whilst UK, Irish and Commonwealth citizens may register to vote in all elections, European Union nationals resident in the UK may register to vote in local, European, Scottish and Welsh elections."
NU LAbour twit
Why I Hope Labour Get Re-Elected
in House prices and the economy
Posted
If I was the Supreme Propaganda Minister of NU LAbour, I would brief all my loyal spotty activists to infiltrate popular politicised web discussion forums and task them with getting the following message out:
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Pretend you hate NU LAbour with a very deep passion and build a case for all voters (including normally non NU Lab voters) to actually vote for NU Labour, in order to ensure that they get back into power again, just as the UK collapses and thus let them (the bastards) take the blame for the huge disaster and then never ever get elected again!
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Very clever tactic, but of course the net result would be that NU Labour are re-elected and more of the same ensues for the next four years. Project EU assured and all the other unsavoury activities that are thinly disguised at the moment.
Vote Conservative and the very same is likely to happen anyway.
We no longer live in anything remotely resembling a democracy. Consequently we are all ******ed because the electorate are spineless and lazy.
Vote NU Lab or Conservative at your peril……………………..