rxe

Er, read the post. No mortgage. At all, on anything. Nada, zilch, not a sausage. Demand and price are pretty inextricably linked, however, in the event that price (and in particular rental price) does fall, it isn't a big deal. If you go back to the posts you are quoting, you'll see that I'm renting that house out at about 15 - 20% below market rents in the interests of keeping a long term tenant in. So, say rents do fall by 20%, which is a pretty tidy crash, I'm not overly bothered.

Whatever. For the record, zero mortgage, and yes, savings have recovered nicely since 2008. You probably will choose not to believe me, but those are the facts. Short of posting bank statements (which I'm clearly not going to do), I'm not sure how I can convince you otherwise. This is slightly the problem I have with the attitude towards the alleged "trolls" - you read my posts and imagine I am levved up to the hilt and vulnerable to HPC: do you apply the same filter to every other interaction you have? I could probably send you apoplectic by revealing a bit more, but I'll save your blood pressure. Fact remains, demand is pretty high in the South East. Now I accept entirely that loads of people in the SE could bog off and go ... somewhere else, thus killing demand. If that happened, the value of the houses would be the least of our collective worries.

Because the graph on the front page is not the same as the nationwide data? Top right graph, last page of the PDF: http://www.nationwide.co.uk/~/media/MainSite/documents/about/house-price-index/Apr_2015.pdf On the Nationwide site, 2015 is above 2008. And remember, this is average prices. Hides an awful lot of regional variation.

Hmmm, I feel almost.....stalked... Why am I on the forum - well I'm mainly on OT pontificating about cars, but the main forum is a good view of the news - between this forum and Zerohedge, the "questioning" news analysis is pretty covered. Two thoughts: - on the "how long have you got to wait" aspect - I do think it is true. There are loads of posts here railing against crappy rental deals, being kicked out, being unable to do what you want with the property - and eventually you just have to play the game or die waiting. In my case I wanted a place with some space before I got too old to manage the space. - I just don't see the prospect of a decent crash in the SE at least. Demand remains huge (loads of people needing a roof over their heads), just as the prices are insane. Everything that is built is bought rapidly, at all levels of the market. There's an awful lot of foreign money looking for a home, as direct investment, and this will not exit quickly - it is long term. If it was short term, they'd be buying something far more tradeable. And to be clear, if there was a proper crash, I would fill my boots this time round. Do I see a justification for price rises to infinity - outside London, not at all. Inside London, I'm not sure as London is utterly detached from reality. Do I worry about a crash - only in the wider economic context. I have zero debt, and no intention of getting into debt.

I think that suggesting someone who has been on the site since 2006 and bothered to make over 1000 posts is in fact setting up an elaborate troll is a bit weird. Facing facts, everyone who has been "trolling" on here since, er, whenever the site started has been proved right - the great crash has not happened. When I bought in 2008, the groupthink here thought I was nuts. I thought I was nuts. But we were all wrong. And most importantly for me, I've had 7 rather good years in a place I have grown to like. As a percentage of your likely lifespan, how long are you going to wait? Do I think the current price situation is barmy - of course. Can I see a 10 - 20% drop happening? Probably, more likely to flat line. 50%? You'll be waiting quite some time in sterling terms. There are enough owners who have paid off their mortgages (50% of the OO total), and they are completely unaffected. For every anecdote of some muppet mewing for an X5, there are three sensible people paying it off. They're just not so obvious.

I think this is very dependent on where you are. We bought in Berkshire, and only effect of the "crash" was to knock a few additional houses onto the market and the elimination of the nutters offering 20% over asking. I distinctly remember being very concerned about buying a house, but that was tempered by not being concerned about having a load of cash in the bank. Since then, it has been a relentless march upwards, no bargains round here. There may well be places in the country where there are bargains, but I'm not aware of them. I honestly think anyone expecting 50% drops is going to spend a lot of their life waiting.

I bought in 2008 and the consensus of this site was that I was insane. As it turns out, against all expectation (including my own) it has gone up in value. This may be a mirage, it may be a bubble, that's the facts. More importantly, I've had 8 happy years in a place that I rather like. 1/10 of my life roughly. Do whatever the hell you want to do - if buying a house makes you happy, or is likely to, do it. You can rail against the inequities of the system for as long as you want, but you don't have an eternity to wait.

Because that is the use case for total automation. I'm quite unable to drive, and the thing will get me home. Not "the thing will drive me for 10 hours to France and wake me up before we leave the motorway".

I know a bit about mobile telephony. It is pretty simple, if you are in range of a mast, and the mast has capacity, then you get data. If either of those is not true, you get nothing. The invest required is staggering - there are large sections of the country with no 3G signal, and there are a number of areas with no 2G signal. I doubt we will have pervasive 4G in 5 years, and it will take 10 to cover 95% of the population - and there will still be places (just like 2G) where there is no signal. If you're going to bet a safety critical system on a mobile signal, I don't want much to do with it. That said, I don't think mobile will be about safety critical aspects, it will be about telling cars that there are jams ahead. You're in a car with no steering wheel and some scrote stands in the road in front of you. What do you do? He knows you can't run him over. If his mate stands behind you, you're there until they let you go. Loads of comedy fun with this.... I'll go back to the aeroplanes. We have autopilots that can fly planes around the world - but we still have pilots. Yes, the flying public are very conservative (just like the driving public), but the real reason is that the humans are very good at dealing with the unexpected, even if sometimes they get it wrong.

There is already legislation that says you have to stop for peds - I don't think that is the problem. The reason peds do not wander all over the road is that they have a strong suspicion that they will get killed with humans behind the wheel. As soon as that suspicion is no longer present, and they are confident the car will stop, then they will wander all over the road. Ditto for "manual" car drivers. Why would I give way to a driverless car if I know it will stop? A big game changer too will be 5G, which will enable cars and roads to communicate with each other in a secure and very reliable way. We don't need to wait until 2045 for this technology, it's right round the corner. [/quote ] 5G (whatever it actually is) is just a comms technology. There are areas of the country that do not even have 2G yet. Even in areas with good coverage, it sometimes does not work - what happens then?

It is conservative because its paying passengers are conservative. There are also many situations where humans do a better job than computers. You're right that quadcopter software can do a damn good job of flying - but how would it fare in the situation of United 1549 - would it manage to land on the Hudson river, or would it simply plough (wings level) into the ground? That is a classic situation where it wouldn't have the sensors or the programming to handle the situation. Linking this to the more recent air disaster, there is a neat illustration of why programming flight is so hard. Surely Airbus should have something that stops a pilot flying into the ground? After all it would be simple to program - if you are flying, avoid the ground unless you are at an airport with the gear down. But - that software would have killed everyone on United 1549. There is no simple answer, and as I said, flying is a really easy problem in comparison to driving. One part that everyone is missing is the interaction between these cars and reality. As a simple example, they would presumably be programmed to avoid pedestrians. So if a ped walked into the road, the car will stop. So far so good - but once the general population knows they can stop a car simply by walking into the road, it gets a bit interesting. Does the software need to be more aggressive, and hit the ped (software writer gets sued to oblivion) or is the software passive and stop all the time (drivers realise that the software is rubbish and don't buy the car)? I don't see a rational answer for this problem.

At least a pint. To be clear, I'm not talking about some demonstration technology on a specially built road. I'm talking about something that can deliver me home, up an unmade road, and deal with the arbitrary nature of M4 roadworks on the way there, while I am asleep in the back. This isn't a computing problem: there is more than enough compute capacity to do this. It is a sensor problem, and the possibility of building this technology in a fashion that will deliver reliable results for a decade with "garage" maintenance - and for it to be so reliable that it never, ever, screws up. The first time a car causes a pile up because a plastic bag covered some sensor at 80 in the outside lane will condemn this to the dustbin. This is a much, much harder problem than flying, and I don't see many pilotless planes flying around. Even the military UAVs are flown by remote control.

This whole driverless car meme is going through a hype cycle worthy of IT companies. I don't believe there will be a true driverless car on the roads in 30 years. When I say "true driverless", I mean something that is certified for me to get into completely pissed and slur "take me home" to some random location in the UK. There will be all sorts of driver assistance, but taking the human out of the loop completely and reliably is a long way off. The big problem with this is that without the end goal, all the driver assistance is just a load of expensive technology that doesn't really do the job and costs a fortune to maintain. There is going to be a horrible period where humans start to assume that the car can do everything for them, and see no reason why they should not be distracted while in control. Contrast with airlines - autopilot invented in 1912, and we still have fallible humans at the controls. Flying is also a much simpler problem to solve as there is a huge team of people making sure no other plane gets within a mile of you. As for the idea of job creation - that is delusional. It will be a huge destroyer of middle to low skilled jobs. As with most technical progress, a small number of high end high skill jobs will be created, and a vast number of low skilled jobs will be eliminated.

The only time you can use the leverage you have is at a time of crisis. At any other time, having cash in the bank or investments is handy, but if the mortgage tap is gushing, neither the seller or the EA gives a jot. We bought at the back end of 2007 when the implications of the crisis were becoming clear. NR had gone bang, and it was all looking bad. We had viewed the house, put a low offer in and got outbid by someone offering 20% over asking. They ended up failing to get a mortgage. They tried again, we put in the same offer, other person was above asking and again binned out. EA came to us and tried to argue the offer up. My answer was "eff off, the offer is the offer, we're good for it, if you want your commission tomorrow, get the vendor to sell it to us, otherwise never talk to me again" - and I gave him 3 bank statements which summed to the required amount. We got the house. IMO the steely glare is probably the best approach. Just look incredulous and say "what on earth would the bank know about my financial position?" Though, per above, I would hang on until we are back in full on crisis mode. They are asking because mortgages are harder to get, and there are loads of people out there kite flying with offers they can't back up. Actually, it is probably your I3. The EA is thinking you have a gash car. Borrow a mate's Aston for your next viewing. It is staggering how many people make a financial judgement based on the car someone drives - without even asking if they own the damn thing....

I live next door to someone in this sort of position - not quite in the same league, but stupendously wealthy all the same. This guy bought a farm by accident. He was looking for some land (think It was to put his horses on) and instructed two agents. Both bought, because they were given authority and the funds to buy. Bloke was out of the country, came back and found he had spent 6 million rather than 2. Doesn't care in the slightest. Has bought some more horses.

Some of them do.. Some of them are probably full. Maybe their kids want a garage. You're trying to apply conventional logic to this - for these guys, this is about as material as paying for a decent meal in a restaurant.

Not really. If you are a Saudi with limitless cash, why would you not buy somewhere to stick your Lamborghini? This isn't aimed at normal people, it is aimed at the sort of people who think half a mill is chicken feed and worth paying to ensure you can park your car.

Makes about as much sense as buying a brand new car "for the fuel savings". Let's take the house I used to live in - Victorian 4 bed semi detached in London. Nice high ceilings, no cavity walls, built in 1850. We put double glazed sash windows in and insulated the hell out of the roof - as much insulation as the rafters would take (6") and celotex in the roof itself. The only really cold bit of the house was the side extension which had a flat roof from the 1980s with no insulation in it at all. Heating bill was about £800 - 1000 a year, including DHW. We ran the house as the Victorians would have - the upstairs bedrooms were cool, downstairs living space was warm. I'm sure that in a more modern house, we might have got the bills down to £400 a year. So by knocking it down and rebuilding (say at a cost of £250K) - we'd save £600 a year. Not much of a business case. We've just been through a major building project where we currently live. From experience this winter: - drafts up into the roof space make a massive difference. - decent windows make a massive difference. - proper floors (not damp) make a massive difference. - a basic level of loft insulation makes a good difference. No discernable difference between 4" in the loft and 8". - I cannot tell the difference between rooms with a 2014 spec cavity wall and 1850s brick Strikes me that most old houses can be updated reasonably cost effectively rather than pulled down.....

Pretty much everything that can be done, has been done. I drew the line at anything involving risk taking on her behalf. There are all sort of complex schemes involving sale and lease back of primary residence, but there are a lot of pitfalls too. (E.g I go under a bus, Mrs rxe marries a psycho, mum is on the street). Not worth it. I didn't say property is the only choice of investment - every possible store of capital has weaknesses, especially over the long term. You need diversity of asset classes and diversity of geography. My point is that if I had a property, I wouldn't be in a desperate rush to sell it - where would you put the money? Everything has risk. Politically, there is far more support for property than pretty much anything else. Yes, there a growing group of people who don't support it, but remember that 66% of homeowners who will punish any government who tries to do anything radical. That is of course, a completely different position to those people in the film who have effectively put everything on red, and seem a bit gutted with the results.

A lot of that demograhic has very good pensions. My mother is being paid well from my father's final salary scheme. No financial stress at all. Now her friends may be a somewhat strange demographic, but I don't see any of them in major trouble, all are in the same position, nice big houses, decent pensions, and very low outgoings with zero debt. It seems to be the following generation that spends it all on flash holidays and motors. Now at some stage (hopefully a long way off), I will probably inherit the place. Honestly, I'd rather my mother did what she wanted to, rather than attempt to lock in some sort of asset. When the time comes, I will view it as a bonus, whatever the value. What would I do with it? I've got somewhere to live. If I sell it, I have to find somewhere else to put the money, and these days, that is pretty fraught. So, whatever it is worth, I'd probably keep it. My point is that there are a very large number of people out there who are pretty immune to house price shifts. We focus on the ones who have cocked up and got themselves in trouble, but I think these are a minority - like the people on the TV last night who had a somewhat idealistic view of being a landlord. I would view it as a once in a lifetime opportunity to transfer assets across 2 generations and not pay the government a vast amount to do so. I don't believe in this bubble, but I continue to believe in property as a long term investment. While the value of companies in stock markets may collapse, in local currency a decent house in a decent area will be worth having.

The problem with this line is that 66% of houses in the UK have no debt against them - and at a guess these are probably the large houses owned by the elderly. The hutches bought by the current generation of FTBs are indebted to the hilt. Take my mother, 83, 5 bed house, absolutely zero intention of moving out (unless in a box). Her reaction to a severe HPC would be one of two options. Option 1 - buy another one. Option 2 - less IHT when her time comes. Both are good. Her house is worth some quantity of money, she doesn't really care what it is worth, and an HPC wouldn't make her sell.

There are lots of people who not only are sitting on untold wealth, but are pretty confident that they could realise that wealth tomorrow. Lots of people cashing in London houses and buying somewhere cheaper + a few hundred K in the bank. All tax free, who can blame them. They are not going to vote for anyone promising to end the gravy train.

The problem is that in any group of people, there are more winners than losers. As soon as a loser gets on the housing ladder, they have a pretty strong interest in maintaining the status quo. Roughly you have: - People under 40 with no house, pissed off -> your target votes. - People under 40 with a house, would be very pissed off if the world changes -> you lose these - People over 40 with house wondering where their kids will live -> you lose these if you mess up the system - People over 40 who don't care -> you lose these as soon as you start talking about a housing problem. Until the first group is bigger than the combination of the other three, there is no political capital in talking about this.

I don't think our issue is the lack of a drawbridge, it is the fact that we seem to fall over backwards to assist man + dog as soon as they arrive on our shores, and have an army of lawyers set up to assist man + dog in a quest for free stuff. Ensuring that people took a passport every time they interacted with the health care or benefits systems would make us a whole load less attractive. The problems with the greens is that their whole policy is based on the idea of people being nice to each other. Unfortunately that is not how people work. When you try and force them to be nice to each other, you end up with repression (see USSR, North Korea, China...), You don't need to overthrow the capitalist system in order to fix the problems in the UK, mainly because the system delivers a huge number of benefits. How about two reasonably simple new laws: 1) Borrowing against a property that is not your primary residence attracts a punitive "interest tax". Lets start with 10%. That'll mess up the yields of BTL and render property as investment pretty unattractive. Yes there will be loads of attempts to get round this, simply treat each case as tax evasion with all of the penalties already available. 2) For companies not based in the UK, corporation tax to be determined as a percentage of UK turnover. If the company cannot deliver the data, the inland revenue is free to make it up. If you don't pay, you don't trade. Anything else need sorting?

Well, I am no apologist for labour. They built votes on a tower of debt, and we are now paying the price. All an individual can do in the circumstances is protect their own assets, and I'm most certainly not 100% invested in the UK. The problem I have with this whole boomer argument is that people seem to think that they operate with some sort of hive mind. They don't. Just like anyone else, they operate with the data in front of them. I doubt there is a single person here who when presented with the fact that their house is now worth £2 million, would say, "no I'll sell it for 300k to maintain the wage price ratio". There are lots of people here who think that the £2 million is a daft price, but putting it into any sort of action is a different thing. On the dates - I was looking mainly at the marketing type sites that focus on generational values in order to sell stuff to people. I would guess that is the best source if you want to work out how a group of people thinks.