Jadoube

Perhaps because 1) there's been a recent boom 2) we don't get much useful Scottish news down south. Initially my wife thought we'd have no problem moving 'home' (we've been away for 30+ years) but she quickly understood after an evening going through a couple of web sites and adjusted her sights accordingly. If where we live and where we hope to move both go back to 1998 prices I think we'll have a few more options. On the other hand if Scotland lags...

But there's all those Archers listeners to keep informed, and its topical cos the farmers union was touting the badgers story yesterday, and god help us it will probably hurt the govt in the eyes of more people than any financial news could. Good enough reasons for Today's tabloid mentatility I'd have thought.

"There is no doubt that trade in our shops proved challenging when compared to exceptional results last year," John Lewis commercial director Phil Hullah said. Basically JL are saying overall they sold 8% less last weekend. If a biggie like Bluewater dropped 25% then to give the chain average of 8% some of the other storess have hardly dropped at all. They're saying the drop was more in centres where the customer had to make a specific trip to a destination that relies on a large catchment with a long travel time. They're saying the drop was less in high streets or centres that are closer to customers and/or where customers might have gone to the centre for other reasons as well. One week. A week when the roads were quiet on my commute (folk off on holiday) it was hot and sunny (fancy a long drive on the M'way with the windows closed?) and Wimbledon was on. OK, I admit I'm being pedantic when I can't get too excited about this. Its an interesting statistic. It gives support to other indicators. And clearly JL think its relevant to mention, for whatever reason. So when they report a 8% drop in takings for the quarter or half year, or if ALL the stores in Bluewater report a drop of 25% the same week......then I'll be excited.

You just proved my point

I'm newish. I looked around the site a bit before registering. I noticed a tendancy by a few people to be aggressive/rude in dismissing other people and they seemed to consider this a bear trait to be proud of. So I chose to register as 'neither' - it says nothing about my opinion of the housing market. It reflected my feelings on open-mindedness and politeness. I wasn't interested in joining a 'side'. Looking at the forum over a longer period I've been pleased to realise there are plenty of bears who have the same values. NB - this general statement is not directed at any poster in this thread.

Yes they will, but surely the whole rationale of this site is that nobody would listen. Some HPC'er or other says that every day.

An "expert" from the advertising industry - took the opportunity to spin/ talk about his industry rather than the wider world

Mmm. Theres a Polish lad comes into our offices selling sandwiches. Yesterday I bought one and was offered a free packet of crisps!

Similar for the sector I'm searching, well below 50% FP and very little changing. On the other hand this just appeared today, which encouraged me. 1st Jul 2008 * Price changed: from '£349,995 (Fixed Price)' to 'Offers in Excess of £294,995'. Not that I'm interested in that one but still encouraging.

To be fair what he's saying seems correct in the context of EA redundancies. No/few sales occurring (stagnation) = no money coming in so Estate Agents get made redundant. Houses selling, fast, for much lower prices (collapse) = much reduced fees but that is still more money coming in than during stagnation. Whats needed is news that the EA's are hiring to cope with the rush of collapse transactions.

No it was not successful. We have an ongoing relationship with the LR for other applications of their data.

Driver see above. I can't say about auctions, don't have the facts. My company bid for the contract to model the LR index, and I wrote our bid. At the time of the bid my understanding was that not every single property transfer that is registered would be in the index. Things may well have changed since, I've not monitored the LR index. Things have not changed with regard to the price paid dataset, at least LR have not informed my, a customer, of any change.

Yes but all that is required to be registered is not included. The Land registry data that we see on various web sites is their "price paid" dataset. They will not sell any alternative (whether relevant to the actual use of the data or not) because they feel a requirement to provide a level playing field to the companies that but it. The price paid data set does not include sales that are "not for full value". One example of this would be a council house tenant purchasing at below "market value". There are other circumstances, for example a transfer of a share of a property when one joint owner buys out the other. I don't explicitly know that auction properties are dealt with in the same way but its not impossible. This is all perfectly sensible when you understand that the LR were forced to make the data set commercially available due to legal action by a web site company wishing to provide data on house prices. For that purpose the company would not wish partial prices to distort the database. The LR only went about creating their own index a couple of years after they started licencing the price paid dataset. When the LR put out the tender inviting people to bid to provide them with a house price index this price paid data set was to be used as the database. (Which only covers England & Wales) That was a couple of years ago so things might have changed, although I doubt it. This means that any web site showing historical house sale prices from the LR data is going to be missing the same 'not full price' properties. So all the pretty online data and maps showing historical prices around a location are not quite as complete as you might at first think. (The details of the licence for the price paid data set used to be available for download on the LR web site. The fee is based on the number of transactions in the database. Since this is dropping the money going into LR will be declining, which since they provide the service of a cost recovery basis may well result in the price to commercial organisations going up. )

I think the LR data will be England & Wales only. It will also lag the sale date a little. Rightmove presumably based on asking prices and probably calculated pre-sale date, perhaps as properties go on the market. The others based on property valuations for the mortgage not necesssrily the price paid. Again possibly calculated at the time mortgage approved rather than date of sale. There are different regional biases within the data sets of the two banks. Also different customer profiles so different mix of properties in the data set. With the best will in the world there's bound to be slight differences as a result.

The Blanchflower report provides detailed background to the recent history of migration into the UK. (Blanchflower, D., Salaheen, J. and Shadforth, C. The Impact of the Recent Migration from Eastern Europe on the UK Economy. available at http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/publication...7/speech297.pdf ) Net rates of population growth in the UK in the period 1971-2004 were lower than in most other industrialised countries. However net inward migration has increased substantially in recent years following the expansion of the European Union to include former eastern-block countries. The Blanchflower report suggests that ‘approximately 500,000 migrants from the A8 countries had come to work in the UK between May 2004 and late 2006’. Although this corresponds to less than 1% of the UK population, their geographical concentration has led to significant migrant populations in some areas. (Which explains why some people tell tales of walking down their street without a white face ....) There is no available measure of outflow, although it is widely believed that many migrant workers have since returned home. (Nobody counts people who leave the country, or asks if they're coming back.) Part of my job recently involed producing up to date estimates of the 2001 census tables of number of people by country of birth. (Commercial estimates not govt figures) The estimate of 'outflow' that best fitted with other published numbers was 50% of immigrants from the A8 countries having returned home. Its an area where getting good numbers is tricky, but I'd be surprised if the proportion that have returned is as low as 20%.

Yes they are, but they're a relatively small proportion of the householding population. There were, very roughly, 1 million houses bought in the last year. For them your calculation is spot on. On the other hand there are many more, a big majority, of householders who bought further in the past. In their case their mortage is based (partly) on the price in the past. So they are only "losing" money they never had - their artificial gains from rising house prices. Until the fall goes below the price paid for the property their worry is the relative drop in price - is yours doing down more/faster than elsewhere. In terms of costs, or when it becomes actual loss, its worth bearing in mind that many purchases in the market are not based on 100% mortgages. Many purchasers sold a previous property and had the "gain" from price increases to put towasrds the next property. Its an over-estimate to calculate payments assuming the mortgage is the price of the house. It may be as big a mistake to over-egg the downturn as it was to over-egg the rises. Unlikely to correctly deduce the bottom of the market in those circumstances.

Well you appear to be criticising him for not making his decisions based on your circumstances/criteria. Bit of double standards or what?

Average household income is slightly over £30,000 (source: Expenditure and food survey and/or Wealth of the Nation Report.) That figure includes all households, those earning, households with two or more incomes, those "earning" benefits, and those whose "earnings" come from a pension. Middle England or Middle Britain have no "standard definition" to be revised. In the past 2 years I've had more than 5 TV programmes come to my work asking to be told which town/place/postcode/house is the average of "Middle England" because nobody knows what the phrase actually means. Its a term often used by politicians , the press, and PR agencies when they wish to imply that 'their' group of people is the majority. A google search some while ago found Middle England has in the past been used to describe Tory voters Blair voters People expecting to pay inheritance tax (ie old) People who buy insurance Young families Older couples who children have left home Rural areas Incomes over £100,000 Telegraph readers 'nice' villages with a white population . . . amongst other things, all depending on who was spinnng the article. Its an empty phrase - which may be why such a large proportion of the population aspire to it ?

Hi all, lurker enjoying the forum, introducing myself as a newcomer here. I'm in the position of, possibly, choosing to relocate. Relocation being from Hampshire to Scotland a) as desired final residing/resting place and to be in vicinity of elderly in-laws to assist as their helth declines. The first does not require a move for 5+ years since retirement is not 'that' close. The second can also wait but I would prefer to avoid a sudden dip in thier health left me feeling rushed to move. Not fully up for the renting thing, looking after elderly and settling into own final place of higher priority, but am considering the option. Thanks for all the intereting advice here so far, and hopefully to come.