bearishonhouses

it's an extension at https://www.patma.co.uk/page/property-tools-browser-extensions/ . The site mainly caters to landlords, I think, but the free extension is quite nice for showing when houses go sstc and then come back on the market again.

The maximum federal tax rate may well be 37% but in most of the country, state income tax adds another 5% - 12% (California, New York being the highest rates, I think.) The states without income tax, e.g. Washington (home of many Microsoft and Amazon employees) Florida and Texas have higher real estate taxes. In fact, total state and local taxes in much of the US are not much smaller than federal income taxes. For example, a family with median household income (130k) living in a house median value (800k) in the suburbs of Washington DC could have taxes as follows: Federal Income tax: 13,000 Local and State taxes: State and county income tax 8,000 Real estate (1.2% * 800k) 9,600 Sales taxes (40k *6%) 2,400 Total 20,000 (see for yourself at: https://smartasset.com/taxes/income-taxes#RxX4LMJ2SI. -= though it excludes sales and real estate taxes )

Here's a couple of biggish reductions - although, as ever, the houses are still way overpriced. But the direction of what we are seeing is somewhat encouraging. 28% in Port Isaac (expensive - better value than Doc Martin's house in terms of floor space, but my goodness, it's ugly imho.) https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/120475088#/?channel=RES_BUY 26% near Truro. Pretty but still some distance to go. https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/126754919#/?channel=RES_BUY

There may be some regret, but the price reduction is.I think, not as bad as it looks. The sale in 2021 seems to have included multiple paddocks and/or was a barn conversion rather than a farmhouse. Overall, I think they are completely different houses. (see https://www.rightmove.co.uk/house-prices/details/england-84576709-93031392?s=2c0fffdedcf1c26c45e70ce111e823362a5622fe7f74e96f44e517611bc7f9fc#/floorplan?activePlan=2)

In general, it is better to compare rental yield on a property investment with dividend yield on a diversified stock portfolio rather than bank interest rates. You can expect that with a bank deposit, the annual cash being spun off from the investment will not grow. However, with a portfolio of equities, there is a reasonable expectation that cash dividends will grow each year. Rental income can normally be expected to behave more like dividends than interest. However, i tis open to debate whether "in general" and "normal times" are appropriate descriptors of where we find ourselves. If rents are expected to fall, and/or capital value of the investment is expected to fall, then the short term running yield (rental income / capital invested) is probably not a good metric to use when comparing investment opportunities.

The use of the term 'fixed rate' with respect to UK mortgages is totally misleading. In the US, and in general parlance, a loan at fixed rates means the interest rate is fixed for the duration of the loan. In the UK, a fixed rate mortgage loan seems to mean that that, in spite of its name, the interest rate for the duration of the loan is NOT fixed, but is in fact variable. But the time interval between changes in the rate is greater than would be the case with a SVR product. Oh, and by the way, you will have to a pay a 'rearrangement fee' every time the rate does change. I recall a single occasion in the last 50 years when fixed rate mortgage loans were available in the UK. In the Spring of 1993, Lloyds Bank (I think) offered a 25 year fixed rate mortgage product. I do not know whether it was like US fixed rate mortgages - where there is no prepayment penalty - i.e. if rates decline, borrowers can, and do, refinance. It is tough luck to the lender, but they, of course, price protected themselves when offering the product.

This only applies if the rate of interest you are paying on borrowed funds is less than the growth in the value of the asset. And for a fair comparison, the rate of interest should take into account the level of risk associated with the asset. One might argue that when compared with repayment mortgages, endowment mortgages in effect did allow mortgage holders to borrow - at least to avoid making otherwise required repayments - to invest in the stock market. Sadly, I chose this option. Fortunately, I did not need the proceeds of the endowment savings policy to pay off the loan. I do not have the figures to hand, but I seem to recall the rate of return on the premiums was not much more than zero. (It is not possible to say with certainty; assumptions have to be made about what is a reasonable amount o be paying towards plain-vanilla, term life insurance. Given that I was 26 when I took the policy out, it should not have been very much.) Oh well - win a few, lose a few.

As others have pointed out, the 'property ladder' comes about because of the inherent leveraging of the deposit 'invested' in your house. However, there are benefits only if the increase in house prices is greater than the rate of interest on the loan. For example (without loss of generality assume deposit = 0 and cost of renting equivalent accommodation = 0) 1) interest rate 5%, house price inflation 10%, buy house for 100k after 1 year, equity in house = 10k, cost of loan over course of year = 5k, net benefit = 5k 2) interest rate 10%, house price inflation 10%, buy house for 100k after 1 year, equity in house = 10k, cost of loan over course of year = 15k, net cost/benefit = 0. 3) interest rate 15%, house price inflation 10%, buy house for 100k after 1 year, equity in house = 10k, cost of loan over course of year = 15k, net cost = 5k. In almost all years since 1930, interest rates on mortgages have been lower than house price inflation, and so talk has been of 'the housing ladder'. Whether nominal interest rates are less than nominal house price inflation in the short - medium term remains to be seen. My personal opinion is that it will not. In the second case, you would have been neither better nor worse off in paying the mortgage interest 15k to the lender. However, the reason why owner occupation is commonly considered to be a 'good thing' is because most mortgages are 'repayment' (as opposed to IO) and therefore involve a certain amount of saving as well. If folks get to their old age in a state where they have somewhere to live for zero cost (because they have fully repaid the associated mortgage) they are less likely to be a financial burden on the rest of society. (The alternative would be let them live on the streets, in tents etc and that is generally considered unacceptable in polite society.)

To reduce your risk, you need to hedge your bets by matching the currency in which your assets and liabilities are denominated. In general, if you knew you were going to be coming back to the UK, then given that your living costs thereafter are denominated in sterling (including buying accommodation - through rent or outright purchase) it would make sense to keep your assets - the temporary liquid sale proceeds of your house - in sterling too. Yes, it would be frustrating if sterling falls in value and you had NOT transferred the funds to USD - but your future living costs (measured in USD) will similarly have fallen. otoh, if you choose to hold USD for the next year and sterling weakens, it will feel great. But if sterling strengthens you will likely feel far more frustration at having played a risky game with the financial security I am guessing you wish to provide for your family. However, I am not sure we are in normal times. There is high volatility in the FX market at the moment and clearly, in the short term, interest rates on GBP (nor USD) do not exceed anticipated inflation. If inflation is significantly higher in UK vs US, it is not unreasonable to think that maintenance of 'Purchasing Power Parity' will result in GBP weakening against USD. In that case, holding your asset (temporary liquid cash) as dollars would be a better hedge against the future living costs you expect to incur in the UK than GBP; notwithstanding the inherent mismatch in currency risk of assets and liabilities because of the fundamentals underlying FX rates. Also, if sterling does strengthen, it will likely be because the authorities have raised interest rates significantly. And if that happens, there likelihood of a fall in house prices (in nominal terms at least) is greater, and therefore your sterling denominated liabilities (expected future living costs) will also have fallen. Having said that, if it were me, I would move out of sterling and try and invest in US gilts. You can get 3.5%. With Wise (also check out RegencyFX -a much smaller firm - but in my experience marginally cheaper transaction costs), retail investors can move in and out of currencies for about 0.5% each way.

I wouldn't trust the pair as far as I could throw them, but it seems more plausible to me that, given their plans were not very secret, several hedge funds placed their bets based on public information.

If you can link to Fleetwood Mac, I can link to Warren Mitchell:

Like so many above, I own a house with no mortgage. Our next move will, almost certainly, to a smaller house. Nevertheless, I would be happy to see a substantial reduction in the house prices:wages ratio - back to a more normal level (no more than 4.5) so that, as @the flying pig said, our children could buy something that is not an insult relative to what they have been brought up in. It is a sign of the decline of both the UK and US that, for the first time in living memory, a majority of people do not think their children will be better off than they themselves are. Does anyone have data on this statistic in other countries?

Ownership of something has two aspects: 1) the right (obligation) to benefit (suffer) from increases (decreases) in the thing's value, and, 2) the ability to control how that thing is used. While the bank's interest certainly has impact on Marcela and Alvin's ability to do what they like with their flat/house, I think they will soon discover, to their disappointment, that they retain the first aspect of ownership.

And the Feb 1985 level was because of the temporary extraordinary strength of USD, not because of GBP weakness. At that time, against the major European currencies (GDM, FFR) sterling was not particularly weak.

'PropertyTracker' and 'Property Browser Extension' from Patma /Property Investigation Tool are free alternatives

Seems to be more of an issue of 'elf and safety' rather than anything else.

This one was an auction. And the selling price was slightly above the initial guide price. I do not see this as a reason to get worried that prices are secretly rising.

The use of the term 'fixed rate' with respect to UK mortgages is totally misleading. In the US, and in general parlance, a loan at fixed rates means the interest rate is fixed for the duration of the loan. In the UK, a fixed rate mortgage loan seems to mean that that, in spite of its name, the interest rate for the duration of the loan is NOT fixed, but is in fact variable. But the time interval between changes in the rate is greater than would be the case with a SVR product. Oh, and by the way, you will have to a pay a 'rearrangement fee' every time the rate does change. I recall a single occasion in the last 50 years when fixed rate mortgage loans were available in the UK. In the Spring of 1993, Lloyds Bank (I think) offered a 25 year fixed rate mortgage product. I do not know whether it was like US fixed rate mortgages - where there is no prepayment penalty - i.e. if rates decline, borrowers can, and do, refinance. It is tough luck to the lender, but they, of course, price protected themselves when offering the product.

The experience of my relatives trying to buy healthcare on the exchanges is that coverage is still quite expensive for middle income folks. And absolutely no way do these policies include access to the same top physicians as Biden etc. For example, one such 'Silver' level policy has a premium cost of USD2,500 a year, with a requirement to pay 30% of all provider costs (the insurance pays 70%) until patient contribution is USD5,000 in any year. This for one person. If your income is below 4*federal poverty level (4 * 14k = 56k) your premium is limited to 8.5% of income. Or maybe not. Does that include copays? Good god, this is near impossible to work out. As I wrote above, it is unrealistic to expect a market to end up with good allocation of resources if information to market participants is not available and understandable to all participants at zero cost. If you want to see what fun this all is, have a look at: https://www.verywellhealth.com/under-the-aca-what-is-a-benchmark-plan-4160065

I have lived in the US and the UK and experienced both healthcare systems. Fortunately, in the main, this experience has been vicarious as I have been fortunate with my own health situation, but I know of the direct experience of friends and family. Health care in the US for working professionals is generally excellent. But it is a crazy system being tied to employment. Even after the ACA (Obamacare) employment decisions are significantly affected by the availability of affordable healthcare. I have no doubt that while in the US, the healthcare of my family was superior to what would have been available to them in the UK. But even after ACA, health care is far, far worse than what the NHS was in, say, the period 2000-2010 , for a huge proportion of the population. I get the impression that nowadays, there may be little to choose between the two. (I thought I would now include a sentence saying how horribly underfunded is the UK system, but compared with others, funding does not seem out of line. (https://www.statista.com/statistics/428309/healthcare-expenditure-as-a-share-of-gdp-in-selected-oecd-countries/) More importantly, the US system relies on a 'market' for healthcare. I have much sympathy for Adam Smith and his view that 'the invisible hand' of the market can result in the best allocation of resources. However, he himself pointed out that markets can only be expected to result in this 'best' allocation if those markets are perfect. And a key requirement for anything close to perfection is the availability of low cost accurate information for buyers and sellers to make decisions about what to buy and sell. In most cases when healthcare is required, and particularly emergencies, purchasers do not have time and/or ability to acquire and understand information about what is on offer sufficiently to make an informed decision. Never mind the incentives that pharmaceutical companies have to spend on direct-to-consumer advertising and to lobby politicians to allow this to occur. (Though that is tied to the lack of any control over expenditures on political lobbying/advertising since the Citizens United case.) Based on the very little I know about French/Irish/Canadian/Japanese/German healthcare systems, I get the impression they may be a compromise between the US and UK systems - and better for it.

I can foresee self driving vehicles on motorways and the like being far safer than human driven cars and trucks. Even more so in countries with long, boring roads - e.g. France, Germany, USA. The reduction in driver fatigue induced accidents would be significant. And especially if/when most or all other vehicles they encounter are, like themselves, fitted with some kind of transponder so that all vehicles in vicinity of one another can communicate their intentions, and revise their plans to act in accordance with others. However, I cannot see that many societies are prepared to pay the necessary cost in terms of loss of freedom to move by oneself that would be necessary to allow self driving vehicles to utilize roads populated with pedestrians, bikes, etc.

I recall reading that the UK joined the ERM when the sterling FX rate was unusually high. The bigwigs in the Deutschebank (and others) tried to persuade the UK to join at a lower FX rate - which would have been more sustainable. However, for reasons of pride, the UK refused and insisted on joining the ERM at a relatively high rate. Who knows whether the lower rate would have been sustainable in September 1992 - but clearly the rate actually chosen, was not.

Yes, hard to tell. But if you do not limit time period of listing and exclude properties that are sstc, I think that is a noisy, but unbiased measure of numbers of properties available. (If you limit the search to new "within 1/5/14 days etc" numbers are unreliable because of price changes resetting the timer on a house that may have been listed for months.)

Maybe 2007 and 2008 savings rates were 5%, but they fell to near zero pretty fast, I think. And in 2007, house prices were still rising.

The fact that the GBPUSD rate was close to 1 at that time was primarily because of the strength of the dollar against _all_ other currencies at that time, not because of weakness in the pound. That is why the rate recovered quickly - when US took action to devalue the USD. In both January 1984 and January 1986 the USDGBP rate was about 1.4. The rise and subsequent fall of USD against the Deutsche Mark was similar (image from https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/EXGEUS)