GAL BEAR

THANKYOU, I SHOULD HAVE REALISED.

I'm confused......................... EVENING STANDARD pge 6 headline £13,000 off house prices in five weeks. ............................................................................. BBC NEWS - website artical today - headline UK HOUSE PRICES ' BUOYANT' Rose by 2.1 % in july according to 'NATIONWIDE' Can one of you clever 'bears' explain to this confused GAL BEAR what this means?????

Where the press are concerned the problem is, they report prices dropping but not ON THE FRONT PAGE. Today,item in E.STANDARD but was on page 4 or 5. Perhap too much other news at present. Also for the last couple of years they have been reporting "HOUSE PRICES TO DROP 30%" and other such front headlines and maybe now they don't want to put it on their front page until they are really sure for fear of looking stupid! (Do the press worry about such things?) What you want is a 9 oclock news headline and a NEWS NIGHT discussion preferably as someone has already mentioned with some top notch economist or "doomonger" as the likes of KIRSTY refer to them and the lady herself. Better still - KIRSTY V MERVYN KING - i would pay good money to see that!!!!

SLEDGE HEAD - Thanks for your advice. I have been verbally "abusing" estate agents for months now, I think they are the lowest of the low, my husband gets very embarrassed when i kick off but i don't care. They probably have a WANTED poster up with my face on it!!!! Give me just 5 minutes alone with dear KIRSTY i would reduce her to a sobbing wreck.!!!

BARRATT HOMES have had a stand in my local shoppingcentre (in Essex) for 4 days now (since Monday). 3 Sales staff, posh Digital TV advertising their development of flats 7 townhouses etc. THIS IS HOW IT HAS GONE.... MONDAY: Billboard display advertising 1 or 2 bed flats (not sure which) at £199,000. Staff were receiving lots of verbal "abuse" from passers by, regarding their rediculous prices. TUESDAY: Billboard still there but prices removed!!! Whe I questioned them on price they were cagey but eventully told me prices were around the £179,000 mark. (A healthy drop already!!) Wednesday: Billboard with nrew sign confirming the £179,000 as above. THURSDAY (Today) : Billboard with enormous red sign - new price £139,000!!!! MY MATHS NOT GREAT IS THAT NOT A DROP OF ABOUT £60,000 in 4 days?!!!!! They also had 3 new sales girls who looked as if they had been hired from PAGE 3 to try and attract male buyers I presume. There was only 1 client signing up, so i went over and handed the newspaper item i had about the house price falls. "I Suppose you lot have heard about the fall in house prices then, thats why youve' reduced you prices?" Their only client looked a bit shocked and asked if she could read the item, I noticed she then wandered off!! The sales girl said "Oh no, we are just reacting to market forces!" I said "That's what i just wasn't it?" I walked off and noticed their manager got straight on his mobile phone (to head office perhaps!!). It is a huge development with what looks like over 100 flats. If they bring prices down presumably so will other estate agents in the area orthey will lose business. THIS SHOULD START THE BALL ROLLING NICELY. I will pop down there tomorrow - another 20 grand off perhaps.

MUPPET, I think you missed my point, i was saying that the money i have "made" out of the house means nothing to me, if my house dropped in value to what i paid for it I would be very pleased as it would mean that others could afford to buy!! As I said earlier I am always arguing with people at work and showing them newspaper clippings to prove to them that house prices are dropping, I am the only person in my office that thinks like this. I do feel sorry for people who lost their homes in the last recession, but i think this house crash will be 10 times worse as everyone is in so much debt, but we need it to bring some normality back to the housing market and if my house ends up being less than I paid for it so be it!! It will be a small price to pay. And KIRSTY will be out of work so that will make me feel better.

GILF YES and this is exactly what happened in the last crash when i bought my house, there were building sites everywhere left empty where builders just walked off and left houses half finished because no-one would buy them. The house we bought dropped from £80,000 to £40,000 in the space of 6 months, we hung on because we loved the house (couple were getting divorced and it was a long drawn out battle - house eventually re-possessed and thats when it was revalued). We received 100's of house details in the post from estate agents - they were desperate to sell, but only a few months earlier the talk had been on house prices rising forever, no crash etc. etc. Believe me it will happen again i have seen it all before.

Yes, but as I see it this is what has helped put the price of houses out of the reach of most young people. if buy to let landlords had not bought up all the properties young people would not need to rent (or only for short term) and could afford to buy a home of their own. Some renting properties should be available but in the last couple of years people have just got greedy., there should be a limit on how many one person can buy and they should have to pay some extra tax on them to make it more unattrative. I only had to rent for a couple years before i bought i house, it was just accepted that you could buy whenever you wanted as long as you saved up a small deposit I have friends who's children are in the ir 30's and still renting or worse living at home with parents - some even have kids, it has got totally out of hand. I regularly have arguments at work with people who gleefully tell me how their property has gone up £100,000 in the last 2 yrs and then tell me they have 3 kids aged between 25 - 35 still living at home , its ludicrous. Around Christmas time a new development of about 30 new flats went up near me, i enquired on behalf of a young girl at work and was staggered when the Salres agent told me that nearly he whole lot was bought by one BUY TO LET INVESTOR. It should not be allowed, he helped stop many young couples owning their first home.

In case anyone wonders I am a 40 + homeowner who has no particular interest in whether the market goes up or down. I have made over £150,000 profit on my house in 10 years (bought in the last crash 1992) but I don't care how much my house is worth as I will still have to pay more to move up the ladder. What is happening with house prices is absolutley scandalous, just greedy estate agents , banks etc mostly, they are the only ones that gain, but ironically their own kids won't be able to buy homes so they are all shooting themselves in the foot!!! I am praying for a crash and although I could have easily become a BUY TO LET LANDLORD myself I honestly could not rob young people blind the way they are doing, it is obcene and the government should do something about it before there is a riot or something, if I were a young First time buyer I would be organising marches in London (similar to the protest against petrol prices, poll tax marches, IRAQ war etc etc - get the press and government to sit up and take note!!!!!)

I have already spoken about this but thought some might like an update. BARRATT builders in town today (ESSEX) Have not seen a big housebuilder or any housebuilder set up shop in the middle of a shopping centre for god knows how long (not in my memory anyway!!) They had a nice posh tele advertising their new development of "Stunning, contemporary 1 & 2 bed flats" and 3 sales staff!!! By the end of my 1 hr luch hour they all looked pretty p****d off. Lots of comments from passers by (0f every age group). Parents were enquiring on behalf of their offspring and when told the price making comments like "God I could not afford to pay that , let alone my 28 yr old kid,you must be joking!!!" The have been there since Monday, on Monday they advertised the flats as around the £199,000 mark. The next day they promptly removed the sign and were being very cagey about the price but I managed to get them to tell me the price £179,000 (oops a drop of £30,000 overnight - very interesting). Lots of young people were going up eagerly and then walking away completely gutted, it was heartbreaking to watch!! I Was speaking to a few and warning them not to buy, property crash expected etc. etc. One young man said he was a stock broker and eagerly told them he earned around £30,000 a year but he too walked away completely gutted. I asked them how they could do their job and who the hell they thought would buy these way over priced flats. One of the younger sales girls admitted to me that it had been pretty hard going and she could not afford to buy one and expected to still be living at home when she was 30!! I told her not to worry house price crash was coming soon and I gave her HOUSEPRICECRASH.CO.UK WEBSITE address, she looked quite pleased !!!! She also indicated that they had not sold more than a few (there must be about 100 for sale). THEY ARE GOING TO BE HERE ALL WEEK. GOOD LUCK TO THEM THEY WILL NEED IT!!

YES I CAME HERE AFTER HEARING MS ALSOPPS RANTINGS AND WANTED TO SEE WHAT ALL THE FUSS WAS ABOUT. SO I SUPPOSE SHE HAS DONE ONE GOOD THING - GIVEN THE SITE BEST PUBLICITY THE SITE WILL PROBABLY EVER GET!!! WELL DONE KIRSTY. I THOUGHT SHE CAME ACROSS AS SLIGHTLY MAD, BUT I WAS ANGRY THAT SHE WAS ADVERTISED AS A 'PROPERTY EXPERT' AND SHE IS NOT, SHE IS AN ESTATE AGENT. LONDON TONIGHT SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF ADVERTISING HER AS SUCH. RE: HOUSE PRICES BIG BUILDING COMPANY IN MY TOWN TODAY DESPERATELY TRYING TO MARKET THEIRNEW DEVELOPMENT, THEY SMACKED OF DESPERATION TO ME, REDUCED PRICE OF FLATS BY £20,000 OVERNIGHT ALSO 5% PAID, NEW CARPETS, FURNITURE THROWN IN AND A CLEANER FOR A YEAR!!! THEY WERE GETTING LOTS OF VERBAL ABUSE FROM PASSERS BY FOR ADVERTISING 1 BED STARTER FLATS AT £170,00 (REDUCED FROM £199,00 THE PREVIOUS DAY) !! SOUND LIKE CRASH ALREADY STARTED.

I Was livid after watching LONDON TONIGHT interview with KIRSTY ALSOPP. How dare she proclaim herself a "property expert" she is not, she is an estate agent, LONDON TONIGHT should know better. it is people like her that have talked this market up and made it impossible for young people to buy their own home she should be ashamed of herself!!! All LOCATION LOCATION does is get young people into more debt but making them believe they must get on the property ladder at any cost, it is disgusting. Does anyone have a webset for her or the ADDRESS/WEBSITE for LONDON TONIGHT as I would like to write a letter myself as I felt the program gave a very unbalanced view and left viewers thinking that although she came across as slightly eccentric and mad that because she was a 'property expert' her opinion was correct. House prices are coming down, we had a PROPERTY COMPANY, in my town today and they had to reduce prices of 1 bedroom flats by £30,000 overnight because no-one was interested (even offering a free cleaner FOR A YEAR, stamp duty, 5% deposit paid, free carpets, furnitue etc. SMACKS OF DESPERATION AND PLENTY OF PASSERS BY WERE TELLING THEM!!!! INCLUDING ME.