Redcellar

Yes, so next time you decide to correct someone's grandma, sorry I mean grammar, then really you ought to make sure your own is perfect. :angry: The moral of that story is: People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones? Never did get that one. Who the h*ll lives in a glass house? Apart from perhaps a glass house if it were in London that would probably be sold for £5.2 Million.

I think this is the root cause. Most people are not cr@pping themselves to borrow telephone number money. We have got used to these numbers over time. Take the bailout figures. We talk about billions and don't seem to see what it really means. Oh Bank ABC only required a 1.5 billion loan. That's no biggie eh. Sure it's not when compared to Company XYZ borrowing 150 billion. Wait ... 1.5 billion $1,500,000,000 Can I have a measly 0.1% of that please for myself. Surely won't go noticed eh?

James - You should re-read your own letter and not question your own logic, if that is what you meant. The point you made was that there is always someone who enters last, and it is he who is left holding the debt. Don't be that fool now and question your logic late in the game, as the crash has just begun. As for Casinos and the housing market. Extend the analogy to include the fact that the only people who make money from gambling (at least consistently) are bookies and casinos. They take their cut and do so because the odds always favour them. I wonder who the equivalent in the housing market would be. The banks seem to be taking a hit (losing more than they made), so probably not them. Intersting to work that one out. Anyone got any ideas?

You live in a dreamworld. Lending to those ratios is guaranteed default at some time, sooner or later. There's no slack in the money coming in to allow for increases in rates or a child popping out.

I concur. 3.5 has been seen as the reasonable limit based upon the proportion of you income that would go straight out each month towards mortgage payments (though this too is based on long term trends of interest rates). It's not a new figure. Higher than 3.5 increases the risk of default and that's why lenders used to frown upon it. It wasn't that you couldn't pay, it was more that you might decide to take some of the payments and instead go on holiday or buy a car (me being sarcastic, but probably truthful too). Of course it assumed the interest rates wouldn't spike (thereby making you unable to pay) which was what happened in the 80's and lead to that crash.

Also it would be funny to find out who thinks they are middle class now? I suspect the vast majority of people. There was a recentish (few years back) survey that asked drivers if they thought they were average, below average or above average drivers. 60%+ said they were above average. Sorry off topic but I suspect everyone who is 'the same' actually thinks they are better than everyone else. Anyway, it's Audi not BMW that has become the new w*nker drivers car hasn't it? Mondeo late 90's (and I have one)

Ooooh kinky. I must misssstype more often.

I love the way you pull the pin out of the hand grenade and just toss it in there. Seems everyone takes you seriously On the topic though, I'm relieved she ddin't get a mortgage as this would have contradicted all that I hear and see out there. Namely the death of securitisation and therefore the only money left is the banks own cash, so they are suddenly becoming risk averse (as all people are when it's their own cash they are spending). Sanity rules, and the lady is surprised getting a mortage when you default on payments is tough It's probably my savings or my tax money love. Thank flip they refused you a cheap rate.

Your an idiot. Everyone knows average house price should be £250K as it's good for the economy and there are no losers. I too look forward to the days when prices are like that, not sure they will be though as the Sheeple would all hang themselves if their pension fund was only worth that.

Is it April 1st? The article is not serious. It can't be. For a country to try to introduce censorship of the internet is a joke. Let's just cut all the cables into the country and go the whole hog. Maybe we would float away? China tried this and has limited success. They of course had a brutal police force who follow political orders and we don't. Oh wait I see where Mandelson is coming from now. Perhaps we're halfway there already.

How can that be??? How can only new instructions lead to an increase or decrease? Instructions to existing listings would could be tracked for change but now new listings. By nature they have only one price. If it's that the 'average' first posted price that increased month on month, then that could be because better and bigger properties were entered into the market to push the numbers up. In fact it could even be that a mansion that 4 weeks earlier would have gone for 1Mil now was on for 150K???? Sure that's taking the piss but it's as viable as any other explaination isn't it.

My prediction is Rightmove will not produce stastics on the number of EA's no longer trading on their site. Intersting point about when people will capitulate. It's not when Rightmove say they should, it's when circumstance demands it. I.e. they need to sell. Up until then its all Sibley and McHamish world. None of what they say matters, they don't drive the market. Credit availability does, and that depends upon a good economy and good job prospects. Nudge me to wake me up when those exist again please, I'm a bear and I'm going to sleep this winter through.

You raise a very good point. If I think about it, BTL was not based on helping other people but more to helping themselves to other peoples money. The same with house prices. It was all about making 'me' money, but that only happened if others paid more and more for the exactly the same item. Quite depressing really. If only we all wanted to invest in things that improved lives as we invested more. For example solar technologies or medical research. The invested money would promote new and better products that enriched our lives and everyone wanted. The houses being traded for more and more each time were exactly the same houses that were built 50 years ago at a fraction of the relative cost and I doubt anyone buying really 'wanted' to pay the prices asked. Where's the betterment of society in that market? Having said all that, society is based upon greed so who's going to change that in one generation?

True now. But when house prices were increasing by double digits, then even getting a large mortgage on a property would mean you could make £10K + a year, when you came to sell. The rental bit was simply to pay off the mortgage payments. Plus tax benefits on doing this were introduced for pensions, so you made more again, and also some for tax relief on the first chunk of rents you charged. If you worked the system then you would have been well off in those days.

When someone mentions Hitler then it's all over. Oh no, I just did, guess that's the end of that discussion then.

A) More than most the other numpties out there I would say.

Inside Track III (Inside) actually has a twist at the end. They end up 'outside' on the street in a cardboard box. Awesome finish I would never have guessed. Untypical for an American film that must always have a warm and fuzzy ending. Then there's Inside Track XXI - set in the year 2054 it's the same as the other 20 really, just a futuristic setting with the same twits being lulled into the 'house of doom' to be eaten by the evil bankers. That was a straight to TV release but seems most people forgot the other 20 itterations that were exactly the same and still invested in the price of a ticket to experience the thrills and spills. Seems peoples memories are like goldfish and Darwin's theory of evolution long ago stopped applying to the human race with the weakest simply dying off.

Is that still going? And shouldn't it be Inside Track II (the two towers - with flexible payment plans on all condos)

I'm not going to waste my time on riff raff like you. You'd never understand that buy-to-let makes me easy money. I just leverage the huge increase in my homes value to fund the deposit on a terrace or semi which I rent out at above or equal rate to the mortgage payments. That way fools like you (who rent) pay my mortage off for me, it's you 'dead' money. Whenever I chose I then sell the buy-to-let and make profit on it's new increased value and also on the mortgage payments that you made as my tennant. See it's that simple and absolutely fool proof. If a recession were to happen and prices dropped, and rents too, then I would be right royally screwed. But then again the government would lower base rates and that would allow me get away with reduced interest payments to the banks until the value increases again. Banks always follow the base rate and they love me and don't want me to suffer by taking my property portfolio away from me. If they did I would have no pension and they know that would be a nasty thing to do to me and they know I'm different to everyone else and deserve special treatment. I'm not a business I'm a person. That's the logic behind Bacon Lettuce and Tomato so go figure if it's going to make common folk money now.

Good point. But Jones seems a very common name, and I'm not common. I'm posh I am and I got a SUV an everythink.

Ahhh but they do see. They own houses cars and nice large TV's. So what if they haven't paid for them yet, doesn't mean they can't lord it over others as being rich. Life is all about image you see, and being better than the Jones'. I appologize in advance if your name is Jones. It's a very nice name. It's just a shame you are poorer than me. P.S. I perefer mine with mayo. Makes it even nicer but costs £2.49. But only got a 0% LTV on my last one from the HSBC.

Thanks for the summary. I live in the US temporarily and it proved a most useful brief. Appreciated.

1 million and 1. The queen owns her own property and doesn't rent.

More interesting for statistical trending though would be take a straight line through the troughs, and see where the next on is. Surpise, the figure is nearer 80K. Which unsurprisingly is near to a 60% fall from peak. Now we can see why some shrewd funds think this likely. What happens is the swings in each direction are getting wilder and wilder. As the peaks increase above average greater and greater so do the troughs. It's a basic 'loss of control' scenario that you can see in engineering and science regularly.

From the BBC: In April the LGA announced that council staff would be offered a 0.5% pay rise this year. Unions have rejected the deal. ""We know that most local authorities have budgeted for pay increases of up to 2.5%. The money is there to pay more than... they are offering." BBC article The public sector has an important role to play in society and people do work hard. However I couldn't believe the article inferring that the sector expects a pay increase, in these the worst of times. Surely this isn't so? Please tell me that it's just the unions incredibly naive view and not the layman.