thehowler

Fewer freedoms...a constant state of fear now. I remember all the deaths from IRA terrorism back in late 80s / early 90s, but it didn't have the same all-pervading clampdown fear factor.

You could park on a single yellow line and go for a pint in Soho...

I think the biggest change is that back then, people could imagine that things were going to get better. In 2014, it feels as though we're at the end of the road in terms of world politics, economy, engineering solutions, equality, climate change. People are so fixed in the present now, over-working, obsessing with the banal distractions of their comms devices, living in a rehash of past music, art and ways of thinking. In 1994 I felt as though I was on a linear journey to new things, to witness new discoveries in my times. Britpop was probably the end of that linear progression in music, we just ran out of new tunes. We didn't get back into space. We didn't invent a new form of propulsion or energy creation, we're still flying around in the same old jets. Cars haven't changed for 20 years, we just get better at the things we've already done. And when people met and drank we talked about what we were going to do, what was new and coming, we didn't take pictures of our food and talk about HPI. But now, in 2014, we're stuck with old systems of politics and commerce that are no longer relevant or fit for purpose. The lack of quality and conviction in the new politicians is a mark of that.

Is anyone under the impression that this spat is of any import, bar the immediate participants? Back to the London/South East asking prices...

Baffled by the prices in the East. Transport links suck, pubs were dire, street nexus is claustrophobic and there was always a desperado quality to the street life - but perhaps that's all changed. I knew a friend of a friend who was sitting watching tv in his flat one evening, heard a crash at the front door and a guy walked into the living room, picked up the set, yanked it out of the wall and carried it out of the house as booty. Friend of a friend didn't get up from his armchair to remonstrate. But that was back in 2001. I'm sure now it's all underfloor heating, stone pizza slabs and bluetooth speakers blasting out John Newman. By rights, the East should have dropped rapidly and more sharply than the other quadrants. Last into the party, first out.

I thought Damik started the thread to report a change in the market, and to back it up with cuts to asking prices. I don't think he's said we're viewing a full on crash, rather the beginning of a more significant slide down? I've seen similar cuts to asking prices out in Oxford - examples on the provinces board - but notably, no second cutting. It looks as though sellers are taking places off the market to rent rather than lose out on their perceived gains, even when yields are risible. Press anecdotals are reporting buyers and sellers in a stand-off, with many owners reluctant to cut again. Rate rises are galloping over the horizon into late next year, so what's going to spook sellers into setting prices back at 2007 levels?

Getting closer to your offer, or did you hold off? I'm seeing the same 7 - 10% cuts to asking prices on a lot of places in Oxford, largely driven by London evacuees' and overseas money. Waiting to see if these cuts can stand. I think Joe Public's getting the liking for global deflation.

Thirty grand lopped from a single pad in the council's old affordable housing block that's being painted white and lurid... http://www.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/details/34798350?search_identifier=d73eb1e3bb0e0133fed862888e649070#lRmxIus7GByXigao.97 down to £395K now. It's only been on a few weeks, guess they had no viewings. Sob. And I don't think a single affodable housing unit has been built in Oxford in the last year... http://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/11530585.Housing_crisis_escalates_as_no_new_affordable_homes_built_in_Oxford/?ref=mc They don't build any new ones - not a single one - and they sell off the old ones. And some people thought we had a Labour govt running things for a decade or more...

The Rolling Stones?

This one's just trimmed a quarter mill... http://www.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/details/34160476?search_identifier=e46888b1f4c30c58543e5add62542d6f#3GyiRjbdvQqpYWW2.97 down at two bar now. Last sold at £1.55M in Aug 2008. So, 5% stamp on that is £77,500 - and that alone could keep you in Grenache and pistachio nuts over plenty of long winter nights - means it was £1,627,500 (OK, can't remember when the lastest stamp rates came in but I'll go with 5%). With the fees let's call it £1,630,000. Most they can make now is £370,000, assuming there's no capital gains - and let's say they drop 10K to the agents, so £360,000 - that's about 22% overall. Through six years that's barely 3.5% return - with the growth in percent gain per annum. That's less than I was getting in a saver account before fiscal reality flipped out on me. Still waiting for those second asking price cuts to appear...

On transactions, yes, not price. My point was that I'm seeing sellers quit the market to rent rather than keep cutting, which tallies with fewer sales.

I'd buy that for a dollar... Sadly, in Oxford they've been cutting the asking prices - following London closely - but they don't want to cut further and I'm seeing houses going out to rent for £2-3K per month even when the yield is risible. Many sellers are not under pressure to sell and it's too much of a mind wrench to accept that HPI is finally turning. I hope we don't plateau after the 10/15% initial cuts...

Does the Fed meeting on Mon/Tue and the slim chance of a catastrophic rout on announcement of taper curtailment/rate rise new language fit into any of these waves?

On reflection, and while the pinot breathes, the Bainton pile suggests you'd be insane not to rent in this town if you're after a large family house. The interest - pitiful as is - on the ancient STR stash and a bit of income thrown in would be enough to get you a five bed box on a good street. Scratching up the £1.35M is trickier. All this in an extrememly shaky zeitgeist, when even the bankers are muttering that rates have to go up and foreign buyers are jumping ship. Will this house be worth more in a year's time?

House withdrawn now and up for rent... http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-to-rent/property-46193758.html They didn't want to cut again. Can't blame them. Who wants to give up hundreds of thousands of pounds of effortless equity? Hoping to clear 33K a year, is that a yield of 2.4% before costs, tax, fees, voids? But it holes my theory of creeping cuts.

Well it keeps on raining but that levee don't break.

The agents wave their wands and "whoosh" away half a million quidlets from this asking price... http://www.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/details/34416532?search_identifier=c4a8c736d4ddbe51eaf28f12fabe8d71 to a more wholesome 2.75 bar. http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-31691241.html And I remember a time when £500,000 sounded like a lot of money. If we get the inflation they crave, sterling will have to lift to make these homes - and the stock market - look sensibly-priced again.

Agree, this thread has legs as it doesn't swerve too much into rival arguments and distractions. I think it's clear that asking prices are wobbling - keep up the reportage.

I guess people are somewhat alarmed when such a bedrock indicator for world growth and general prospertity is tanking, despite all the waffle about US and UK growth. How can wages surge when oil's nose-diving?

Here's another asking price cut in OX2, a somewhat odd 80K snip. Now listed at £1,195K on rightmove. http://www.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/details/33081637#BkkPeLi2lwkc7CJx.97 It's up against a larger house (5 beds) just along the street that's on at the same - £1,275K. http://www.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/details/33282627#x2D4tyUbvmvLa2kG.97 But... glance over to the stats and you'll see that this house has also been reduced, down from £1.4K mill. This area - Lonsdale, Victoria, Hamilton - never had the cachet of the streets a little further into town. It's a Summertown backwater and the prices have only come up on the coattails of Norham Manor, Walton Street etc. No surprise to see asking prices get the wobbles here first, but will they spread down to Southmoor, Frenchay etc? And if I was thinking of a pitch for one of those Lonsdale houses - the one with the klondike stove pipe, perhaps - wouldn't an offer around 995K leap to mind? That would be a 22% drop on the original asking price. The next turn in the story will be to see if these houses go under offer, quickly. And if not, will they cut again, down to the mill mark?

More Bainton Road tottering. This one was under offer... http://www.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/details/33701501?search_identifier=196cd246f9729db593c58af362c51f20#eTbXZY46yBrwmweD.97 until it came back on today, 100K cheaper. http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-44968648.html

Agree, it's no crash but it is proof that (asking) prices can come down. And if they shave another 10% off the asking, and then an offer price is 5-10% off that, it would be a 30% drop from the asking. Given the agent/media culture of persuading us all that HPI is inevitable and unending, I think it's significant when you see asking prices falter and drop. But you're right, it's no collapse. What might a collapse be? Well, I've been asking myself how much I feel a 3/4 bed semi in North Oxford should cost. Sounds inane, but you have to set your own subjective bar somewhere. And I'd fix it at no more than 600K. That's an awful lot of cabbage - and you might argue that my idea of a fair price is idiocy - but I figure these houses have to cost something, they were floating around 4-500K for a long time a decade back and it's reasonable to expect them to follow 2 or 3% growth a year. So I'm plucking 600 out of the air. They're rolling around a million and just over now. But if a wobble is starting with asking prices, and if they break a little more along the lines of the example above, they'd be getting close to 600K again. But I'm betting against the casino - the money printers - and the house always wins.

And seeing 10% drops in the higher range... http://www.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/details/34125873?search_identifier=6586459cfda6fa037b60a5c980b1c241#1rddhHIDLFsFALQe.97 ...which is another 150 grand magicked away from the great house hag's cooking pot of doom. Agents that price stuff as though it's still April/May are having to cut a little in the Autumn doldrums. But is it the start of a slide, as the "Is Prime London Crashing thread" bears contend? Or just a pause before next year's QE revival/election carrots etc bellows things up again?

And there's more... £150 k sliced away. Could have bought a Maserati with that! http://www.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/details/33827123?search_identifier=6586459cfda6fa037b60a5c980b1c241#mvLblpqvL07qWp2o.97

Glimmers of hope. This shameful wreck came on at 700K a few weeks back, I kid you not. Almost dropped my monocle in my cornflakes. It's been lopped by over 100K. http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-31913658.html And this was 850K last week, now slashed down by 55K. http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-31435863.html I can't show the history as the agents have relisted as new entries to the market. Prices never drop in Oxford. They just breathe-in a little.