agmoldham

I actually pretty much agree with all of that. I can't say that I agree that house prices will be up 10% by the end of the year though. I suspect a 10% fall is more likely and that will just about take us to the bottom of the market. Home owning is part of the DNA for people born in the UK and that along with supply will stop falls reaching 40% in my opinion. It is interesting to see how many people believe that their house is excluded from price falls though. I listened in to a conversation at work where everybody said that their house price hadn't gone down. The reasons varied from location, property type and local amenities, but which ever factor was used it meant their house was excluded from price falls. I didn't want to rain on their parade, but it's probably also fair to say that there will be some variation in house price falls so for all I know they could be right!

Looks like the first part of this is going to come true ... I wonder whether the second part will?

I think you'll find that Barclays are also moving a number of IT jobs to Singapore. I suppose they should really go to the Abu Dhabi.

Well as predicted I got it wrong and Lloyds ended up on the day! I can't really see why that should happen bearing in mind it is being run by Gordon Brown and he's not got a particularly good record when it comes to running anything ... except the economy into the ground.

I have three neighbours who have never traded before and who have all now bought Lloyds shares. All three have bought and sold Lloyds once at a moderate profit and then bought them again ... sometimes at a higher price than they sold at ... I kid you not! There respective prices are 70p, 57p and 47p. They have all put about a grand into them which isn't a massive amount, but it just seems very strange to me. I also know someone else who never dealt in shares who put 10 grand into Barclays shares at 190 and then took out a 10 grand loan to buy more Barclays shares at 97p. Is this sort of thing common or is it just the people I know have lost their common sense?

April fools day. What a shame for the people that held shares in Lloyds and that probably includes me, since I'm sure some of my pensions/investments will hold Lloyds shares. :angry:

I love speculating on what will happen to the stock market and like most people I'm invaraibly wrong. I was just wondering what effect the government insurance scheme will have on the Lloyds share price tomorrow. I really can't see any point in holding shares in the bank sector at the moment as dividends will be non existant for the next five years and there's a good chance you will lose your money altogether when they are fully nationalised. The banks that are run by the government are now effectively a political BOE. There's no future in them whatsoever as they will be run for political expediency rather than commercial reasons. It could be argued that this is a good thing for the economy, but certainly not for shareholders. So after saying all that my forecast for the closing price on Monday is 56 based on my original observation. Quite a clever trick though, because I've got both sides covered bearing in mind I really think it should go down!

Patience is a virtue. House prices will not break through their current levels for 5 years. They will not hit the floor for another 18 months or so and they'll be in the doldrums for at least 5 years after that point. The only thing you need to do is make sure your capital is safe which is easier said than done. In terms of when to buy watch the hpi graph on the front page and once the line is well below the long term average it will be a reasonable time to buy - There will be no rush though!!

I wouldn't be surprised to see a short rally soon which may even take it back above 7000, but that will run out of steam and it will not be long before it's below 6000.

You'll need a 10% fall in Sterling or the Footsie before you can call it a Black Friday.

Yes, that's been something that has been weighing on my mind recently. In theory having cash has been good for the last couple of years and most is still tied up in 7% fixed rate bonds. The only thing is that if everything implodes that's it ... nothing, but bits of worthless paper.

Does anybody have any stats on the percentage of women that are on this site. My guess is that it's 95% men, but I've got any idea whether that's right or not.

Yes, they're probably good indicators for the real economy. As far as house prices go they'll also be in the doldrums for a few years once they hit the bottom, so there will be no need to rush in and buy. Unemployment and house prices will be a couple of years behind the stock market which will probably level out later this year and make a modest recovery next year. Don't be expecting to see UK5000/US10000 any time soon though.

The problem with Self Cert is that people were using them to make a profit on the housing market without having the funds to back it up. This wasn't a problem when prices were going up, but once they went into reverse, yikes! You also have the same problem with 100% interest only mortgages that went through in the last few years via a fixed rate deal. By the time the fixed rate (and they'll be paying over the odds for this now as well) is up, they will have to try and fund a 125% mortgages ... Big Yikes!

I can't see a 45% fall myself to be honest - maybe 45% in certain sectors, but overall I reckon it will be a 35% at the bottom of the market ... which may last a while. The housing market in the UK is different to most places, since home owning is part of our DNA. If the housing market behaved like a pure commodity then the fall would be nearer to 75%, but that's just not going to happen.

I think the Daily Mash had a good story on this today .... Daily Mash

Sounds like a pretty good deal to me. I know that flats in central Manchester have crashed more than the overall market due to the number of flats (easy money!) that were developed and the fact that they were also fashionable in the boom period. Even by Manchester flat crash standards that's still pretty cheap though. Having said that you are talking about a prime location and you'd have a free flat after a year as that's pretty much what it would cost to stay in the Midland for a year.

Well, I've worked at both the Co-op and the Britannia in the past and I think that the link up is reasonably sound as they have a similar ethos. I've always thought that the mutuals didn't really get over to the public one of their main advantages ie. Profit is shared with the members rather than given back to the shareholders. I know the Britannia membership scheme was good, but will be diluted after the merger. This means your membership benefits are likely to be reduced in the future. The Britannia mortgage book is also interesting as they have a mix of mortgages that are focussed on either end of the risk spectrum. They have a lot of low value mature mortgages that are now extremely low ltv and safe as houses! They also have a number of mortgages that are high risk due to the fact that they were self certified, buy to let or sub prime. They were securitising these mortgages and selling them on before the market seized up, so I guess they've been left with a lot of them on the book. I should mention that the UK sub primes aren't like the US counterparts. In general the UK sub primes are from people with a bad credit history, but (at the time the mortgage was taken out) the ability to pay them back. It's fair to say though that a number of the high risk mortgages will default though. I have a sneaky feeling that once the dust settles from the financial crisis that the mutuals will become much more popular. I suspect the reputation of the banks will be tarnished for many years to come. I think having the Coop link will be good as there are a lot of cross selling opportunities in the group, so in the long term I think the benefits will be good. I would therefore vote for the merger, but expect a slight reduction in your membership bonus!

Yes, I think mum has a better chance of being a model. By the way if you ever see pictures of Jordan before she had cosmetic surgery, she was actually reasonably pretty. It's a fairly sad inditement of the celebrity culture that even though she looked miles better in her natural state, she would probably have been little known and much poorer in her natural state. I wonder whether she would have been happier though? Who knows!

Well I may not be accurate about my guess of -0.9%, but I'll bet as much money as you like that I'll be closer! If you fancy a bet I'll even give you 2/1

-0.9% is my guess.

I believe Gordon Brown is smarter than we think. I don't think his flaws are in his IQ, they are in his personality. It is almost certain that if he was a failed politician he would be on here writing much the same as other people that are on here. I also don't think that he is a deceitful. When he said no more boom or bust, he genuinely believed that was true. Now those two statements may seem contradictory since anyone with a sound IQ must know that no more boom or bust is about as likely as David Icke being the son of god. The problem with Gordon Brown is that he had 10 years where virtually nothing went wrong for him as the chancellor. When he said recently that he had saved the world that was undoubtedly a fraudian slip - he really did believe that! Gordon Brown can't take criticism and I suspect he's surrounded by yes men who adore him. Unfortunately that's not the best environment for making good decisions and it's all backfired now big style. He is of course now playing the politician and doing anything he can to stay in power. The worst thing is that he'll know that some of his recent policies are not good for the country and solely for personal benefit. I suspect that will sit a little uncomfortably with him as he will know this!

I had the same thought about the general public optimism myself recently. Even most of the people that I know who have been made redundant seem quite chirpy! I'm wondering whether people just hide their worries quite well. The one character trait that us Brits are particularly good at is ... hiding our feelings. We're also still in the early days of the recession at the moment ... once unemployment hits the 3 million mark later this year and people have spent up their redundancy money things might not be quite so bright. Having said that being glum will not really help that much, so maybe everybody will still be more optimistic than seems right!

During 2012 and 2013 Jones Lang LaSalle expects growth to accelerate by a further 8% to 10%. The timeline may be reasonable, but they're underplaying the fall and over playing the recovery. It will be quite difficult to call the bottom of the market as it's likely to stick around there for a few years.

What a shame the date at the top of the page doesn't say 2003 instead of 2009!