smellthecoffee

That article sounded a bit nationalistic (US writer) to me, possibly biased. Now if what he says is true and those figures are in the public domain, could somebody please explain why the euro is still so strong against sterling?

Why doesn't she go and work in a lap dancing bar and pay her mother back what you owes? Manchester is full of these dreamers, they think they are beautiful and spend a fortune going out to "trendy" clubs hoping to bag a "futborler".

Too many estate agents are idiots/liars. Your best bet is too view the house, speak with the vendor then negotiate with the vendor directly over price. Once you've a deal inform the estate agent. Doing this removes a wall of BS , not only to yourself but to the vendor who will also be a victim of EA BS.

Its not gone anywhere, it was just the same £10 note being passed around quickly and showing up in a few places the same day. Then the music stopped and the other people in the game had empty hands.

What would that have been new? Luxury cars are the same, cars that you had to pay a premium for 1 year ago are now 40% below list once out of the showroom.

Another nail in the coffin of the UK courtesy of those morons from the Labour party.

Lots of nasty words, I hope you guys don't believe in Karma. What the guy is actually saying is that if you have problems and you go to Barclays they'll look to foreclose on you ASAP rather than work out a solution/deal/give breathing space.

These savers make you laugh, they worry about 1% or 2% on a few quid they have in the bank, but would they rather have lots of repossessions and the value of their house fall by 50%? But make an extra £50 a year in interest?

Ford et al are already discounting heavily. With the MRSP going up, the dealer will just say look at what an even more massive discount you are getting. Actual selling price will be the same.

A few years back when Beckham was still at Man.U, everytime a new apartment block was going up in Manchester the developer would say "David Beckham has already put his name down for one blah blah". Guess the same for Dubai, fools gold.

Isn't part of the problem that when people sell they get three estate agents around and then go with the one who says its worth the most? If a EA always says a true value and gives the lowest valuation he may soon end up with an empty window. Its as though somebody needs to call the the EA's together in an area, bang their heads together and tell them to wake up. Typical things I see are houses still on the market for the last four years at prices that they were never worth at the peak and new stuff coming on makred up even higher. It makes me think if certain sellers need X pounds to sell the house and cover all their debts.

Was thinking the same thing, prices will finish at 1999 prices + increase per annum equal to pay rises. So maybe 1999 prices + 35%?

I guess they thought about that when they were mopping up all the properties from under the noses of the first time buyers a few years back. You can tell when somebody is really in the poo, they say stuff like "Our last week/month was the best ever, I could have sold/rented x3 what I actually had, demand is strong, blah blah".

Speculators have been betting sterling down for the last few months, they hope that the BOE would spend loads on the currency markets to prop it up (and the speculators then make bucket fulls of profit). The BOE have said they won't, they still haven't and now the speculators are unwinding their positions. Would peole have been happy if the BOE had blown billions on the currency markets so that some people could have a cheaper holiday in the eurozone? The weak pound makes our imports expensive and exports cheaper, a better position to be in rather than the reverse. In addition a weak pound puts off euro-migrant workers as the pay rates will effectively be lower here so we have less problems with unemployment as migrants move to other countries.

Didn't people only buy there because the prices went up by X% last year and they hoped their new flat would go up the same and then they could bail out with the profit? It had to come to an end when everybody realized that nobody actually wanted to live there!

The other trick I've seen is when an estate agent has two properties in the same road they will severely over price one to make the other look like a bargain.

Market Stagnation survey ,BBC News 29 Dec 08 http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/ukfs_news/hi/new...000/7803086.stm In my opinion is down to the silly estate agents in this area, when I was buying a few years back the major ones acted like real morons. Made an offer on a house for £305k( asking was 315k), they never even got back to me. After three days of waiting I called them and they said the vendor wanted more, I refused to increase. A few weeks later found a better house anyway but out of interest I kept an eye on this house and the LR. After a further 7-8 months it sold, checked the LR and it went for 307k! The vendor had a bridging loan during this period and has therefore lost a stack on interest/bills/council tax etc for the period. What was funny was they they considered my offer so poor that they didn't even bother to return my call.

I didn't , I borrowed x2 of my annual income and had to pay a lot more for my house than I should have done because lots of greedy fools lied and borrowed x6x8 their income and pumped all the prices/market up.

The area where I live seems to have a lot of people who try and sell their house for last years price plus a lot more. In fact a recent survey found our area (Rochdale) to have the worst stagnation for houses prices in the UK. Typically you see a house that only changed hands two years ago but the new owner is trying to sell it on at a massive increase. eg Land Registry figures 2006 - bought for 910,000 (today for sale for 1,395000) 2005 - bought for 320,000 (today for 470000) Statistically prices were flat in 2005 and increased in total by 15% between start 2006 and end 2007. Both are the same as they were when bought eg no extension/refurb etc. Another example, a row of bungalows, last sold for 178000 now a neighbour wants 264k for theirs. what planet are these people on? Is it estate agents that fill their heads full of dreams?

The area where I live seems to have a lot of people who try and sell their house for last years price plus a lot more. In fact a recent survey found our area (Rochdale) to have the worst stagnation for houses prices in the UK. Typically you see a house that only changed hands two years ago but the new owner is trying to sell it on at a massive increase. eg Land Registry figures 2006 - bought for 910,000 (today for sale for 1,395000) 2005 - bought for 320,000 (today for 470000) Statistically prices were flat in 2005 and increased in total by 15% between start 2006 and end 2007. Both are the same as they were when bought eg no extension/refurb etc. Another example, a row of bungalows, last sold for 178000 now a neighbour wants 264k for theirs. what planet are these people on? Is it dumbass estate agents that fill their heads full of dreams?