kara gee

If anyone has seen an acre of building land for £250k, I'd be interested to see it. I'm always looking at land values and haven't come across anything anywhere near this ball-park. T'would be nice though.

Well worth a watch. Although is specific to US market. Were our banks offering similar mortgage products to the ones refered to here like the ARM and ALTE mortgages?

I've not worked out how to attatch charts yet, but here's an article from Market Oracle with more charts and graphs than you can shake a stick at. If anyone can attatch the relevant charts to this thread, t'would be appreciated. http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article10506.html KG

Quote article Ray Boulger at broker John Charcol says: "It took six to seven years for average property values to fall around 15% in the last recession and recovery was also slow. The 20% fall we have seen in the space of 21 months could mean a more rapid recovery." Rock-bottom interest rates are a blessing for homeowners paying variable rate mortgage deals. "In the early 1990s recession, the base rate soared from 7.5% to 15% in a matter of months, which no homeowner budgets for and so was a major cause of repossessions," Boulger says. "With base rate at 0.5% today's homeowners have a much better chance of meeting the mortgage even if their circumstances do change." But rates of 0.5% do not spell a healthy economy in the longer term. "In any history that is recent enough to be relevant rates average around 5%, which they will climb to again," Boulger says. 7. Negative equity is just a memory (for most) There are an estimated 900,000 homeowners with a mortgage debt larger than the value of their home, the Council of Mortgage Lenders says, which is still a far cry from the 1.5 million in 1993. According to Boulger, homeowners who are on a typically priced repayment mortgage and borrowed 90% of the property value when house prices started to fall should be out of negative equity in the next 18 months if house prices recover just 5% from today's levels. So first Ray tells us he is expecting a rapid recovery. Then agrees that low rates aren't good for economy amd rates ARE going to go up. But don't worry about Neg equity, in 18 months house prices will have risen by 5%. I'd love to know where this guy bought his crystal ball

How would we get this going then? Would it work by starting a new thread on a topic ie LVT (land tax). I/you/whoever, could then summerise views and ideas stated on a new poll or series of polls in order to be as specific as possible, which would be linked directly to the LVT thread, which could then be kept bumped on page 1 for a week or so (or until there was enough votes to show a realistic view of HPC members. There would be a final poll related to each subject ie LVT, which would be a very specific statement. The poll option here would be do you agree or disagree. The results could be shown on a pinned Agenda.

I'd like to see multiple home-owners hit hard. Especially Multiple BTLers and holiday home owners which are wrecking communities. Yes I know there is always a need to rent, so maybe we could have a tiered tax bracket system. Oh I guess that's Land Value Tax then. I know it's frequently discussed here, but it seems so right on so many levels and would be a great cure-all for our ponzi housing system.

Are you keeping a photo diary of your garden? It'd be nice to see how it's coming along. It sounds lovely.

The headline would be more realistic if it said ' Average Household (Who are on a tracker mortgage) Discretionary Income Up By 25%'. What % of UK families are one this type of mortgage? They absolutely DO NOT make up the 'Average Family'.

Essentials: Rent - £600 Gas/Elec - £80 Council Tax - £120 Water - £38 Total - £838 (£198 per week) Other: Food - £250 TV - £10 Phone & internet - £30 = £290 = £1128 (Total £260 per week) This means my family takehome wage needs to be £13,536 to only cover the above before tax £16,900 When you take into consideration clothes, holiday, transport (all included in labours definition of 'povert'), your salary would need to be well in excess of £20k

I've just been over your figures which look ok until you factor in house price falls. Even a 20% fall V's a 7% mortgage payment works in the favour of buying later. Here's why. (stay with me on this, I know it's dull) You buy NOW - £200k loan. Deposit of £60k (House value total £260k). 4.99% repayment fixed for 10 years. Here you need only calculate total payments made for first 10 years = £141,720 I buy in 2 years at 20% reduction (House value now £208k) I also have the £60k deposit plus interest @ 4% = £64800 Loan needed = £143,200. 7% repayment fixed for 10 years. Here only calculate payments for first 10 years = £122,880 We'd need to re-calculate again when our fixed rates are up. You can't calculate the whole 25 year term if you don;t know your rate after 10 years. If interest rates go up to 10% + then you have a point. But if that happens, you either wouldn't buy and keep saving with phenomenal interest, or you wouldn't fix. Edit to add - Does anyone know what savings interest rates went up to the last time mortgage interest rates sky-rocketed?

No worries, I wouldn't risk a 2 year at these low rates. Plus I'm hoping for some decent HP drops before the 2 years is through and don't want to rule out the option of buying before that. I think I can safely say I won;t be buying in the next 12 months though.

I get your point, but how would you even go about calculating HP falls V's interest rate rises? If property value drops another 20%, but mortgage rates go up to 10%, what will be the better deal. And that any figure we pluck out of thin air is purely hypothetical. May as well just flip a coin.

It's not really tied up though is it. You can take your money out whenever you want you'll just not get the interest. I'll take my chances in a 12 month fixed rather buying now and leveraging myself in the hope hyperinflation will occur.

Do you remember where you saw the 4.3 rate? I can;t find above a 3.75 rate on a 12 month fixed. The last of my 7% accounts is coming to an end in a week so need to find something else.

Earlsdon, Beechwood, Stivichall areas of Coventry. (probably the nicest area in Coventry). 15 mins on yer bike to the Uni. There's a great big park on your doorstep (on google map it's called Stivichall Common). Until you get to know Warwickshire area, this would be a good place to start as it's got loads of things locally for your kids to do.

No, my comment was related to you not employing women of breeding age! So you'd rule out all women aged between 20-40? The very sad thing is this is a common view shared mainly by your fellow male employers, but female employers too. Women having children and working is so common-place, why is it not just seen as the whole employment process. That there is a VERY good chance that your employee will need leave, so is factored in before the employment process has begun. The extra cost to this process should be the recruitment and training of a temporory staff. Of course this will only be worth it if you have chosen the right candidate for the position in the first place and that her added value to the buseness is worth the extra cost. I have discriminated against women and men too, but not for this reason. I ran a landscape and gardening business for a number of years (before I had kids). I would only employ men for the landscaping aspect, and mainly women for the gardening. Hauling 25k bags of cement and stone slabs is no job for even the 'ardest of women. Even being muscularly strong, our hands and joints are too small to do this over a prolonged period. (my hands are still not right 3 years on). However women made better gardeners. They were a lot more carefull with pruning, planting, weeding etc and seemed quicker to learn the difference between a plant and a weed.

+1 Yes this is a bad example. I also think that they lie like cheap chinese watch. There's no way such a crappy build cost £350k. I'm not a fan of planning regs, but as you say, tough titty on them for being so stupid.

I really hope you're taking the p1ss. If not, you really are a prize n0b head!

I have more than one current account for just this purpose (3 actually). May seem like over-kill, but it leaves my main current account free of large transactions.

Hi GG As we've worked out here, you have a VI in keeping property prices high. From previous post you have a place in the UK with a small (I think £30k) loan but you work (finance industry)/live in US but intending to come back. I don't know much more, but my guess is you're in your late 20's early 30's, single and no kids. (of course I am just guessing at this). My question is this though. If you intend to come back to UK to live, do you expect you will want to stay in your current property forever? Or Is there a chance you might want to trade up at some point (family etc) to a bigger house? Or need to move to a more expensive part of the country for work? Or are you already at the top of the ladder? Only I find a lot of younger mortgage holders with no children are quite short-sighted and get panicky about their house losing value, when the bigger picture is that in a few years time when they need to trade up to a bigger family house the disparity will have shrunk proportionately thus leaving them in a much greater position when the time comes to buy a bigger house. I know I'm jst stating the obvious here, and I don't mean to patronise. Just interested to find out why you have such an interest in HPI's. Sorry if you've told us on a previous post. KG

The Peak District for me. Probably within Hope Valley. I love it, It's so beautiful there even when it's raining and cold. And just 20 minutes to Sheffield where most of my friends and family are. Obviously you would pay massively over the odds for living here. 1/2 acre land for sale on rightmove for £1/2 million!! After living all over the place including other countries, nothing lifts the soul like a lovely walk in the peaks on a warm clear day. It evokes the feeling of belonging and home.

My proposal would be to ease planning regs specifically for beautiful, green sustainable small communities for the over 60s. All homes would be built to passivhaus standard (very little/no heating required). Set in beautiful gardens close to good transport links or a good infrastructure. Homes could only be rented/sold to the over 60's. I'm sure if this model was done properly it would free up the much needed family properties. The new homes would have to be affordable andstunning to incentivise the elderly to go for it.

Hi, sorry to be naieve here. I am quite new to the site. How will the 50-60% overall decrease take down the financial system? Thanks

+1 It all depends on your circumstances. While renting is cheaper than interest payments on a mortgage in a falling/flat market, you can save more. If that is the bottom like the bulls on here think, and prices start to rise again, I'm outa' here. This would show the country to be rotten to the core and no place to raise a family.

Ok, so you might not get this flat, but what harm is there in waiting a few more months to look for a more accurate trend? What rational logic or evidence do you have that house prices will go on the rise again and that you'll miss the boat? C'mon, talk yourself down from there.