Scooter

I will certainly keep waiting for a while. Luckily I am in my own place pretty much paid up but I am still pissed off because I want to move after twelve years in the same place. I realise others are in a more frustrating position. I do expect a crash as I said but my logic is being severely battered by the current persistence of HP inflation and, as I said, the media ********. S.

Dogbox said: "Scoot As Ive always said the 'logic' referred to by bears is in the main defunct and has no more place in todays world than mangles in the kitchen." All you are saying is it is different this time. That is a non-argument in itself. Address interest rates, money supply and asset cycles and I might be more impressed by your argument. Sorry! What is outdated (mangles?) about those concepts? S.

Optimist or pessimist suggests an emotional response/motivation to investing, whcih I think is dangerous. Why not do what appears sensible in the circumstances on best information available?

I think that is a bit apocalyptic. Assets rise and fall in cycles and houses will fall again, although ****** knows when. Hence my current annoyance.

I was hoping he would give insurers another good kicking but I am as yet disappointed...

Hmm, that could take a while yet...

But that's Docklands innit? It's different everywhere else...

That could be quite a long way off before rent/mortgage consumes ALL of average income! Starvation rations for a while before that point...

What does that actually mean for real or nominal house prices assuming most of us earn in £ and buy houses in £?

Just having a rant-I am bored and pissed off with a HPC that refuses to happen, especially in London where I am. I was expecting one around 2003/4 for logical reasons that are familiar to many. Here we are a few years later and house inflation is still rising apparently. I would go and buy a new house but unfortunately I still (logically) expect a crash against all evidence and ,yes, media spin. :angry: Angry Scooter

You could, or you could self-insure by keeping money otherwise used for premiums in a deposit account. I guess that is fine for small claims you might otherwise make up to a point. But if you hit someone with your car and are liable for £250,000 for long term care? Or if your house burns down and needs rebuilding? Ultimately loans have to be paid back (unless you declare bankrupcy, hardly attractive.) S.

Do you actually know what range of profits most insurers make? Not much in most cases, often one or two percent on total premiums and lately negligible investment income. Results are rarely above 10% so hardly excessive IMHO or evidence of gross mispricing. I suspect most people have no idea what price their insurance should be to break even (do you?) and just whine that they personally have not made a claim, failing to understand the whole nature of insurance/risk transfer. I am a bit suspicious of interfering in private markets to cap "excess profits"-we are not all working for Brown yet and someone has to make profits to pay taxes to pay for the running of the country. Regarding your specific point above, the way to beat it is probably to choose a big deductible for a lower premium and only claim on major losses, otherwise you are correct in that you are just swapping premiums for claims. And yes I am an underwriter, albeit not cars. S.

I just do not understand why they are apparently crashing on 6% odd annual inflation and we are apparently not on far higher inflation. ********. :angry:

Are that really those only choices when investing, fear or complacency? personally I think it is pretty essential to consider a downside (pessimism?) whilst being aware of possible upside, all in context. S.

Insurers just take the premiums of the many to pay the claims of the few (because no one-not the insurers or the buyers-knows exactly who will have a claim) with a usually very small profit well below 6% built in. What is your problem with risk transfer? Do you love insurance companies if you have to make a claim? S.

Ha!

They will not drop their prices. They will increase their profits.

Surely this was released by mistake-it is not due to be released until just before the next MPC meeting to stall any further rate rise.

More depressing spin from the Express... :angry: http://www.express.co.uk/news_breaking.html

What is a MINI-bust exactly? How do you distinguish it from the start of a major bust?

See my thread on Miami somewhere below for depressing reading. The UK media are a lot more coy about calling a bubble than in the US so sentiment may remain positive enough to prop things up for for a while but rising interest rates broadly mean falling asset values. It will come eventually but no one can say when... S.

60%? Now that would be a crash... If we could just have that in North London as well...

Are you in Florida?

Just got back from doing a bit of biz in Miami. I had a few conversations about property including a few renters who see no sense in buying at present. There are a lot of new residential blocks going up and a lot of what we would call BTL. Most recent buyers are anectdotally non-occupiers from Sth America and UK. Basically, rental yields seem to be sub-5%, finance costs are 5-6% but crucially the cost of insuring against hurricanes has risen massively since last year to about 3% of value. You might also add in maintenance costs of say 1% annual. So in summary, (optimistic) yield of 5% against annual combined costs of 9-10% = major crash surely? This will be true of all of the Gulf States that have to buy hurricane insurance to satisfy a bank and also in California, where quake insurance prices are also costing a few percent. S.