North London Rent Girl

Market in london 'might have firmed' - what kind of speak is that? I see a thickening forest of for sale signs, often coupled with to let signs. It is happening but nobody out there's talking about it - it's freaking me out. People are quicker with their 'never going to happen's than ever. It's like the Stepford Homeowners out there - and they're not even all homeowners! It's like a mass brainwashing. I don't know a single other house-market bear except my mum. Anyone else feel like in this regard they're in a 1970s paranoia film? Invasion of the Body Snatchers - they do that open-mouthed screeching if you say prices will fall. Shudder.

Yes, poor old banks always getting a tough time - people with their silly axes to grind. Bankers - nice uncles who lend us money, nothing underhand or sinister going on at all. What various reasons? Not many on HPC are deep in debt to a bank. A lot of us are even - gasp - completely debt-free. Why do you think the people on here consider banks to be vile leeches? You should look back through some past threads to find out. Finally agree with you about something - yes, they are amoral and there is no point in expecting them to be anything else because it's not their job to be good, and that is why we have to control them through tight oversight and regulation and not pay any attention when they bleat about it.

You're sounding like the boyfriend of a friend of mine who recently (I was arguing with him) said that there's nothing wrong with student loans and that he couldn't imagine anyone being put off getting an education by the prospect of 20 grand of debt (my conjectured minimum from now on for student debt). The key words here being he couldn't imagine. 14 grand is a lot of debt. It would be a lot for me to pay off and I'm not badly off at all. People seem to be thinking about money in an increasingly delusional way - it's all got skewed and twisted so that 10 grand is peanuts and 100 grand isn't all that much. It's because there's so much cash sloshing around in the economy and so many people feel so extraordinarily rich - at the moment. Of course people react differently in similar situations and there are people out there up to their necks in debt who don't give a toss but the reality is that for anyone from a presumably not wealthy family to get into 14 grand of debt would be awful - they would feel guilty around their family, who would also be feeling bad that they couldn't help (or maybe wouldn't want to, either way it's a horrible pressure) and she was facing the disappointment of not finding good work having sunk herself in debt to get an education, another awful predicament facing many young people today. I remember in the 1980s when the milk quotas came in and farmers were topping themselves like it was going out of fashion. There were farmers that did and farmers that didn't - doesn't mean it wasn't about the milk quotas.

Yes, I'm sure that is how they justify it to themselves. They're certainly not spending any money trying to suck us into their debt trap, no sireee. And if anyone is silly enough to get themselves into trouble, how was it Barclays puts it in the article, ah yes - "the bank always treats such cases with sensitivity". You could laugh til you puked. I hadn't heard about this story, Libitina, well done for raising it - it's just shocking, poor girl. Completely and horribly hitting the nail on the head with this. Things are going so badly wrong and this is one of the only places that people are looking at it. It's getting freaky.

Absolutely - these young whiners just want something for nothing. No understanding of sacrifice, that's the problem. In order to get their first mortgage my parents had a third child specifically in order to sell it to a pharmaceutical company for vivisection - everyone did it in their day but now - tsk - people don't know they're born.

But the very question 'how long can you wait?' presupposes A CHOICE - and that's something that most would-once-have-been FTBs simply don't have. STRs aside, the overwhelming majority of people aren't not buying because they won't, they're not buying because they can't. Let's deal with the reality here.

Yes, these things are really all we're interested in. You HPC men really understand women. I don't understand why you're not all out on a ledge somewhere. Oh, look, please, for heaven's sake, pull yourself together.

No it wouldn't. Most new posters don't wade in and start starting threads right away, anyway - who does that, for heaven's sake? 35 posts before thread-starting seems perfectly reasonable. What's wrong with that? Wouldn't have put me off the site at all. Go for it, moderators, there's too many estate agents sitting around with nothing to do but come on here and post crap - they're trashing the place!!

This old chestnut again! What, don't you speak to your parents?! Bit of effort saving for a couple of years, bit of a focussing of the mind but no pain. And that more often than not on one salary or at least once the place was bought, the mortagage could be paid on one salary while one of the couple stayed at home to - gasp - bring up children. And that's my parents, who started off with absolutely bugeral.

Yup! Don't know about savvy but at least not stupid. I think I might still owe a friend 33 quid for an opera ticket - really must remember to speak to her about that. Not that I wish to be smug - there are people who are in debt through no fault of their own. Although they're probably a minority at this point.

Now look, I wasn't going to wade in on this one but for heaven's sake. Nobody - NOBODY - take this man's advice, not about relationships, anyway. He may know a thing or two about monetary reform, maybe a bit about the business cycle but apart from that whatever he says should be completely disregarded - he's plainly having some kind of menopausal episode. RFD - pull yourself together! Shit, TTRT, I agree with you. What's going on?

don't know if anyone else managed to listen to this - if not you can go here and click on 'listen again' - it should be up some time soon once the show is over More flats built than people wanting to buy them, SIPPS cancellation a further blow, Portman Group pulling out of BTL mgs on new flats. Statement by Portman guy Matthew Wilds (paraphrase) - 'a number of schemes or scams or however you care to describe them that are being perpetrated primarily in the BTL market centred around the concept of 'off contract' deal. Cashback of large propoertion - 20, 25, 30% or more.' Visible price recorded by land registry. Peter Bill, editor Estates Gazette. Winifred Owen 'what is the scale'? 'Confined to 1-2 bed newbuild flats in cities. THese account for nearly half of all new homes being built. Real issue one of transparency. Nobody knows the actual prices they're going for. Some builders sell them to their friends and colleagues to establish the price. WO - don't mg companies do their own valuations? PB - well you'd think so, wouldn't you? their valuers not paid much, might end up losing business - no incentive. WO - if valuer is surveyer then they have to work to code of RICS. We spoke to RICS and they said that their surveyers are governed by strict rules that are rigorously enforced. PB - Well they are governed by strict rules but I would question how rigourously they're enforced. They ought to be more proactive in warning the public what's going on and warning their own members not to do this sort of thing. WO - even the land registry here is recording a false price. PB - I think the LR also could be much more proactive. And solicitors - they're the ones who tell the LR what the prices are, so Law Society, too ... do more to ensure that actual value transparent to everybody. WO - what does this tell us about the whole state of the new-flatbuilding market PB - sipps yada yada, property clubs, created bubble. half of all new homes now these new flats, built with investors not home-owners in mind, many of them you can barely swing a cat in. (edit: HIS words, not mine!) WO - crash? PB - I think in this particular market, not generally, because values being inflated before you buy. People going in through these property clubs really should compare with 2nd-hand stock in that area. Anything more than about 15% more than 2nd-hand you really ought to be careful. Then entertaining bit by Steve Punt (who isn't normally funny) about Monolpoly, also worth a listen for HPCers!!

You and Yours is doing a segment on the manipulation of buy-to-let prices just after the noon news on Radio 4 tomorrow. Don't know at what point in the show it will be.

Yeah, what is that - Italian? (edit: read on and got it) It doesn't matter what the nationality of the owner it, surely, but what they do with the property - if they rent it out and keep it in good condition that's fine. Nobody, foreign or British, should be permitted to own property that stands empty 50 weeks of the year - that housing stock should be confiscated and put back into circulation. brilliant brilliant - we need an 'applause' emoticon! What about asylum-seekers awaiting a decision, sometimes for years, who aren't allow to work? The ones I know would do bloody anything rather than sit about at home with uncertain and potentially terrifying prospects and nothing to do but think about it. A lot of them are smart, too, and could really contribute - and would love to! In terms of immigrants more generally - my general understanding and experience has been that immigrants tend to work their arses off. Or are you one of the believers in that strange phenomenon of immigrants 'coming over here, lazing around, taking all our jobs'!!!

P K Properties Harrow aren't earning their commission, are they - they haven't even put a picture of it up and it's the picture that will sell that place - all that quirky charm. It's a niche-market property but the right person is just going to fall in love with it!

I bought a really great teapot from a pottery in the middle of Dartmoor and there's potteries in my parents' local town so if you're serious about needing clay - they do have it in Devon! Property prices down there are just shocking, though - in E. Devon, where my parents live, they have gone up by a greater percentage that in London. My cousin and her husband have just paid 220 grand for a house in a small town. It's a nice house and for the same price they were looking at bog-standard 3-bed 1950s semis but it's still a huge whack of money. Nice to hear an Ozzie objecting to racism. I lived there for a year and was shocked (apart from in nice Melbourne) by the endemic racism. I spent most of my time in Queensland - which probably says a lot to you. Unfortunately it has engendered in me quite strong anti-Australian tendencies, ironically enough, but I do try to curb that when I meet the odd one who isn't hard-faced as hell and flintily, relentlessly, oppressively cheerful!! Welcome, Elizabeth, you're plainly one of the good ones! Also, I studied in Glasgow and can vouch for it as a great city with beautiful architecture, friendly people (much friendlier than Edinburgh) and a real edge and hum to it. Tonnes always going on there culturally. In terms of property, I remember lots of lovely big flats in the West End with huge rooms - and, often, turreted corners to the sitting rooms with big round bay windows. Prices there have gone through the roof, too, though. Have a nasty feeling that, welcome though you are, you might be on the wrong island!

But is there not something in between 'some sort of drop' and 'apocolypse'? How about 'substantial falls to bring prices into line with historical average'? I know that tony blair has put us all of the idea of a third way but still! 'The crash will happened when the last bear has turned bullish'?? Bugger.

Yes, you couldn't have a crisis in British industry and major recession under a tory government ... oh, hang on!!! Why don't we give the lib dems a bash - could they do worse than our two main parties - two clubs of the same jokers? Seriously, could they? Their local taxation policies are progressive (although tough on tenant sharers (me!)) and they'll impose business rate local taxes on second homes. I think it should be a second local income tax, but still. They're a lot more grown up than the tories or nulabor. I'm not a lib dem, by the way, I vote green wherever I can and lib dem as my second choice. Garn, let's give em a shot - seriously, by the time the next election comes around we're going to have even less to lose!

Hi there TTRT - does your new avatar depict first time buyers entering the market now?!!

Must say I agree with you on the promise of the Baltics. Of course, I'm not talking about making money out of them, effing up their property market so that young Balticers can't afford a home just as their small nations are bravely emerging from long years of repression and they're trying to make a go of it. Tallinn is a wonderful city, I've been there lots of times - friendly and cosy. (Mind you, I was going there from Moscow, which is about as unfriendly and uncosy as it gets.) But those three little countries have a lot going on for them - and I'm going on a long weekend to Riga in February so I'm putting my money (all 50 squid of it with Ryanair) where my mouth is! Don't speculate there, go and stay for a while, meet the locals - they're lovely, lovely people and really happy to meet foreigners (who aren't occupying Russians, of course! - although actually the ethnic Russians who live in Tallinn are far nicer than the ones you meet in Russia, too, the place is so nice they can't help themselves). You probably won't - or if you do, you'll go to look at properties, not meet people. That's why I don't envy you - not one bit. Everything I've said here will just ring up those dollar signs in your otherwise empty eyes. Oh bloody hell you say it much better than I do (further down - only just reached your post) - I wanted to quote the Fukuyama thing but couldn't be bothered to look up the spelling of his name! And wasn't he making his own a phrase written by Marx - another nutty bloody optimist who believed in heaven on earth. Yeah, those bloody, optimists - first against the wall when the revolution comes!!

Yeah, right pessimism's overdone! It's those optimists you've got to look out for - we can perfect the world, all we have to do is eradicate a certain group of people and make everyone think like us and bob's your uncle. All that belief in 'progress' - very dangerous!! But as pulpfiction says - who cares? what difference could it possibly make? I'm going back to bed!!

Please don't hate me teddyboy but can't resist - that should read 'DOOM for whom?'

'Pessimist' is a different thing! Someone might be a lifelong pessimist, nobody's a bear all their lives. Bearishness is about what you think a market's going to do, that's all. It implies a understanding that, for whatever reason (tipping my hat there to that video about banks), the economy behaves cyclically (sp?). I've got no doubt that after the crash, in which house prices will go through the floor, there will be another rise, during which period we will be bullish*, then it will start looking stupid again, at which point we become bears again, and then there'll be another crash and so on until we reform the way that we create money! But are you suggesting that there's lifelong bulls? Or do you mean optimists? And are you one? If so, whichever, do you not consider yourself a realist. I'm just trying to imagine someone saying 'oh, I'm not much of a realist, me, no, I like really to think that things are other than they are'. This is actually probably true of all of us to some extent in some regards but, let's face it, who wants to admit it?! *Oh, no, hang on, I already am bullish about the next boom, then, am I? Am I a bull and a bear at the same time - shit, will I still be able to get up my tree? Blimey, DB, your conceptual muddles are contagious!

Marina you are talking such sense about wind power - every word of it jaynyus. AND para-quoting David Essex songs. Cracking form!

Oh crikey you're right. That's a bit unsettling. I will decide to believe that he has just been a dufus and forgotten to log out as we all do once in a while. Yes, that's it, he's not a psycho. Got to love that Internet. Right, well, er, I'll be off now then. Yeeeawn - very tired and think I should erm, byeeee... Edit: Oh but actually now I am the only one left and am basically talking to myself. Right, I'm offsky.