homedaq

His name sounds Dutch. I wonder if he was aware in 1999 that Dutch house prices would have risen over the next six years, er, um, 0%. EDIT: (oops did say past six years)

It would be quite hard to argue against the real chance that we face higher rates and therefore more people struggling to keep their heads above water with higher mortgage repayments. I want to buy, but the fear of negative equity again (first bought in 1991) is certainly holding me back as this time I will be a last time borrower not first time.

One very simple way would be for knowledgeable HPC members to contribute original news items and this to be created into an RSS news feed. You can then just contact Google as ask them to pick up the feed. Hey presto, balanced stories appear on the news feeds. For $80 you can submit a press release from prweb.com that automatically feeds into all the major news feeds. These then become indexed and appear in regular web searches (Google, Yahoo! etc), and best of all, they appear on sites of a similar content and these become indexed as well. The trick is to include your key words in the title. It works a treat. and enables you to compete with the big boys for a fraction of the cost. I'm not connected with prweb etc,but do use it regularly. Some people get the wrong idea and pay too much as the highest paying release for that day appears top of PRWeb's feed, but these come from all different sectors. Pay the minimum of $80 to get indexed, use relevant key words in the title and that is all you need to do. It really doesn't cost that much to compete with the big news sources as I have noted, you just have to know about net distribution.

Yes, I am with you on this, but it is just that the houses that I have been following have just started to drop in asking price, on average around 5%. Now I know this limited area/property type but I can't help but think that 4.5k off the average asking price is not unrealistic in the current market. Still, we'll see and it doesn't really matter if it takes two or more months to go negative. This is a marathon not a sprint. Well more like a ski-jump I suppose....

According to Nationwide, august 2004 did fall but only 0.37% not 2%. Using the numbers fromh the reports today of a 2k fall in the average house price, the figure for August is going to be a close to 0% as you can get. However, I can't help but think though that the average 2k drop is a conservative figure, and that we may indeed get a negative figure next month creating a very negative vibe as we go into Autumn and Winter.

Maybe because the economy is being kept afloat by people borrowing to buy stuff off the back of their supposed inflated house prices? Why not cut rates, inflate the supposed prices and encourage people to borrow more to buy a new bigger TV? Scary.

Dang, I deserved the beating he gave me...

Know what you mean. My first ever system as a schoolboy was a horse-racing program on my Commodore 64, as my dad was a bookie. It was only when I got home from school that I found out that he had put real money on my first three predictions with the fairly obvious result.....

No worries. Unfortunately, IMHO and experience, EWT has so many subjective rules it is always possible to uncannily match past events. Unfortunately is is hard to trade the past.... I've subscribed to newsletters of major EWTheorists and they seem to always get it wrong but obviously not in the blurb to get you to sign up. I am much more keen on SymWave but you don't get much commentary on it, but in combination with simple Fibonacci retracements is quite useful. You are right, the 50% level is major as it occurs in so many different TA methods. What I found interesting about your post on the lag in the catalyst was how right it is. When I made my *big* call in 97 many posts (see thread) and emails laughed at the chance of the Dow falling as no such catalyst existed in July 97. The only killer was the options expired before the fall, so profit on short futures was much smaller. Otherwise Rodney..... google newsgroup post

Hi Mr Tickle. Do you have a chart to post with regards to this? It is very rare for an Elliott Wavist to really call an event in advance (rather use an extension etc to explain a past movement) so I would love to see your wave counts etc as your bravery in making a call is most welcome and refreshing. Very interesting point re the news used to fit the event. I was following the 97 move like a hawk as we were big short and almost every sharp fall or bounce through Aug 97 to the big fall in October was explained by some ridiculous event in the press just to be reversed the next day. Thanks.

Yes this was during the last crash, when people set up competitions, £10 a ticket etc. The first few managed to sell and make a mark-up but then came the bandwagon muppets who forgot to include a clause to invalidate the competition unless a certain number of entries was received.

Once those stories of house price competitions, with hapless sellers trying to sell their house by lottery, start reappearing might also be a good sign that they bottom is near.

Last time around the government suspended stamp duty to stimulate the market. Now that could easily happen again if the market collapses. It will offer buyers lowerprices and less up front fees.

No response from opromark today, however I note they have today updated their homepage as I requested and have removed the claim that you can sell properties and make a capital gain. It looks like they have removed the offending misleading statement, so hopefully that will be the end of it, but you never know. I still think they should also note that they are not actually a financial exchange, and so are not regulated by the FSA, similar to binarybet.com etc.

I couldn't agree more. A friend bought an old sixties house and converted it. It would be hard to to think it was not an original old farmhouse now. I am looking for a plot away from anyone else, as I am used to living in a field with no neighbours and with so many kids (5) I want more smaller rooms than less bigger rooms which is hard to find. The home we are renting (no chance of it coming up for sale) was converted into two from one farmhouse then converted back so it does have lots of little rooms. It's perfect really but could do with more land as the kids are getting older. When that elusive plot becomes available I know that temptation may prove too great. That said, with our family size ever growing, I hope the old woman will give up her shoe.

I can only agree. I am registered with plotsearch etc but land costs seem worse than property. It seems to make more sense (in my case) to buy a smaller existing place with land and to try and extend. That said it is more a battle with the missus. I would love to design my own home but she wants something with "history", i.e. bloody old and leaky.

They could have found the site in loads of ways as I link and cross reference and advertise all my sites to help with their general search engine placement. I'm also used to fighting these kind of approaches, but in this case I was surprised that there were no initial email from the company of complaint to discuss why I am concerned, just straight into threats. This does make it seem a bully attempt, but hopefully they will consider my detailed reply and add the warnings I have asked. Long may they flourish, but they must be up front with potential customers. I can't take back the personal info that is now stored on their database, and I would never have registered if it had noted that live trading is not actually live and that it is not actually regulated as it is a "proper" exchange in the regulated by an independent body sense.

I've just received a solicitor's letter from these people after I found that there appears to be no current mechanism for selling/offloading any shares that you buy despite the homepage clearing stating that capital gains can be made by selling the shares. I registered having read their FAQ, stating that they are an exchange, but only once registered, I was able to find only a handful, about 18, properties listed not to trade (ie buy or selll) but only to "register an interest" to buy not a chance to buy a share in the traditional understanding of an exchange. The FAQ clearly states that " "All trading activity within Opromark is carried out on the exchange". Concerned I thought I would check with the regulator but soon found that they are not regulated by the FSA because they are not a real exchange but define themselves as a "non-profit-making club". I could not find this info on the site. The FAQ clearly states that the site is an exchange But it is not in the legal, protecting investors with regulatory affiliation sense. I onl;y found out they were not a real financial exchange by searching for 'opromark' and 'unregulated' on Google to find these "tread carefully" articles. £1 to get on first rung of property ladder? Tread very carefully The Scotsman They seem very unhappy that I noted on my site that they only have 18 property for purchase and warning people to email them and seek further clarification before sharing sensitive personal information. This site doesn't just take the regular personal info, but as you would expect from an exchange, takes financial and banking details. Here's a copy of their letter. I replied to let them know that the site clearly states that shares can be sold but this is not the case, and that a bone fide exchange would be regulated by the FSA. I await their reply. I will keep you posted. I am not calling this service a scam, they may be totally legit just badly organised perhaps, but wiith all the very real scams on the net, I couldn't help but feel tricked having registered for this service only to find no actual exchange, but a list of just 18 properties that I could only register and interest to buy, with not mechanism to sell shares, as stated on the homepage. Considering that they taking your bank details, it doesn't seem unfair to warn people to "tread carefully" as other press outlets have warned and email them first to seek further reassurance. I have asked them to simply add a warning on their site that live trading is not actually available yet and hopefully they should also clearly note that they are not an exchange, but a non-profit club, and as such, the customer has not regulatory protection. I like the idea but the difference between the homepage claims and the live service, and the lack of regulation seem to warrant some care, or am I being too sensitive? opromark_legal_to_homedaq.pdf opromark_legal_to_homedaq.pdf

Don't panic. Patience is very difficult but will be worth it. I started updating the affordability graph with the latest data last night and a prediction on the next quarter which I will post over the weekend. It is very encouraging. But, IF this decline stops, then be happy renting and look at it as a nice way to live comfortably and debt-free. You will have the freedom to change jobs, downsize, do more stuff you like instead of being chained to debt. How many people can say that?

Weren't there independent companies offering negative equity insurance after the last crash? If so, it would be interesting to see a chart of their premium rates over the past 12 months. I know you can sell a future with IG Index etc (not recommending it just noting their existence), but I am sure I read bout specific home neg eq insurance.

Don't the new(ish) bankruptcy laws make the process of going into and out of bankruptcy much quicker now? Is it 2 or 3 years?

Well, it's a problem. Rates up a little and those struggling to pay their bills go under, rates go down a little and the same people borrow more to keep afloat a little longer. Perhaps now is the time for Bob Geldof to call for Interest R8 - a moratorium on UK consumer loan repayments.

The dutch still get a massive tax break for mortgage interest relief. I recall it was about 45% of my gross monthly payment which is why multiples 6-7 years ago of salary were 6-8 times I think Please correctme if I am wrong, Amsterdam took a toll on my memory I don't see why it should be so different however, from the last time I took an active interest, the threat of a reduction in this mortgage relief as the economy slowed down has kept things cool. I also think that building regulations are much tougher there so with significantly fewer new builds, demand is always likely to be high enough to prevent a major crash. I think the govt was working on relaxing these regulations. EDIT: Also, as my memeory returns, it is much more expensive to buy property in the Netherlands in terms on taxes and duty, usually coming in around 10% of the agreed purchase price. Perhaps that leads to less speculative purchases? And you have to have an HIV test to get mortgage, but what that has got to do with anything I don't know. In fact I had to have two as if you borrow over a certain amount, you have to go for the "super" medical.

I think many commentators are agreed that house prices need to fall 30% to come back to their real values (which this simple formula results in), so I guess they are also writing off the bubble growth since Feb 2002 and reapplying a realistic inflationary increase as I have. It's a common sense approach by just removing the froth and adding a regular increase but when the market will fall into line is the big question. It also shows that the "30%" figure hasn't just been plucked out of thin air but has been calculated with a little thought and reason.