BTON-BKK

Gosh that was a quick reply chute !! OK i thought that would be the arguement all you bears would present as the proof i am wrong. And this is where we disagree . Yes i too remember the previous crash of the nineties but i don't remember it as loads of people , enough to affect the market , being forced to sell to avoid repossession . I remember it as , yes , lots of price falls and many people being repossessed but only enough to force a 15-20% fall in prices and again , only those who had overextended themselves. Not so dissimilar to now is it ? This time i think there is one differance , and again i carp back to my last comment of my last post , i think you all underestimate people's wealth in Brighton and Hove. Compared to the nineties reccession people are wealthier this time round and more able to resist financial pressure's. I mean , who on here is in such difficulties they can see repossession looming? No-one i bet. You're all doing ok i'm sure. How can chute say when interest rates go up so many people will ber repossessed as to force prices down in Brighton and Hove? How can he know that? Its just guessing . I know no-one remotely in financial difficulties , and all my customers take great pleasure in telling me how well they are doing. Tradespeople like builders etc have never been so busy for the very reason i said in the last post , people are making improvements to their own places rather than try to sell. If you phone an electrician , builder , plumber , gardener you'll be lucky if they can fit you in this month .. they're all rushed off their feet. Nope i'm sorry but in Brighton and Hove there's a lot of money I guess we will have to agree to disagree and time will tell who is right.

I wanna house, i did reply in a massive post taking hours to write which the system this forum runs on decided to block me from sending.. i have no idea why. Also i lost the post because i could see no way to save it and retrieve it again. So you'll just have to take my word for it that i did reply but couldn't post it. You can understand i'm sure that the feeling of deflation after spending hours writing it only to lose it is such that i don't feel inclined to try it again , and if it did it may not allow me to send it again too!!. So .... i have read your posts and those of Tired of Waiting. Understand i am not really disputing a lot of what you are both saying and TOW's economic arguements are sound and correct. However even after reading his last post he still hasn't shown why prices MUST fall. He has shown that in theorey they should , but , HERE'S THE IMPORTANT BIT, suppose people just sit tight and refuse to sell , refuse to reduce their prices more than they have done already , and say to themselves "you kn ow what, we'll refurbish and try again when prices have gone back to where they were" So many ARE doing just that ... refurbish , extend and stay put. Now if that happens prices don't fall do they? PS why i keep emphasising that we are only talking about Brighton area here is that , like it or not , Brighton is a hot- spot- in- demand area and i was just distinguishing it from the ghettos of some other towns where no doubt prices have fallen by 50%. Now when i asked why things can't just stay as they are at present and prices not fall, TOW's reply was that they can't because the govt can't keep pumping money into the economy. Yes true but so what? What has them pumping money in or not got to do with people being FORCED to reduce prices? Maybe he's not understanding my point so i'll personalise it purely for the point of clarity .... ok .... so take me . I am thinking i may like to move next year to a bigger house. Now my house price has fallen by about 15% from the very peak according to similar sale and offered prices . Just for now don't argue with the figures but accept them as a given . Right , now the crucial bit , lets assume i put my house on for say £500,000 (fictitious amount for illustration purposes) down from say £575000 at the peak , and i get a lot of viewings but only two offers from I wanna house and Tired of Waiting. They both say look the economy is awful and we think house prices must fall by 35% from their peak so we are both going to only offer you £375,000 . Now whats to stop me saying , thanks for the laugh guys but i think i'll stay put and tough it out. Now i could do this until the day i die actually although i wouldn't want to cos i do want to move. So my point is how can either of them FORCE me to sell at a lower price. I can stay put forever , so their arguement that prices MUST fall only applies if enough people HAVE to sell to avoid repossession. And they just don't .. there are just not enough of them. Maybe i'm just not getting it but i've given you both an example above which applies to me and i guess to a large proportion of homeowners. So you see prices may in theorey be due to fall , but i can't see you've proved they have to. I think you are both underestimating people's ability to adjust their budjets to the situation and i also think you are both seriously underestimating the wealth behind most people in this area. Fascinating debate , i'll be happy to continue it if you or others wish.

Seems i've lost my big post but i will just reply to the last couple of posters here. Joeschmo you are spot on ... shell what planet are you on? Tired of Waiting... i'm not sure anyone is disputing most of what you say in your posts ... what you have failed to show though is the link between us being in financial problems as a country and the definate fall (crash) in house prices. Yes we are in a mess but you can be sure the government will find a way out as the alternative is the country goes under .. can't happen so a solution will be found. Meanwhile can you explain childlike to an idiot like me why houseprices in this area MUST crash as a result of our present troubles and why , instead, they cannot remain as they are and have been throughout this reccession.? Thats the answer i want to hear.

Guys.. i just spent nearly 2 hours tying an enourmously detailed reply only to hit the add reply button and find it comes up with "you do not have authority to reply" or some such thing. Is there any tool on this site i can recover the post or is it gone.? If gone i don't have the inclination to re-type that all again today.

OK i wannahouse and chute , i will reply this afternoon. Busy at work just now ..

Thanks to Joeschmo for his understanding and intelligent posts. Contrast this with the insulting sarcastic posts of renewable and the daft comment by shell ... half price in two years. Joeschmo, there is nothing you can do with the likes of renewable other than put straw down !! I don't think i will bother to post more , this thread is infested by daft people who for one reason or another haven't bought a house and probably never will. They are waiting for a price fall which will never be enough to make them actually buy ,cos they will always want more , they probably can't get the finance anyway , and in 10 years time when we are all sitting pretty on our risen house prices with little or no mortgage they wil still be renting with no money to their name because they never invested it at the right time but spent it instead. See renewable , i can be insulting too. And just because i am THINKING of moving up in the next year , doesn't mean i have to rush out to buy like you sarcastically suggest i should be , even if i think prices will rise .. which i do... because i think the price rise will be small so the differential will be only slightly bigger , and there isn't the right property out there for me now .. i have looked already. I did agree with the previous poster ,who renewable idolises, who said the economy was a bubble , i just said that a bubble doesn't ever have to completely burst if interest rates and recovery go hand in hand ... which they are and will . So to all you guys desperate for a price crash, it won't happen . And secretly i think the more intelligent ones of you know that. Its only the daft troll ones , who probably couldn't buy a house if they were £1000 each who get a kick out of spreading doom and gloom. I'll revisit this thread in a few months ... cos there wont be no price crash in the meantime. Sorry for the vicious tone of this post but the likes of renewable make my blood boil. If he cares to make a non-sarcastic , non-insulting post i will gladly reply.

Me again, Having re-read through as many past postings on this thread as i can stand in one sitting , i come away with one conclusion. This enourmous thread is made up principally of two groups... those who have a property and so want to see prices rise , or at least not fall, and what seems like a more vocal half who want to buy and who desperately want prices to fall. Understandably. What surprises me a little , and bear in mind none of us really know whats going to happen, is how convinced the bears are despite all the current evidence showing they are wrong. They demand and categorically state prices will drop like a stone yet here we are over a year on and it still hasn't happened. Does it not occur to all you bears that maybe , just maybe , its not going to happen.? As i said in a previous post there is no compelling reason why , IN THIS AREA, prices should fall more than the small adjustment of 10-15% we have already seen. Demand to live here is high , as always , and there is certainly no glut of properties on the market. So why , pray tell me , when we are starting to get the first signs that the reccession is ending , do you think that prices will plummet now when throughout the reccession they have only dropped a little. ? And to those who think i am just trying to drive up prices with bullish talk, actually no i'm not. Although i am not actively looking to move right now , i do want to move say next year to a bigger place so actually i want prices to fall because then the differential would be smaller for me . I just don't believe they will. And yes i agree the economy is just a bubble , but by keeping rates so low until the economy recovers again the government , which i am no fan of at all, has effectivally stopped a price crash and prevented the bubble from bursting.

Just to clarify i am not an Estate Agent or landlord or developer.. i have my own (completely unrelated ) business in the town. From where i am sitting i don't see the reccession that is apparently all around us with firms going bust etc. I see hoards of people packing out the shops buying just as they did before . I am LOOSLEY in the holiday business (not a travel agent) and i can tell you that as many people as before are going on holiday , the only differance to before is that they are taking even more spending money with them !! So no reccession there then !! The poster who said that most of Brighton workers average earnings will not buy a house is right .. yes at present you will struggle even with a huge dposit and a good salaried job. You still can't buy because of the much tighter lending criteria. He is right, BUT that does not mean that prices will fall. The market will just stagnate with vastly lower turnover. And thats exactly what HAS happened. !! BTW me buying and selling 10 properties over 20 years seemed to have confused some of you . Not really, i just tend to move every two or three years thats all. Had a couple of BTL's in the past , but got rid of them a couple of years back. Like most people (thus i take no credit for doing as most others do) i don't overextend myself in my borrowing history so if and when bad times come , like this last year and a half , i simply sit it out , just like most others can and do. Thats why there is no price crash ... most people don't have to reduce or sell. They simply sit and wait. And why not? You have to remember my comments are always directed at our local Brighton area market. Other less desirable areas have seen all sorts of things happen and i can't comment on them. But our local market is relatively stable . Demand to live here will always be high because it is a nice place to live . A lot of people will go through life never owning a house because they are always waiting for the price to fall. And then when it does fall a little they wait , cos it might fall more . Then greed sets in and they want a 50% reduction....and so on... and then they die , having never owned a house but happy that they never overpaid for one . My guess is that as we pull out of this reccession slowly next year , lending criteria will loosen a fair bit , suddenly mortgages will become much more available and then buyers will step in and prices will rise . Maybe no more booms like before , but a more managed rise . Surely even the most deluded on here (the 30% plus price drop brigade) cannot be seriously suggesting that prices will be lower in 10 years time than now ? Or maybe they are , and they will still be without a home still arguing that prices are about to crash. I do pity those trying to get on the housing ladder, its harder than ever. But just wishing and proclaiming price crashes does not mean it will happen. Stay in the real world .

Hi everyone .. my first post. I've read this forum with interest as a guest for many months now and thought it time to put my views .I have lived in Brighton since birth and studied the property market for some 20 years , during which time i have bought and sold maybe 10 properties .. so not without experience. Although neither bull or bear at present , especially as i'm not looking to move in the immediate future, i am AMAZED by the posts here that predict with certainty these huge price falls ... so many are saying 30..40.. even 50% falls. !! Why do people waste their time making such crazy posts. ??. It was obvious from the start that due to the explosive house prices we saw from say 2004- spring 2007 that a correction had to take place , and it did by about 10- 15% downwards in the Brighton area. This was as predicted and makes for good common sense. Anyone expecting more IN THIS AREA is deluded..its not happened and it won't .. in fact now you will see a slow very slow price rise over the next year as those wanting to buy decide they have waited long enough , and its apparent that no furthur falls will occur. Those desperate to sell through neccessity / repossession have done so , anyone still in the market can afford to sit it out , hence the rather low number of properties for sale compared to the boom years. Nice houses in this area , say a 4 bed detached , went for around the 750000 mark in spring 2007. So those predicting a 50% crash were expecting to pick up these houses for 375000 !! Amazing. They have sunk to around 650-700000 and not lower and are now rising in asking price. Contrary to what the newpapers like to print (cos it sells newspapaers) the reccession in Brighton has not been so severe and there is plenty of money around. I could go on but i'll leave it there for now and see what others think.

test