Kinky John

Sounds like a great idea to do with a windfall provided you aren't over-mortgaged. A small amount of gearing won't hurt .. just take "normal", divide it by 5 and then you'll be sweet. Plus any bank will love to have you. As a currency hedge it's a pretty silly idea, doubly so as the UK balance of payments is effectively corrected by the huge inflows into UK housing assets from abroad. If the currency drops sharpy houses will drop even more sharply. .. and conversely if houses drop sharply then the currency will drop sharply. Different dynamic of course if the falls are not that large .. but once the reverse self re-enforcing cycle is triggered it will go on and on and on. Why I'm pretty certain there won't be anything left of value in this country by the time it does. To hedge debasement you would typically buy shorter term treasuries of some stable country. The US dollar still counts and I believe Norway always used to be fashionable (because of the huge oil reserves). These days .. guns, beans, antibiotics, a 4x4 with a cattle grid and an "I don't stop for central bankers" car sticker probably makes more sense.

So somebody made rich by ridiculously easy money is going to spend his money easing the problems caused by ridiculously easy money. Maybe it's just me, but wouldn't there have been a more efficient way of dealing with this?

Good work on behalf of the law society as it's what they're there for. Good work on the part of the government for sticking it to buy to let. Try being in another business and watch yourself get charged 50% as income tax on your share sales (happened to me). Let's hope it all comes good. I can see why there wasn't a "consultation," on it though.

Good point .. but in London I'm not sure being disabled is legal as disabled people take up far too much space. God forbid .. if they were allowed in we might actually be forced to build on the green belt (the collection of disused warehouses and abandoned factory lots near the M25).

I'll second that .. the things I've seen in those sink estates almost defy description and man was it depressing living even somewhere flash like Longsight. Awesome clubbing in the 90s though. Gave up and moved to Hadfield which I loved (it's a local town for local people).

That's probably a genuine threat .. but I'm sure we'll get a prize for the conflict of interest in investigating our own corrupt property market while it funds our trade deficit but not our tax base. Damn that one is balanced on a knife edge - did he go to Eaton too? hope it's a better free prize than last time.

I like the wording in that article ... if I might quote the article verbatim. Thank god it's not 32.5% ... was getting worried for a second there. Isn't it amazing that we know what will happen at exactly an indeterminate time in the future. Thank god I spent all that time studying maths .. or I'd be completely unprepared for that.

Used to read the FT as working was unbelievable boring and it provided a sufficiently city focused approach that the rest of it's reporting seemed to retain less bias than is normal. The opinion pieces were always clearly labelled as such which makes an immense difference in how I prepare myself for the contents to the point where I can't imagine another context where I'd read something written by the pope (it was actually quite good!). It also had the wonderful and sought after property of being an "acceptable," way to not work whilst not being quite as absurd as most of the tasks I was supposed to "solve." I've really lost my love of it since I stopped being that bored and it was bought out by Pearson. I don't think the editor hasn't changed yet, but I stopped looking as when they do I'm certain the independence of the new editor will be highly questionable. Always been far too hands on to read things like the economist and greatly dislike being told what I'm supposed to think until after I've done something that breaks it .. it's so much harder to break when you know why everybody is angry at you.

z But why? surely that's better than a zone 1 flat not designed for human habitation in a block of flats nobody has lived in for 20 years with amazing views of a block of flats nobody has lived in for 20 years. Money boxes in the sky are a steal at 1.5 million I know .. but I'd pick my nails looking good as that works in any apocalyptic BOE/UK utopia and I'm all into "security." Or did I get confused about "security," again. I can be a bit special like that.

Wow .. this is grade A making children fight evil people that denied you personal profit stuff! To be clear - this is just an intense dislike of the article and the person who wrote it rather than an insult intended for the thread starter or a slight on it's relevance to HPC. As bigotry is usually just poorly expressed and mis-understood concern around a real problem it isn't unacceptable as idle chatter - but it takes that house price magic to get away with it as your considered opinion published in a news paper. It's basically just a classic good vs evil by association minority exploiting piece - I mean smokers are evil these days and small children are undeniably defenseless and innocent so smokers killing children is like evil squared. That's usually enough to understandably distract most people concerned with children and/or by smokers from thinking about who has responsibility over whom and what happens when you take the children out of the story or replace the smoking with something else we all might be guilty of or which isn't accepted as evil in it's own right. A good example might be: columnist with sick children outraged by person with bad interior designs attempts to prevent him/her from bullying them into a lower sale price as bad interior design person things it will sell for more and doesn't see why the sick children are relevant. Um ... I've got drunk and had a rage at interior design and/or ridiculous prices a few times - I understand ... but I wouldn't want to publish that as my opinion in a newspaper. It really does make no consistent sense at all. Would you really hold a smoker guilty if they engaged in a voluntary house transaction with somebody else who had children - even if it turned out the child was actually terrifyingly allergic to smoking by-products and died in a believable way (e.g. asthma). As the article notes, children have little control or awareness of environmental harms so my instinct would always be to look at the carer first if a child was harmed before I got my pitch fork out for the smoker that sold them the house it was in. I'm not much more comfortable with the idea that people with questionable interior design skills should be threatened and bullied into selling their houses for less. It's a valid tactic but I'm obviously not placing the perperator as anything more than a dirty brown and not very nice knight. I'm no more comfortable with forcing people to buy houses at ridiculous prices too but I slipped that in at the end as these days that's just me and a few crazies on here that - but I like to say it and I think my argument stands without it. Ok .. I'm going to stop there before I get really angry and go on about the LD50 of smoking residue or discuss actual causes of harm to children like poverty, war, abuse neglect, the daily mail and how you'd never get them on a chart with the evidence you collect for made up shit like that. It's really not about that - it's about house prices! glorious insanity, life in the moment and price rises for all as tomorrow you might run out of children to throw on the bonfire! And you can publish that as my satirical opinion of course ...

In other words we won't publish the important information needed to asses whether our indicators are either a. worse than useless b. drivers of the effect they cause c. dangerous attempts to cause b. I would include d. more valuable when we don't sell them to you, but the OECD is all about giving money to your friends directly as subsidy so I find it believable they would retain their original ethics structured around sales of privileged information. When it comes to sales of privilege it's different of course. I remember when I had a job - I used to be responsible for the results, not that I mind because there is no planet on which the public ones weren't better than that. I usually didn't wait till I got scared to tell everybody why I didn't think they should use them as I would make such claims in advance and say when not to use them. Not producing them was never on the cards till everybody agreed they were useless as you rarely get resistance the other way around. Definitely need to edit the word scientific out of every piece of literature they have. Edit: edited for auto-smiley nightmare

Nice (if a bit anecdotal) as a thread! Here's to hoping it's all the buy and hold carry traders getting cold feet - it's hard to be certain these properties are perma bull fear sales by just looking at the state of the property alone. A lot will just be owned by senile people that finally died or will be houses where the owner disappeared (seriously .. boil and double check the water doesn't smell of previous owner!). In those cases the Brexit uncertainty would make any responsible person messing around trying to sort out their estate get on with it before there is a rapid market move. I'd be surprised if there weren't further large market moves on Brexit to add to the ones we've already had - but I won't try and predict them. Brexit is immensely amusing because you can't bail both external and internal investors out so somebody will have to take a fall somewhere. I suspect the offshore investors account for the silly "no exit trade," empty properties but that onshore perma-bulls have probably done far more (less easily observed) damage. I would be very surprised if it's the onshore investors who pay (relatively speaking of course) unless the external investors can make them - but if they don't have exit trades .. they won't be together enough to think of it in time. When the central banks / government observably change their criteria for economic support (more likely .. are forced to) then it becomes believable that the people who messed up (the speculators) will pay the price for their stupidity - until then I suspect we will all pay the price for their stupidity with the government picking who pays the most without any reference to sustainability, fairness or our manufacturing base.This isn't a new story - but it's the first time it's applied to pretty much everything in every economy (suitably inverted where need of course) so I have a very bad feeling about the likelihood of it being addressed as well as the results of it not being addressed.

Stop .. these utopian dreams are killing me! It would be like 40 years ago .. and I can't see us getting back there without the extremely large amount of violence (2nd world war) that brought those good times around. edit: edited for more specific reference to violence.

I knew people that had canal boats (in London though) and that is a good idea depending on how many people your willing to kill for a proper mooring! Damn some of those were nice places to wake up in and a bargain at less than 10 million.

I'm sticking to my original prediction that it'll unwind like any sort of central planning with the soviet system being the classic example and the terminal state being a stagnant semi-feudal oligarchy or chaos stricken battlefield. It's worth reviewing at times like this and whilst the UK may now have significantly more risks to the downside I don't think much has changed in the west and the east is a bit of a closed book to me but I'm sure it's getting noticed there too. I would add that any radical change is far more likely to come non-violently from the east than the west as they have in their living memory the motivation whereas all we have is a lot of dispossed who don't know to blame the house price rises they love far more than themselves, which is far far more than they love others. Generational shift is probably the next obvious marker .. but who knows what life will bring. Against this backdrop an HPC is a little irrelevant although do a take a moment to reflect on the value of a non-divisable, non-exchangable, non-mutable, immensely overvalued asset and then try not to punch the next person who says they're buying one for "security." I can't really go outside very much anymore .. as I don't know whether to shift from rhetorical to violent abuse of people. I hate to say it as it's one of those scary lines to step over - but it would actually be for their own good. The only thing that stops me is I know it's not actually possible to talk sense in to anybody .. unless it's not in their personal interest to have sense talked in to them. I worked in the city for 7 years, I made my clients billions of dollars, I never ******ed up even once, I accurately anticipated and maneuvered around 2008. So obviously .. they all think I'm lying cheating stupid son of a bitch that doesn't like house prices. You'll have to forgive me if I refuse to agree even if I have to refuse to give you details because I like being left alone with my massive drug habits. And if you have to ask why I have them .. well ... that's more stupid than my average client.

Sorry to wind the thread back a bit .. but it always warms the cold cockles of my cold heart when somebody can spot the obvious fraud. It's often too outrageous / too much of a conflict of interest to believe such an extensive fabrication can continue so long. But I always say read "popular delusions and the madness of crowds," and then refute my claim of delusions with evidence or give it to me and I'll do it. I need traced source accounts on a random sample of "cash sales." Unfortunately, just like Scientology .. such evidence is not available to those who can't be made to believe. And back on topic - there will be immense financial stress on anybody with an overseas leveraged bet who receives income in Sterling (e.g. somebody based in the UK but with a loan in a foreign currency). That's basically exported manufacturing and the odd absurdly stupid property investor. But we haven't cared about manufacturing or our productive capacity for years so I don't see why we'd start now. Lower rates and big bailouts all round I'm sure. In a universe where the only rule is entropy .. the only stupid thing is doing the same thing every time. Edit: edited for clarity, speeling and more bailout!

I'm not sure what he is either .. but I am incredibly sure of one thing at least and that is how different this would be if Brexit had been a "success." He really can get away with any of those unimportant minister killing gaffs that every human being makes, and which I usually make at least once or twice a day. He must have realised he had prime minister material written all over him. Hubris, poor advice from panels of select "core" voters (Tony Blairs personal gift to the apocalypse) has achieved the inevitably destructive absurdity it always does (and those are just the public ones). He has obviously done what somebody with any hope of ever getting somewhere in politics should do. He's acting as small as he can. I mean .. who would want to be leader of the Conservatives now? He may be stupid, but I doubt he's that stupid. That's a job for the fags ... e.g. Cameron or the like.

What .. even Churchill the next generation is getting **** for this. Makes me wish I still had a TV .. nothing half an hour at sainsburys can't fix mind.

Hmm .. let me guess what he'll do .. political expediency .... 100% track record lowering interest rates ..... 100% track record greasing the palms of his mates ... 110% track record support for insane leverage everywhere especially housing .. 100% track record I'm guessing he'll have a really hard time picking only one of those objectives as the piggies who are rolling over their infinitely sized 0% interest rate US treasury contracts will be screwed if he doesn't support the pound but by engineering the largest most over-leveraged asset price absurdity in the history of all mankind he can't do that without it being obvious what a massive cluster**** he created. All it needed was some moderate house price falls a few years back and none of this would be a problem as people would be appropriately wary and the financial system would be able to handle the volatility. Oh .. and of course something slightly less insane than 0.5% interest rates (doesn't the guy know how to price an interest rate contract ffs ... he's started wars with that). Gets a AAA moron rating from me.

It's hard to know what longer term effect there will be, but it's quite clear anybody borrowing insane amounts of money in the short term treasuries market (i.e. banks .. house builders .. overprivildged morons) but who has income in sterling will be royally f*****d like they should have been 8 years ago. The funniest bit about it is that Carney can't do anything because a policy of 100% can kicking and political expediency has produced levels of leverage in the UK that are mind bogglingly unable to cope with interest rate rises and probably unable to cope with large currency moves like that. Of course .. this was entirely predictable and easily solved with only a snifter of house price drops so I have no sympathy and just want to see the piggy squeal like piggies should.

Now now .. let's not forget all the other criminals that helped make this possible starting with Blair and his witch (sorry .. wife - but that conflict of interest laden deposition on big government should be remembered), the major banking dynasties, the self satisfied property owning classes that live next door and vote themselves the contents of the treasury at every opportunity and refuse to even realise they don't pay tax and then of course there are the central bankers everywhere and their creed of neo-liberal central planned stasi informant low interest rates or bust philosophy and that's before we even start on the troughing CEO types who spray around their free money attempting to capture everything of actual value that can be tied down before the plebs get a chance with their not free money. And of course .. you can chuck camamoron, osborn and his etonite chums in there too.

Well .. you did warn me - that combined with camamoron's resignation and I've been done and wet myself in joy.

Well .. as he's a grade A moron who has made an immensely misguided attempt to gain leverage over Europe I should hope it will be very soon. And despite what the note from his mummy said .. it's not acceptable that he doesn't know how to work with Europe because none of his mates from Eaton run it. I've got a decent bottle of wine ready to celebrate of course - might as well spend that ukp while it's still worth something. In the real world with sane people - somebody would raise interest rates at this point. But Osborne and chums don't live in that world .. so here's to hoping it burns!

Awesome news! and you were absolutely spot on to go through with the hearing. Of course - it is possible to call a hearing off, but this must always be done through the court such that if the payment doesn't arrive in a timely and complete fashion the court can throw the big heavy book at the defendant while the plaintiff tries hard not to laugh too much. Nice to see a tiny bit of justice done - such a rarity in the UK rental market every instance should be savored.

Wow .. a self contradiction argument .. are you sure you might not be clever? I'm not sure that's allowed anymore. I want to vote to stay because everything in me says the employment law .. the lack of war .. the ability to flee to spain when I get caught buying too much coke etc. .. are valuable. But my self interest says go! watch those bubbles pop (ok .. they're not technically bubbles anymore - but that will do for now) and scream with laughter as the house of cards falls. What will be left afterwards will be what was worthwhile after all and it won't be founded on the collective delusion of one group paid for another. And I'll take the straight bananas for the team - provided they're still decent bananas of course.