Duplex

Looks like the Tories are taking a leaf from the Japanese bubble play book (Government Housing Loan Corporation/ Japan Housing Finance Agency etc. ) Or how to prolong the economic damage a burst housing bubble can wreak from years to decades.

Have a butchers at 'Property Market Reports' from the Valuation Office dating back to 1983. Residential; agricultural and industrial land price statistics. VOA Reports

Thank Godon we have retained the ability to devalue our currency and quantitatively ease our way out of recession unlike the Europeans.

I'm a surveyor who posted here and I know many surveyors who were equally dubious about the property bubble market in the UK, please don’t damn a whole profession on the basis of an article in the Guardian. The truth is that buyers and investors didn’t want to know; they had hit pay dirt and no force on Earth was going to keep them from the mother load. Possibly the Guardian might want to look at the role of the media in ramping the whole sorry mess.

Another way of looking at what may be a fair discount rate is by constructing an 'equated yield'. Take the yield on ten year UK Gilts (about 4%) and add a risk premium to account for sector risk. In the case of BTL the risk premium would have to account for factors like certainty of rental income; repairs/refurbishment, legislative risk, etc. My stab in the dark would be a risk premium of 3-5% for BTL depending on location and building type. That would suggest a discount rate of about 7-9% for Uk BTL.

Sorry to interject. But have the Brits discovered a cure for speculative excess? If so please contact Bank of Japan, PO box 123 Tokyo, Japan. Shank you.

Rents have started to fall in Ireland. Daft Report May 2008

Yes

Well she seems well qualified to deal with life's tribulations. Thinking that works

Still watching.

I'm in the not sure camp. (how camp can you get ) But living in Ireland gives me a slightly different prospective. 1. House prices have fallen 15-20% over the past 18 months. 2. Share prices on the ISEQ have fallen by 35% in the past year. 3. Broad money supply growth M3 has fallen from 30% pa to 9% in 6 months. 4. Inflation has started to fall. 5. Last months unemployment rate at 4.9% is at it's highest in seven years. Based on the old adage that if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck. Well it's beginning to resemble a duck.

You can't reflate a bubble.

Another retail wasteland.

Sunday Business Post