Topher Bear

It means that thier methods cannot cope with the very small number of sales right now. It also suggests that they do not see them growing in number anytime soon! If it makes it more accurate, it can only be a good thing.

Thinking about the calls for better social mobility and the problems with thier statistical science on the subject as blown apart on radio 4 more or less this lunchtime, I have had a thought. A big factor in social mobility is that money stays in a family for generations. If they are serious about improving social mobility, they should make inheritance tax 100% on the whole estate, ie people get nothing, maybe save, personal items. Its perfect. Everyday taxes could be a lot lower, oaps no longer worry about not selling thier house to fund care home fees. No one gets an unfair leg up from inheritance, families would find in very hard to build up much funds for the bank of mum and dad, social mobility would have more to do with ability than parentage. House prices shouldn't get out of control, no more inherited places being left empty or put out to rent. Before you in telling me it wouldn't work, people would find ways around it, bla, bla, bla. I know. It is a flight of fancy that I just had to share, that is all.

Yes, but have the workers recovered from the last enforced shutdown. Swindon is already suffering quite badly at the moment. With nearbye raf lyneham shutting next year, i'm already seeing the effects of this, particularly in calne. In this area honda is a pretty big employer. I think many workers suffered financially last time due to overlarge mortgages. This could a step too far. I will watch with interest.

N. Ireland also had the biggest rises too, no doubt dragged up by Rep. Ireland prices. And of course now, dragged down by same in crash mode! Look at the old data and it looks like N. Ireland did not have a boom in the late 80's either, always assumed that was because of the troubles, but maybe it was coz Rep. Ireland did not have a boom?

I spent a significant period on benefits about 6/7 years ago. Yes I got HB and CT benefits and jobseekers, and also strangely working tax credit, because I had worked fulltime during part of the financial year. It may have been a lot of money, but you know what? I never say a penny of it, all the HB went to the landlord, and still didn't cover the rent, the CT benefit only reduced the tax we had to pay, so the jobseekers would go on making up for the shorthall on these two. And the working tax credit? That dispasseared on relocating three times for jobs that turned out to be crap! Where did money for food and petrol come from? My wifes part time job. We had no money for luxuries, we still don't own a lcd or plasma tv. I don't know how some do so well out of it, but in my experience it is no picnic.

Don't worry. Its probably not that high, its a mistake and its only 100 times over limit. And then it will be considerably less by the time anyone actually drinks the water.

Well, my angle there days would be to say: Since the government clearly want a country with far more people renting than ever before, the rental laws need to be re examined. Problems we face is that if a landlord wants the property back, we only have 2 months to find a new home, which if you have children in school and no means of transport, can make it very tricky to find somewhere in such timescales such that the children do not have to change schools. It also does not seem fair for someone who has committee no financial misdemeanor to have to accept I property which does not fit thier requirements just because they do not have enough time to find somewhere better. Also the costs incurred in being forced into moving home are high, especially when times are tight and a removal firm has to be used, there are admin fees, removal fees, cleaning fees all to be paid, there can easily top £1000 for an average hard working family moving locally. This is a large chunk of money out of saving for a deposit. Also it is not right that tenants be forced to move when expecting a baby. (2 years ago we had to move, timingr were that we moved house and our son was born the next day!) I believe that tenants should have longer to find a new property and also that landlords should share in the expense of the forced move. My above suggestion would make btl less attractive to the amature landlord. Another idea would be to heavily penalise homeowners for leaving a property empty for large parts of the year. Sometimi like triple council tax for every day the property is unoccupied.

Hmm. Economists and housing experts believe we are in for a sluggish year with flat or small price falls. Since when have their predictions been correct? Therefore I conclude we will either have price rises this year of over 5% or larger falls more than -5%

In my area north wiltshire, volumes have been dropping, although asking price cuts have been continuing, nothing too much. So from my area I am not surprised to see prices rising slightly. However there are jittery feelings amongst the public sector workers I know about thier jobs, won't be lasting much longer. I now have to wait a further 6 months anyway, but this spring summer really must be make or brake time, if we don't see large supply increases and price falls by autumn winter I don't think we will, we're on for a long slow decline, in which case there is no point waiting longer.

yep, here also!! I thought it was my laptop causing me jip, its getting old and slow and was struggling with all my utility and phone checks ahead of move, so I rebooted my machine. then thought maybe i'd caught a virus in explorer so tried firefox, and now the mobile...zilch, nowt, nothing! Can I call a Black Wednesday thread now then?

The redrow development seem to be building houses people may actually want and be able to live in, but you pay about 30% more than the usual new build price. In the past, we looked at a three bed mid terrace. I would describe it as a small 2 bed! And a railway line was about 40 yards from the back door. Or for the same price I could get a 1950s good sized three bed in best area of town with I big garden! We have rented many houses both old and new. New burke quality seems poor and rooms are small. On the whole would rather buy an older place.

It struck me only the other day why I don't like the look of modern estates. It is the lack of front gardens. Everywhere you look is brick, concrete and tarmac. No green anywhere!

If average wages around £20k and average house price is around £160k. This puts price to income ratio more like 8x. So if wages fallen by £1k, then that should slice £8k off average house price. It also does not consider reduction in benefits such as child tax credits, and the increase tax hike.

Up early for the f1 race. Shocked to discover that radiation at the plant has rocketed. Bbc say that the workers have been evacuated. The plant is on its own again! They still seem to be suggesting that there might not be a leak, as they can't find one!! How much more radiation do they need to see before they admit there is a problem and they have a cracked reactor core!

Diesel is the only way to drop co2 emissions. Long distance driving is only low emission with diesel, electric can't deliver in this area. Around town is a different story but people need to have a long distance runner in the household.

Although this is an important chart, affordability cf disposable income, it is only part of the story. The other big part is typical required deposit against disposable income. Also to consider is average equity to all homeowners. If they have little equity due to higher number of interest only mortgages, then this will impact upon thier ability to trade up or even across. But I agree that prices may not fall as much as some hope or expect due to the rpi vs cpi as I mentioned the other day in another thread.

Why would landowners sell? If they are not trying to sell now, there seems no extra benefit to sell under this scheme. When I have looked at land with planning permission, it always seems to be already pretty described as to exactly what can be built. I think a better scheme would be to have a 'consent to build' on land that describes how many and of what size and stories can be built, then it is up to the builder to put in detailed plannings. In this way the landowner gets am easy medium uplift, the council then get a large payment from the builder which covers the final uplift to full planning consent. The builders get either the pleasure of living thier or selling it on. If you see what I mean.

Does depend on if you mean price it is today or price we expect / want it to be?

Since we all tend to agree that inflation figures have been skewed in recent years not least by shift to cpi, then any comparison of inflation adjusted prices is going to provide results which look worse than they are. The fact that bread price rises are higher than house price rises demonstrates this fact well. I'm sure there is a great economic research paper in this for the scholarly types.

Due to the notice period ending on april 23rd and us only able to move into new property on 21st, this has caused a problem for our landlord. Our agents just tell up today they cannot do checkout on easter saturday. Landlords reaction was to want the keys back on Good Friday, he is told he is not legally entitled to this, much to his annoyance! Result is we do checkout on tuesday 26th and get to keep the place without rent for 3 extra days. As I say, only a minor victory!

Actually, thinking about it. This might help things out. How many individual btl's, the ones who have priced us out, actually buy in bulk? Not many I would think. But it might make it cheaper to buy up those empty streets in the north. Buy 'em up, do 'em up and rent them out. Result is more properties in play and a stronger supply overall. These would be new rental properties and not ones anyone would normally buy. Small fry, anyway.

Something to bear in mind. Many builders already operate thier own homebuy schemes. So this won't make much difference. I think such schemes are propping up indeces as often the hbos values are up while existing house values are down. Means that the index rise has come from a rise in new build prices. The current homebuy direct scheme from the government applies only to selected new builds. The early part of the scheme had money for any house purchased, but this part quickly ran out of money and wasn't replaced.

The homebuy direct scheme was/ is available on only a select few properties. The ones the builders can't shift because they are the crapest ones. If it was on a decent one, I have my eye on a 3 bed detached was 251k now 247k, that would be 25k government 25k builder and 13k me, well lets say 15k. That means I need to get a mortgage for 185k. Thats not possible let alone the repayment cost. Also most lenders won't lend on such deals, which means you are restricted to only the ones tied up with the deals and whats the betting that thier rates are way higher than the best I've found so far! I've lost faith that they will ever see the obvious; that they only need these schemes because prices are just way too high! Of course it only props up new prices, former owner occupiers will be left hanging with even fewer buyers if it makes any difference at all! 6 months i'm giving it then I give up, that'll be when the new fixed term expires. Also at figures quoted they are expecting average prices to be 250k. But I thought average prices were around 160k. Shows you much more you pay for a new house!

While filling out my latest tenant referencing form I got the urge to contact the company doing the referencing to tell them how unfair i think it is that landlords get to refrence us but we don't get to reference the landlords. I have decided to search the net for all online referencing companies and send them an e-mail/ online contact us section to tell them so. This is what I am saying: Perhaps if enough people contact enough agencies, they may consider it. As I point out to them its another nice little earner, makes good business sense! Anybody want to join me in my campaign?

I don't believe the reason the helicopters were not stationary over the reactor was radiation. If you watch them in action over forest fires they are not stationary. Helicopters are good at collecting the water but on dropping it is best to do it while moving as this spreads the water over a wider area. In this instance it makes it more likely at least some will reach its target. Of course to keep moving also keeps the exposure time down which is a good thing but it doesn't mean anything else is lethal.