Papa Lazarou

It was working fine for me until a few days ago, now I am getting lots of javascript errors, and the site doesn't seem to be up.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25876927 Not sure I have seen this anywhere? - Robert Peston article. Quote I have learned that the governor of the Bank of England would like the Treasury to reduce the maximum size of loan that qualifies for a government-backed Help to Buy mortgage from £600,000 to perhaps £350,000 or £400,000. He later updates the article with..... Quote. 'The Bank of England has given me this statement in response to my story on the Governor's position on Help to Buy: "The assertion that the governor would like the Treasury to reduce the maximum size of loan that qualifies for a Help to Buy mortgage is completely without foundation." For what it is worth, I stand by everything I wrote.' I wonder if there's anything to it? The comments are all on the same side too.

get rid of land registry and then use the ONS figures instead. Since records began.... post 2007 bubble?

I don't understand this. So who will keep a record of who owns what? Surely the ownership of property needs to be registered somewhere official? That said, shares are traded and registered with 'clearing houses' and government has access to that. Perhaps there is too much work to do for them to find out who actually owns all the properties and are giving a private company the incentive to do it for them?

To clarify. He didn't say "no one in kent". He said his estate agency personally hasn't hasn't completed one sale with help to buy. Also, he didn't say the couples were paying through the offer, he said people moving out of London were. I asked who were my competition in that price range and he said people moving out of london and first time buyers. Sorry if it wasn't clear - i was rambling. One point he did mention is that January is a quiet month, and Feb, March and April should be busy. One SMALL positive is that he said he expects some reluctant landlords of 2007 to begin offering their properties. Which is nice.

When staunch bears are turning you know something is very very wrong. Went to see the estate agent yesterday just to get a better finger on the pulse. I live in SE London / Kent. He said people are offering over asking price. e.g. property on for 300, people offering 350k. and he has to tell them to reduce to £320k because the valuation will be out. But the buyers don't seem to care. He said a lot of buyers are either central London people moving out, or young 30-35 year old couples buying their first homes. He said they geared up for Help To Buy when it started - shop window full of adverts etc, but hasn't had a single house bought through HTB. So they will deny that HTB has itself increased demand, because no one is actually using it. But it was definitely the catalyst for this in my opinion. Also people coming in as cash buyers £350k to spend buying up houses to rent out. Seeing at least £30k a month increases in asking prices. He said he didn't see a bubble, just that the area was undervalued and was now coming 'in line' with the rest of London. These are houses that are good family homes (3 bed with room to extend etc). Last year selling for 250k, now being bought for £350k, many of which need complete refurbs. I am compelled to feel panicked by it all. But isn't that the sign of a bubble - people tripping over themselves to buy, whatever the price? £100k increase in a year is 8 years worth of rent. So it's a case now of buying, or planning to rent for at least a few more years until the election is over. The only thing left before the election is April's budget. If nothing is done in that, then it's game over until after the election. Completely disgusted by it all to be honest.

Does anyone get the feeling Miles Shipside was 'got to' by the government? I remember last year he was a lot more anti HPI and I thought his comments were as rounded as they could be. Now he sounds just like an estate agent. I guess when he has banners across his entire site for Help To Buy then one wonders. "Take the 10x market rate advertising money and toe the line Shipside"!!

It doesn't help that Carney has provided House market "Forward Guidance". Why sell now, when Carney has told you prices will keep going up until 2016? To my mind, him making public his predication that house prices will continue to go up is only going to make the problem worse.

So by that reckoning we should all be 'piling in' right?

So Government are saying: Bank of England will step in to stop price rises (well actually they don't say to 'stop price rises' they've coined the term 'bubble'). And the BoE are saying (We'll stop a bubble (which we will never admit is happening), but growth in prices is fine and is down to a 'lamentable' lack of houses (not an abundance of cheap credit) - talk to your government about the lack of housing. So both are looking to the other one, whilst both doing nothing. They have even gone so far as to predict the very price rises that people are complaining about. They are not going to stop them. They clearly don't want price stability, they want house price growth - both the government and the BoE? Can someone please give me some counter arguments because I see no other option now....

I was honestly thinking the MPC would potentially step in to cool the market by raising LTVs and in turn stopping HTB, but the way Carney is talking it's as if he's wants prices to continue at the same pace and that it's a good thing. Now that he has predicted something, he's hardly going to step in to prove himself wrong is he? He will only step in if the banks start committing fraud (again).

tks. Perhaps they just haven't approved it yet.

Hi guys - sorry quick question - does anyone know who moderates the "House prices and the economy" board today? I posted a fairly long topic this morning based on Labour's Property company "labour party properties ltd" and it doesn't seem to have made it through - wanted to ask them why.

My point was more that the suggested solution is always "Why doesn't the government help support these people" (and thus supports the status quo, and costs us money). Why don't they change laws or introduce disincentives that solve the causes such as too much credit availability, restrictive planning system, tax incentives for BTL and so on. This would not cost the government any money would it? That's my point. They are always 'supporting' with money, rather than removing supporting laws and incentives which would cost them no money, and actually save them money in terms of housing benefit.

The article makes it sound as though people will need help with their costs (i.e. government subsidy or benefit. "why doesn't to government step in and help these people"). Why does no one in the media ever say that to help perhaps rules need to be put in place to LOWER the costs? Why are we always supposed to subsidise costs and keep them high? The media (as our supposed voice) has a lot to answer for in terms of our current situation.