MrMonkey

Why so blue, Deano?

I caught the BBC's summary of the newspaper front pages last night. Despite the news about snowfall and Brexit dominating the headlines, the paper reviewers addressed this headline first. Their insight? We always see drops in December. A small drop in asking prices and the Government's stamp duty exemption make this a great time for FTBs. Expect more mad gainz soon! We'll see.

Given the speculation about a deterioration in public finances, I doubt that the Chancellor is going to be able to backtrack on any of his current tax plans. Especially considering that landlords are one of the easiest sources of tax revenue, with high-value assets which are made of bricks and can be seen on Google Maps. It is also one of the few government policies which is popular with younger voters. Of course, we should not discount the possibility that the Government will do something short sighted to try to kick start the housing market yet again.

Out of interest, where abouts are you?

Disgusting. These people are victims of a landlord willing to trade people's basic rights for profit. I know that migrants in cramped accommodation get little sympathy with many, but they are the oppressed in these situations. The media has, for years, informed us that migrants are the cause of social problems, whereas in reality they are the victims of exploitation. Landlords who treat people in this way deserve everything which the legal system can throw at them.

From the BBC article: Hopefully when the less professional landlords sell up then we will have more of a 'functioning private rented sector'. I look forward to seeing dilapidated HMOs being put on the market with the same asking price of well maintained three bedroom family homes. It should be a bit of a wake up call to many landlords that their 'pension' is not as liquid or valuable as they have convinced themselves.

If Governments could control house price declines then there would never have been a house price crash in history. For the last decade the Government has been spinning a lot of plates to keep prices up. Sure, they can keep three or four plates going at once. Maybe even half a dozen for a short time. But it will come to a point where a few pages start crashing. You can not spin plates forever. Either you choose to stop or you run out of plates. The Government may be able to keep a loud on things for a while. But when things get bad (good) they will have as much power over the housing market as King Canute did over the sea.

Today's figures are just a positive headline, with the downwards 'correction' a short while later to go unreported.

Maybe not a direct financial benefit. But if you get sick and need a doctor, then you want the doctor who was the smartest kid in his class. Not the one wealthy enough to study a medicine degree. That is when the rest of society benefits from free university education.

In a bubble, nobody thinks they will be unable to get out in time. The bullish ones will think we are seeing a small downward blip, other people are simply following the herd. By the time those in the middle and back of the herd realise what is happening, it will be too late to get out.

Then you pay the tax. It may sound harsh, but if you can afford to run two households for one family then you should be able to pay for the social impact that this creates.

EAs should be welcoming this report. It should back up what they have seen over the last few months - that owners need to be more conservative with their price if they want to sell. Rather than blaming the EA if they do not find a buyer within a week willing to pay 30% more than last year's purchase price of a similar property. The smart EAs will be telling sellers to go a bit low today (before the herd realises that prices are falling) rather than having to go even lower in six months time. They get paid commission on sales, and there is no commission if the price is higher than a buyer is willing to pay.

An aging population means that fewer people are dying young, which means more people around at any one time. Population change involves two stats, population additions and population subtractions. If the number of people being taken out of the population calculation (through deaths and emigration) is lower then the additions (through births and immigration) then this will have a net growth effect. Basically, all the people who used to die at 70 and are now living to 80 are adding to the population figures for an additional ten years.

Anyone who is using a 'leggings agency' to manage their property is frankly asking for trouble.

If I go to a primitive society and claim that I can make the crops grow, and make a big ceremony out of my rituals, then I would be worshipped as a God if the harvest was large. Of course, when there is a drought later on I will be sacrificed by the angry people who see me as the problem, rather than the chancer that I was.