Milo

CPI 3.1 or 3.2

This joker's lowest asking price for a 1 bed flat is £350k. I do like the 3d models on the website – but the flat? Put it underground and it could be Austria. Another overpriced flat

Different geographical coverage.

ESPC covers a large area. So for those with a more local interest, the Edinburgh for sales are as follows (excluding lockups etc). 4 Feb – 1560 total / 568 fixed 3 March – 1998 total/ 743 fixed 7 April – 2481 total / 1033 fixed 5 May – 3030 total/ 1432 fixed (47% fixed) That’s by far the highest number I’ve ever seen. Interesting that there’s a glut of rental property. About 1150 are listed for Edinburgh on www.lettingweb.com. 1060 were listed at the end of January. Meanwhile there are hundreds of newbuild, grossly overpriced, 'luxury flats coming onto the market...

How about changing tenancy laws to reduce the threat of eviction and give security to renters until they can afford to buy. How about a new ISA type scheme which encourages first time buyers to save for a bigger deposit with higher interest tax free investments/ savings. No chance. Apparently getting on the housing ladder is more important than staying on it. Hundreds of millions of £ handouts would be futile and ultimately counterproductive. Most likely are stamp duty changes -which is fine with me but will make no difference.

I'm a tank half full kind of person

If I were looking for a new place to rent now I’d try and pick an owner who bought years ago and isn’t facing financial calamity. That’s more important than whether they’re big or small. I’ve rented from people with one flat and from agents with many hundreds. On balance the agents have been better. Quicker with the repairs, less intrusion, better at managing contracts. Rent? About the same. Just my opinion, others may have had different experiences.

-0.6%

Say, a restaurant is giving people food poisoning and as a result is going out of business. Do you a. let it go bankrupt and let that be a lesson to others b. enforce strict hygiene standards through tighter regulation c. give it a big bank loan at discount prices to keep it in business. Well, we know Darling and Brown have rejected option a) and are now going with c). This is obviously dangerous unless the businesses themselves get a mighty kick up the ar$e and clean up their mess either voluntarily or by the force of the law.

Kirstie’s knowledge of what goes on the website is as superficial as her knowledge of house price indicators. She’s not the number 1 enemy, just an ill-informed buffoon. She knows nothing about housing cycles, nothing about economics, nothing about how banks work and absolutely nothing about the personal circumstances of first time buyers. What she does have is a snobby contemptuous streak: She really has no idea.

I hope you're right. I was thinking the same thing. But then I remembered who’s in charge of the government …

Indeed, Gordon has made several references to 'helping first time buyers' recently. Makes my skin crawl to listen to the man. Expect some policy anouncements soon. Removal of stamp duty another possibility.

OK, but you're making the classic mistake of applying common sense, logic and objectivity. Things of little value when dealing with the madness of rising house prices Just joking

We really need to see the small print. Gordon may want banks to lend at last years levels but will they? By now even the dumber lenders must understand that houses are overvalued. They must have run some ‘what if’ scenarios of prices dropping 20 or 30% or more. Frightening. Lenders are now trying to reduce their risk, get rid of all but prime customers. This bailout may give them the opportunity to increase lending but they would only be taking on even more crap debt and repossessions. If, as the government has promised, the risk remains with the banks then there seems little incentive to ramp up house prices further. The banks do have an incentive to keep prices from falling. This has always been the case. The bailout could well slowdown the fall but it won’t stop it. If Gordon really wants banks to lend more and take on even more bad debt then the Government also needs to provide an incentive i.e. take on the risk, the big loses. Could Brown’s ego really be so big and fragile that he would do something so stupid? Maybe. The stuff of banana republics.

From the FT: The wording isn’t clear to me, but the £50 billion closely matches and the implication is that Brown’s objective is to keep prices rising. I hope my interpretation is wrong. I certainly have doubts that the plan will work. Maybe it’s just my considerable cynicism with everything Brown does. I think he may stop at nothing to create a short period of positive news to slot in an election. FT Editorial

Think it’s the anniversary of the first letter to the Chancellor. As I recall CPI fell after that letter (strange, as we all started paying more for stuff). So, rising inflation now has a bit of double whammy effect on the averages. The negatives are replaced by positives. CPI, say 2.6, why not. But there should be bigger rises from May to September. 4% CPI by summer.

Why so angry? Calm down. No one mentioned rising prices. If you read what I wrote you'll see prices falling. The ESPC numbers, others as well.

It better than that. The 1.2% is the yoy change, not 3 months. The journalist can’t read. In Edinburgh the average price of a property fell from £215k to £210k over the quarter. In July 07 it was reported as £227,912. ESPC's Believe it or Not

Looks like you've been busy CEC to shed 1000 jobs

For those who like conspiracy theories he answers his question in his earlier work: Iran

Yes, but not a property I want to come back to every day. The longer we save the better the property we can buy.

I’m guessing that there is now a much greater proportion of FTB on joint incomes. If so, reference to single salary multipliers (eg 5 x salary) is misleading. Anyone have figures for joint income multipliers? He also refers to national averages. As another poster said, dept is spread unevenly – to only focus on averages hides a serious problem which has been created by current economic policy.

Anyone with take home pay of £1500 and a mortgage of £850 is either going to need additional dept or live the frugal life of a monk. They’ll be highly exposed to hikes in council tax, energy bills, travel costs, repairs etc, not to mention rises in interest rates. Alternatively, they could rent the same property for a least £300 less and not have the additional costs of maintenance – they could have a life. Yes, some people are stretching themselves to the limit to buy the cheapest house in the area. But it makes little sense and the reason they do it is because they’ve been conned into thinking it’s a better lifestyle/investment choice.

Mixed news in Edinburgh. ESPC has gone above 5000 today. This is up from about 3800 in early January. In Edinburgh (excluding Lothians) the number for sale has increased from about 1100 to about 1800. Back in early January there were 670 fixed in Edinburgh (about 60%). Now there’s about 580 properties with prices fixed (32%). EAs and sellers are clearly feeling ‘optimistic’. I hope it backfires. Whether houses are selling, I can’t say. And I’ve no idea where prices are going. The increase in numbers has been fairly steady though. If the trend continues we could have over 6000 listed on ESPC for sale in Edinburgh & Lothians sometime in April. And that doesn’t include the overpriced new build.

Aberdeenshire has a local plan and structure plan (collectively known as the development plan). They both have a map and a set of policies. If they are not online then go the library or the planning authority office and have a look at the area you're interested in – the local plan has much more detail. If the land's in the greenbelt then your chances of changing use to residential from agriculture are very small. If there are any farm buildings on the land you chances are better. In addition to the greenbelt there may be other designations eg landscape, nature conservation. There may also be legally protected species eg bats, badgers. Housing developers with time and money would put representations in the next draft of the development plan in an attempt to get it allocated for housing. This is typically for sites adjacent to existing settlements where they can argue that it is a natural extension of that settlement.